Miltenberg: “ANALYSIS: The case against frats is an uphill battle,” Yale News

The class-action lawsuit against the University and its nine fraternity chapters to mandate that Yale fraternities gender integrate will not be an easy one to win for the three undergraduate plaintiffs, according to three legal experts interviewed by the News. … In order to win the lawsuit, the plaintiffs will need to prove the majority of their claims, according to Andrew Miltenberg, a managing partner at Nesenoff & Miltenberg LLP who specializes in campus misconduct due process and Title IX. Due to the length and breadth of the complaint, the plaintiffs may have a hard time supporting their case in court. “If winning the Yale lawsuit means the plaintiffs have to prove the majority of the claims in their case, it’s a tough case,” Miltenberg said. “It’s headline grabbing, and it allows us to start a dialogue and a discourse on the issues, but I think as a standalone lawsuit, it’s a tough case.” … Miltenberg said that while he does not believe Yale is directly responsible for the actions of the fraternities, the issues of discrimination and sexual misconduct do arise in part because of the lack of oversight by the University. “I don’t know that getting rid of fraternities makes the environment free of discrimination, and I don’t believe they are inherently discriminatory,” Miltenberg said. “However, I think many fraternities and sororities in many cases are sort of unrestrained — there’s no oversight, and even though the school may say there is, there’s too much ‘anything goes’ [attitude], and that’s why you see a lot of sexual misconduct cases arising out of fraternity events.”

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