Updates

University of Florida:
The student hearing of football player Antonio Callaway went as predicted. The outside arbiter found him not guilty of sexual misconduct.The victim, protesting the use of arbiter who is an alum and contributes money to the football program, boycotted the hearing.
It is unclear whether the victim plans  to take any additional action. Callaway is in action this Saturday against our local team, the University of Massachusetts. Interestingly, five of his teammates are not. They have been benched for various offenses including shooting BB guns in the residence halls and fighting during practice. Team culture...
One important clarification about this case. The media I read prior to my initial posting implied that using an outside arbiter (something I suggested might need review as a legitimate procedure for handling cases), was a common practice at UF. In fact, it is not. This was the first time UF had gone this route. This is eerily similar to Erika Kinsman's case at Florida State where a retired judge was brought in to conduct Jameis Winston's hearing and found him not responsible for sexual misconduct.

Kent State
The plaintiff who filed a lawsuit against the school in February 2016 alleging the school violated Title IX in the handling of her report of rape by her softball coach's son, has a filed a second lawsuit. This one is related to the university's failure to provide documents, including personnel records and student reviews of the softball coach, needed for the case. A judge has ordered this lawsuit to mediation. KSU has said the records requests from the plaintiff lack merit and specificity. It seems they are going down the dig-in-our-heels route.


California bill:
The bill initially proposed by state legislator Ricardo Lara has been amended after intense backlash from conservative religious organizations and schools. The initial attempt by Lara was to prevent these schools from discriminating against LGBT students by denying them exemptions. He changed the bill to mandate that religious colleges with exemptions reveal that fact (to whom or how is unclear based on media coverage) and that they report to the state when a student is expelled for violations of morality codes.
The bill and the ensuing controversy was mentioned in a recent Atlantic piece about the ongoing tensions between religious institutions, LGBT discrimination, and government funding of education.

The transfers issue:
Indiana State University took one day to dismiss from its football team a transfer from after they became aware of his alleged involvement in a sexual assault when he was at the University of Kansas. Though I remain suspect about the exchange of information that occurs in the transfer process, it does seem like ISU acted quickly. Perhaps it was just because a civil lawsuit against the player has been announced and ISU does not want to get caught up in the whole thing. In short, the decision was not very proactive, but it also was not as reactive (i.e., let's wait to see what happens) as we have seen in other situations.