Slate.com
9.15.15 | Emily Yoffe
The University of Michigan has vacated its findings against a student accused of sexual assault, after he sued the school for violating his civil rights.
Dew Sterrett just joined a very small cohort: He is a male college student who has had a sexual assault finding against him reversed. Sterrett, 22, left the University of Michigan in 2012, halfway through his sophomore year, after the university ruled that he’d engaged in sexual intercourse with a fellow student without her consent. As I reported in Slate last year, Sterrett sued the university in federal court, claiming that the proceedings led to what he said was an erroneous conclusion and violated his 14th Amendment rights to due process. When the court rejected the university’s motion to dismiss the case, the two parties went into mandatory mediation. This rare reversal was the result, with Michigan vacating all of its findings against Sterrett and clearing his transcript of any disciplinary action.
A finding of responsibility for sexual misconduct on campus can have wide-ranging and permanent effects on a student’s life. As Sterrett’s lawsuit noted, a university official acknowledged to him that the sanctions he faced would “limit his educational, employment and career opportunities.” At a recent House hearing on campus sexual assault, Joe Cohn of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education testified that such a finding can follow a student for the rest of his life, preventing him from continuing his education and even from entering certain professions. Sterrett himself had an acceptance from another college rescinded when it learned of the Michigan finding.
In an email exchange, Sterrett described his reaction to the news as “a sense of excitement and joy.” He says of the last three years, “It really was emotionally difficult, debilitating and crushing at times.” Sterrett had been enrolled at Michigan’s school of engineering. He says because of the long delay in his education, he’s put aside his goal of getting a B.S. in that field. But he now hopes to complete a B.A. in economics and to work with small startup businesses. His attorney, Deborah Gordon, says, “The whole goal was to let Drew go on with his life.”
