ATLANTA — A former Georgia Tech student who was expelled from the school for alleged sexual misconduct in April filed a lawsuit against the university.
The student, known as John Doe in the lawsuit, said school officials violated his due process rights and ruined his academic career by conducting a biased investigation.
The investigation resulted in the student's expulsion based on testimony from two victims who said he sexually violated them.
"That finding was the fruit of a deeply flawed process conducted by a single Georgia Tech administrator, Peter Paquette, who has a proven history of bias in sexual misconduct cases," said attorneys for the student in a motion in their lawsuit. "Georgia Tech charged Mr. Paquette with not only investigating the allegation, but also with adjudicating – in a virtually unreviewable fashion – whether Mr. Doe had committed sexual assault under Georgia Tech's sexual misconduct policy. Mr. Paquette conducted an investigation that made a mockery of the due process required of a state school."
The lawsuit alleges that the university failed to interview critical witnesses or give the accused an opportunity to fairly respond.
Channel 2's Rachel Stockman talked with Georgia Tech students Tuesday night who said the university is walking a fine line of "he said/she said."
"If it is true, then that's awful, but if it is false, then a guy's life pretty much just got ruined," said student Andrew Johnson.
The accused student never faced criminal charges.
"I feel a lot of times the school is making a decision maybe before they have all the information," said student Lauren Murphy.
"It's a complete joke, the whole process is a complete joke," said J. Tom Morgan, a former prosecutor who said he's handled similar cases at Georgia Tech. "I've never seen anything like it, a male student doesn't have a chance at Georgia Tech if they (have) been accused of sexual misconduct."
In the school's internal report, an investigator reported speaking to several informants, including close friends of the victim. The investigator found the accused student purposefully withheld information from university officials during the course of the investigations and concluded his accounts were inconsistent, thus not credible.
However, some students said they are relieved the university takes issues like this so seriously.
"I think Georgia Tech does a good job of listening to the victims' side and the accused side," said student Nicole Garcia.
Georgia Tech and the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, who is also named in the suit, declined to comment on the case.
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