Davis, Miltenberg: Judge Refuses to Toss Anti-Male Bias Title IX Lawsuit Against University, Sends to Jury Trial

Title IX investigator ‘entangled’ herself in concurrent criminal proceeding. Colgate University will face a jury trial for allegations that it ran a faulty Title IX proceeding tainted by gender bias, conflict of interest and absence of due process, under a ruling last week. Senior U.S. District Judge Frederick Scullin denied the upstate New York university’s motions for summary judgment on Title IX, breach of contract and “New York Human Rights Law” claims. He scheduled the trial on three of the five causes of action alleged by “John Doe” for Sept. 14. (The other two causes were ruled duplicates of the first breach-of-contract claim.) Scullin wrote that “evidence supports” John’s contention that Title IX investigator Valerie Brogan “entangled” herself in the concurrent criminal proceeding that the accuser pursued with the state of New York. Brogan (left) assisted “Jane Roe” in reporting the allegations to Dennis Dougherty, investigator for the state police campus sexual assault victims unit, and helped arrange a meeting between the accuser and Dougherty on campus. The Title IX investigator also received a recording of a phone call where Dougherty tried to obtain a confession from John, obtained documents from the criminal proceedings, and attended John’s arraignment, according to the undisputed facts in Scullin’s summary. Brogan’s involvement with the criminal proceeding “predisposed” her view of what had happened, one of John’s lawyers, Tara Davis of Nesenoff & Miltenberg, told The College Fix in a phone interview. The extent of her involvement was “unusual” and “egregious” compared to other Title IX cases, Davis added: Brogan brought with her a “predisposition in favor of a female complainant and against the male accused,” which led to an unfair investigation.

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