The Board of Public Works approved a $50,000 settlement with a student who filed a federal lawsuit claiming bias in a disciplinary procedure that resulted in his temporary expulsion from the University of Maryland College Park. File Photo by carmichaellibrary on Flickr.
A former student at the University of Maryland College Park will receive $50,000 to settle a federal lawsuit that alleged he was discriminated against during a disciplinary hearing involving claims of sexual assault.
The Board of Public Works voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the settlement with the former student who was temporarily expelled. But not before Treasurer Dereck Davis raised questions about the university — and taxpayers — making the payout without holding a third-party hearing officer responsible.
“This wasn’t done by state employees or anything like that,” Davis said. “We hired somebody to handle this for us, and it appears they were negligent in some way in their handling of this matter. So, we might as well have done it ourselves that we’re going to end up paying for the mistakes anyway.”
The settlement stems from a complaint filed last fall by a female student at the University of Maryland College Park, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.
The woman, identified in a federal lawsuit as Jane Roe, filed a complaint with university officials in early 2023 claiming she had been sexually assaulted a year earlier by the male student identified as John Doe.
The lawsuit alleged dozens of procedural errors, failures to collect evidence and interview witnesses, and inaccuracies and inconsistencies in Roe’s testimony at a disciplinary hearing.
Doe’s attorney also raised concerns about bias against men by Angela Nastase, the university’s Title IX coordinator and director of the Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct, and Alyssa-Rae McGinn, who was hired to serve as hearing officer in the case. Both Nastase and McGinn were named as non-parties in the lawsuit against the university.
The lawsuit said McGinn, a second-year law school student at the time, was hired to replace Dan Schorr, an attorney with two decades of legal and investigative experience. It said McGinn had a history of advocacy on sexual assault issues: She was a regular contributor to a podcast on Title IX and civil rights “heavily geared toward victim’s rights” and “noticeably devoid of content pertaining to respondents’ rights,” the lawsuit said, adding that McGinn frequently “conflates women with ‘victims’ and men with ‘respondent.’”
Doe’s lawsuit alleged that McGinn found in favor of Doe’s accuser despite contradictions, inconsistencies, and factual errors because of the hearing officer’s bias and because the university was under increasing scrutiny over sexual assault cases and a federal Department of Education Civil Rights investigation.
The lawsuit, filed in December after Doe had exhausted all his university-level appeals, sought an injunction barring his expulsion and compensatory damages in excess of $75,000. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett issued a restraining order in January barring the university from expelling Doe and ordering it to allow Doe to re-enroll and attend classes.
“I’m assuming we went with outside mediators or hearing officers because they had a certain level of expertise,” Davis said. “So, we were effectively contracting that out, and if they made mistakes in the performance of their duties as the vendor, the contractor, whatever we want to call them, they should be paying for the mistakes, not us.”
Ariel Lichterman, an assistant Maryland attorney general representing the university, noted legal challenges to the university’s processes in handling the case.
“And so, I think one of the challenges, as you bring up, was the hearing officer’s conduct but also the university’s processes and procedures,” Lichterman said. “And so again, without getting into the specific details, we believe there is some exposure in the case. As a result, we think it’s in the best interest of the state to proceed with resolving this matter.”
Comptroller Brook Lierman (D) questioned the contract with McGinn.
“Are there standard agreements that are signed between the USM and that third party administrator that would allow us to sue them to make up for what we’re paying?” Lierman asked. “Or are we holding them harmless for mistakes that they’re made — not mistakes, but negligence or even, especially, intentional behavior?”
Lichterman said he was “not familiar” with the agreement between the university and McGinn.
“I think it may be worth a follow up for us to understand the kinds of agreements that the university system is signing, since it is at the end of the day on us and the taxpayers,” Lierman said. She said the university should “make sure that they are holding their third-party hearing officers accountable for the work that they do when they are negligent or, heaven forbid,” act intentionally.
Board approves land purchase over senator’s call for delay
The board also approved the purchase of nearly 42 acres of property that is currently a private “luxury” camping facility near Frostburg. The $9.6 million purchase of the Savage River Lodge was approved by a 2-0 vote, with Davis abstaining, over the objection of Sen. Mike McKay (R-Western Maryland).
McKay asked the board to briefly “pump the brakes” on the sale to allow for a meeting between residents and the Department of Natural Resources.
“The public has questions, and all I’m asking for is a delay to allow DNR to have a town hall. That Town Hall may not have anybody show up. I do believe there will probably be 25, maybe 50 people,” McKay said. “But at the end of the day, good governance and transparency starts where we have public input.
“And I just ask for this grace that you pump the brakes. The property is not going to be sold under the feet of the state of Maryland, and just to give the public the ability of the constituents that I serve, the ability to ask questions is all I’m asking for,” he said.
Gov. Wes Moore described the property as “a significant parcel … located within the Savage River State Forest.” State officials said the property will expand camping opportunities in Western Maryland and provide additional protection to the Savage River.
Owners of the lodge, which has been in existence for 25 years, bill the property as a luxury experience with a bar and “morning muffin service” for eight yurts and eight private cabins. The property also boasted a restaurant, which was closed in anticipation of the sale.
Moore said the property is projected to “generate over $1 million in revenue for the state, which exceeds the anticipated expenses after the initial startup costs.”
But McKay said there are concerns about the property, comparing it to the state purchase of the former Woodmont Rod and Gun Club in 1995. After that purchase, he said, DNR “found numerous maintenance issues that needed to be addressed, and in response, the agency pulled manpower, significant other resources available to its other projects and redirected them to the Woodmont facility.”
“This is just one example of a mistake that I don’t want to see repeated. You see the Woodmont property, the public does have access to that one day a year, one day a year,” he said.
DNR officials nixed the idea of a public meeting in advance of the sale because of contractual concerns.
“We have a contract to purchase a piece of property with a private landowner,” said Emily Wilson, DNR’s director of land acquisition. “We’ve negotiated terms of that contract. I would say it’s probably not dissimilar to perhaps going through a procurement and an outside party coming in in the middle of a procurement.”
Department officials said the agency would be open to a public meeting after the sale was complete. But Davis asked if that wasn’t “sort of like buying a car and then test driving it? I mean, what’s the point of having that meeting if we’ve already made the purchase?”
Davis, who abstained from voting on the purchase, noted the sale price is already public and called for more public transparency because of the use of public funding.
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Publish date : 2024-09-11 12:01:00
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