Mitenberg: “Expelled USC Football Player Scores Legal Victory in Title IX Case, Vows to Continue Fighting ‘Male Bias’ That Dashed His NFL Hopes,” Fox News

For more than three years, expelled University of Southern California (USC) football player Matt Boermeester – embroiled in a Title IX assault accusation case – has been fighting the state legal system just for the chance to have his side heard on a federal level. Despite a small and rare legal victory, the one-time National Football League (NFL) hopeful says he has a long way to go in his quest for due process in a life derailed by what he deems an unjust “male bias witch hunt.” “The truth is important because the consequences for me have been so devastating. The truth is all I am seeking here,” Boermeester told Fox News this week. “You don’t realize, you are a kid at the time, that USC is trying to protect itself and its hundreds of millions of Title IX funding, not you as the student.” Late last month, the California Court of Appeal reversed the trial court decision and overturned Boermeester’s January 2017 expulsion, ruling that his Title IX proceeding was “unfair.” This paves the way for Boermeester, now 26, to forge ahead with a seven-count federal lawsuit against the prominent university on the grounds of “breach of contract, infliction of emotional distress, negligence and selective enforcement of Title IX,” the federal legislation that outlaws gender-based discrimination in the education system and obliges institutions to pursue investigations around sexual misconduct. Andrew Miltenberg, an attorney for Boermeester, said it “is clear that USC used a flawed investigation method which included denying Matt the opportunity of real-time cross-examination of witnesses.” “The next step is to push forward with the federal lawsuit, which has been filed, but we had to put it on hold while the California State Court gave us the right to move forward, which it just did. That suit will go into a discovery which will allow us to depose various witnesses and get to see what was in their (USC) records, which will help us prove this was unfounded, and expose the larger biases in the system,” he continued. “There is a long way to go; we have fought for four years just to get this far. The ruling was an important beginning, but it is not the end.”

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