Since 2011, I have represented upwards of 100 falsely accused students in Title IX disciplinary procedures at universities across America. I also have filed over 20 lawsuits against Universities that erroneously suspended or expelled students who were alleged to have engaged in sexual misconduct.

These lawsuits have a common thread shared by hundreds of other lawsuits, including two by parents of students who committed suicide. That common thread is the denial of basic due process protections that any person accused of sexual misconduct in America would expect. These lawsuits document how basic due process protections have been removed by University investigators and adjudicators who stack the deck in favor of accusing students.

This favoritism towards accusing students often springs from Title IX training materials provided to investigators and adjudicators. I know because I see these training materials in my clients’ lawsuits. The training materials teach Title IX staff that from the very beginning of the process, they should favor accusing students over accused students by implanting concepts such as:

• Start by Believing
• Victims Don’t Lie
• How to conduct ‘victim-centered’ investigations

It is important to note that I am a reluctant advocate for accused students. I spent five years as the executive director of a Christian non-profit organization bringing micro-finance and fair-trade programs to sex trafficked women and at-risk women and girls in Asia, Africa, and North America. My experience working with the women, some in their early teens, caused me to have zero tolerance for sexual exploitation of females.

My experiences in some of these countries also caused me to observe the adverse impacts these women experienced as a result of the powerful forces that worked against them.

The Start by Believing training materials that I’ve seen trigger harmful, predetermined outcomes of a different sort. This is because University policies promise fair and impartial proceedings with cross-examination and the ability to present exculpatory evidence. But in reality, these rights are routinely denied.

I want to provide two examples how Start By Believing training  programs have caused college investigators and adjudicators to violate our most fundamental  ideas of due process, by excluding evidence  that proves the accusing students’ allegations are false.

In the first case, a hearing panel of university employees rejected every one of the 264 cross-examination questions that the accused student sought to ask his accuser and the university’s witnesses, even though the university’s handbook allowed for such questions.

When asked why the panel didn’t ask any of the 264 questions, the hearing panel admitted, The questions didn’t matter because the answers would not change their mind that the accused student was guilty.

How did the hearing panel know that none of the yet-to-be-given answers to the 264 questions would have changed their minds? As detailed in the lawsuit that followed, the reason was a belief that the university must favor the accusing students regardless of whether the accused student was innocent.

In a second case, a student was accused of engaging in sexual misconduct. During the course of the investigation he presented:

• Polygraph expert testimony that he never engaged in the sexual misconduct alleged.
• Toxicologist expert testimony that proved it was impossible for the accusing student to have been in the incapacitated state she claimed was in when she engaged sexually with the accused student.

Nonetheless, the university panel refused to ask any of the cross-examination questions that the accused student proposed. The hearing panel later found him “responsible” and suspended him.

Why did a hearing panel that was charged with administering justice in a fair and impartial way reject facts proving the accused student was innocent?  My experience pointed to one very clear conclusion: that no amount of evidence was going to change their predetermined position that they must believe the accusing student.

Unfortunately, these two cases are not isolated instances of how Start by Believing training has caused college investigators and adjudicators to violate our most fundamental ideas of fairness.

I know this because on multiple occasions, my clients have asked hearing panel members if they received Start by Believing training on how to conduct hearings that will not “re-traumatize” the accusing student. And on far too many occasions, hearing panel members admit they have been trained in ways that protect accusing students from having to respond to questions or evidence that prove he or she is lying.

And until these practices are reversed, there will more suicides, destroyed lives, and needless lawsuits. I hope others will join me in looking for solutions that treat both accusing students and accused students in a fair and impartial manner.