I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more cases like this in the future.

Ashe Schow of the Washington Examiner reported.

Due process win: Swarthmore college settles lawsuit with accused student

Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania has settled a lawsuit brought by a student accused of sexual assault, admitting the school acted unfairly in charging the student.

In April 2011, a student identified as John Doe shared a kiss and at a later date “consensual physical encounters” with another student identified as Jane Doe, according to the lawsuit filed earlier this year. On May 1, 2011, Jane came to John’s dorm room and initiated consensual sex. The lawsuit alleges Jane admitted she initiated the encounter…

In early 2014, John filed a lawsuit against Swarthmore alleging multiple violations of its own policies and denying him due process.

Last week, John and Swarthmore settled the lawsuit and introduced a joint motion to dismiss. Swarthmore admitted there were “sufficient questions about the fairness of the hearing,” which warranted a reversal of the university’s decision against John.

Ari Cohn, the lawyer and author for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, applauded the school’s admission but noted that Swarthmore only admitted impartiality because of a lawsuit.

“If John Doe lacked the resources to file this lawsuit (as many students undoubtedly do), would he have ever received this acknowledgement?” Cohn asked. “Or would Swarthmore have been free to loudly (and falsely) proclaim to the world that it takes both sexual misconduct and its students’ rights seriously? It shouldn’t take a lawsuit for colleges and universities to treat their students fairly, and the fact that it did in yet another case leads back to the question that people on all sides of the debate seem to be asking these days: Why are colleges and universities adjudicating these cases in the first place?”