Dive Brief:

• A 5,400-plus-word exposé published by The New York Times reports that, despite substantial physical evidence and eyewitness accounts supporting the allegations, Hobart and William Smith Colleges exonerated students on its football team accused of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old freshman in September 2013.
• The Times cites hundreds of pages of transcripts from the disciplinary proceedings and other evidence, including an assessment of the alleged victim’s injuries as detailed by a sexual-assault nurse and rape-kit test results.
• The Geneva, NY, colleges took 12 days to investigate the alleged rape, hold a hearing, and clear the accused students, who went on to play for a team that was undefeated in its conference.

Dive Insight:

The Times story’s depiction of Hobart and William Smith Colleges is overwhelmingly negative. The accused students reportedly lied, changing their stories multiple times without, it seems, any consequence. One of the accused students violated a no-contact order, and the colleges took five months to find him responsible. The disciplinary hearing went forward before results from the rape kit tests were known, and the medical trauma report was not shown to two of the three hearing panel members. The blood alcohol content for the alleged victim was twice the level considered legally drunk, indicating consent to sex was not possible.

Furthermore, questioning by the panelists, as depicted by the transcripts, indicates ignorance about proper conduct in disciplinary hearing, and Hobart and William Smith disclosed the name of the alleged victim in letters to dozens of students because, the colleges said, the students might be called to testify in a criminal proceeding.

Hobart and William Smith are on the U.S. Department of Education’s list of schools under investigation for their handling of sexual assault and harassment cases.