Here’s another example of how an accusation of rape can nearly ruin a student’s life.

Stephanie Barry reports via Masslive.

Amherst College settles suit filed after diploma withheld over rape allegation

A lawsuit filed by an Amherst College student who argued the school unfairly held up his academic career over an old, unproven allegation of an on-campus rape has quietly settled.

According to records in U.S. District Court, the college recently reached a settlement with the “John Doe” but neither his lawyers nor school officials will discuss the terms of the agreement.

Doe filed the lawsuit last year after the college decided to revive a 2009 allegation a week before he was set to earn his diploma in 2014 – and after the college had disciplined him for excessive drinking and acting out sexually. His accuser, identified only as “Student A” in court records, said he complained to school officials at the time of his alleged encounter with Doe but never filed a formal complaint. In the meantime, Doe had taken a school-mandated, yearlong “medical withdrawal” from the college in his native South Africa.

The mandate included that the student seek psychiatric help, according to court records.

Doe returned to the college in 2011, earned good grades, a student ambassadorship and a job with the college after graduation. But, the school held up his diploma and the job when Student A reemerged with the old complaint a week before graduation. During a pretrial hearing last year, Doe’s lawyer, David P. Hoose, told a judge that Amherst College was letting negative publicity around its handling of a number of on-campus rape allegations unfairly drive their treatment of Doe.