An Open Letter to President-Elect Biden
Dear President-Elect Biden,
First, congratulations on your win. I am writing about a policy you aim to reinstate. I’d like to share my experience in hopes you reconsider.
May 2013 began with joy for me. I was set to graduate from Harvard on May 30th. I had a job offer at Goldman Sachs, I’d been admitted to Harvard Business School, and my peers chose me to speak at graduation. It was the culmination of years of pursuing the American Dream, reaching the hopes my parents had when we immigrated in search of a better life. Yet it all came crashing down.
In April 2011, the Department of Education issued a “Dear Colleague” letter dictating how universities ought to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct. The letter pressured schools to use an investigative approach that has resulted in many innocent students being expelled and suspended. In the years since, accused students have filed over 600 federal lawsuits against universities, winning hundreds of court rulings.
On May 17th, 2013, Jay Ellison, then a Harvard Dean, notified me that I was the subject of informal allegations of sexual misconduct, allegations which could become formal by graduation. Days later, I ran into a friend with whom I’d had a sexual encounter. She said that while she initially thought nothing of the encounter, a university administrator was now pressuring her and others to make formal complaints.
Graduation day, I learned I would not yet be receiving my degree. Later that week,, Mr. Ellison said there were three formal allegations against me. Harvard’s disciplinary body, the Administrative Board, would investigate. Each encounter was consensual, and I was eager to clear my name. I expected a level of fairness and due process, but I was wrong. A single panel held interviews, acting as prosecutor, investigator, judge, and jury. I could not know the identities of witnesses against me. I could not cross examine or submit questions to accusers or witnesses. I could choose a personal advisor, but not one who was a lawyer. Harvard ignored its own written guidelines. The school required that complaints ordinarily be timely. The time between encounter and complaint in one case was 626 days. In another, 365. Harvard stated investigations should take three to six weeks. Mine took six months, and the entire process, including my appeal of the school’s decisions, took a year and a half. I was working in New York, so this was all done via Skype and email.
Early on, I realized the outcome of the process was predetermined. I read about men expelled despite no evidence of guilt, or despite evidence of innocence. I learned about the “Dear Colleague” letter, which urged schools to use a single investigator, discouraging live hearings and cross examination. In 2014, when 28 Harvard Law School professors condemned Harvard’s newly updated sexual misconduct policies as “lack[ing] the most basic elements of fairness and due process” and being “ overwhelmingly stacked against the accused,” I was more certain about the degree of bias I felt.
Denied my degree, I learned that accused students could find relief in court, but I didn’t have $50,000+ for a lawyer. A lucrative hedge fund offer solved that problem, but the offer was rescinded since I lacked a degree. Depressed and desperate, I foolishly tipped off a friend on impending stock moves. Months later, I left finance for a career in TV, writing for black-ish and The Simpsons. But my insider trading charge coincided with the Kavanaugh hearings, and journalists eager for “Me Too” stories documented my “fall from grace,” focusing on the Harvard allegations. Employers could stomach insider trading but not alleged sexual misconduct, so my American Dream became a lasting American Nightmare.
Betsy DeVos reformed Title IX to bolster due process, winning praise from across the aisle. I’m surprised that you want to undo that, Mr. President-Elect. When Tara Reade made an allegation against you, your colleagues cited due process. Why should accused students be denied that? Your defenders said Ms. Reade lacks credibility due to inconsistencies in her story, yet according to the trauma-informed investigations popular with colleges, a shifting story is evidence an accuser is telling the truth. Of course, a consistent story is also evidence an accuser is telling the truth. There lies the rub.
Additionally, while injustice is injustice no matter who suffers it, there is a racial disparity to Title IX that I’m sure you’d be uncomfortable with in any other form of punishment. In one year at Colgate University, black men accounted for 4.2% of students, but 50% of reported sexual violations. From 2009 to 2013 at Clarion College, seven of the twelve students tried by the school for sexual misconduct were black, even though black people made up just 5.9% of students.
The argument for decreased due process for Title IX proceedings is that campus proceedings aren’t criminal trials. Yet the idea that campus rights should be lower because campus stakes are lower trivializes the consequences of expulsion. You lose years of prep work, study and tuition, and suffer lifelong stigma. You’re cut off from a community to which you have strong ties, and you must explain why. It’s all the guilt of a criminal proceeding with none of the protections that increase the accuracy of a criminal proceeding’s outcome. And of course, even criminal findings are regularly proven false.
Perhaps I’m the wrong messenger. Had I not committed a crime, these allegations may have surfaced much later. Yet that misses the point. The Dear Colleague letter calls education the great equalizer. It is. Another student may have had a rich uncle to work for in a worst case scenario. All I had was my education. Without it, life spiraled out of control. In a world where college allegations can bar your access to the great equalizer, people should have more tools to defend themselves from allegations, not fewer.
$dsonoiki