Judge orders U-M president to appear in his federal court in campus sexual assault lawsuit
A federal judge wants to see University of Michigan's president in his courtroom in June "because of his ultimate authority to resolve issues regarding the university’s sexual misconduct policy."
U.S. District Court Judge Arthur Tarnow, during a May 1 teleconference, ordered U-M President Mark Schlissel to his courtroom and then, on Wednesday afternoon, turned down a motion from U-M lawyers seeking to have that order overturned.
The ruling came in a case involving a U-M student who sued the university in June 2018. The student, who is not named in the suit, was on his way to graduating, and had been accepted into U-M's graduate school of engineering, among other graduate schools, when he was accused of sexually assaulting a student. The university froze his transcripts even before an investigation was completed, making it impossible for him to move on. There were no witnesses to the sexual encounter, which the accused student claims was consensual.
Federal courts in the Midwest have ruled in another U-M-related case that in such cases, schools must hold a hearing where both sides can question each other. No such hearing has been held in this case.
Read more: https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2019/05/09/judge-u-m-president-sex-assault-lawsuit/1145618001/