Yale University

The plaintiff, who was an undergraduate student at Yale College, sought to recover damages in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut in connection with statements the defendant D, a classmate of the plaintiff, made during a disciplinary hearing conducted by the named defendant university's committee on sexual misconduct (commit- tee). In 2015, D accused the plaintiff of sexually assaulting her in her dormitory, and the university suspended the plaintiff. The committee, however, stayed the disciplinary proceedings against the plaintiff pend- ing the outcome of a criminal case that the state had filed against him. The plaintiff subsequently was acquitted on multiple counts of sexual assault, and, in 2018, he resumed full-time student status at Yale. Shortly thereafter, however, as a result of the reporting in a student newspaper of additional allegations of sexual assault involving the plaintiff, the plaintiff agreed to undergo a mental health consultation, but he refused a request that he meet with university administrators. Subsequently, the university again suspended the plaintiff on the ground that it was necessary for the safety and well-being of the plaintiff and the university community. Thereafter, the committee convened a hearing in connection with D's 2015 sexual assault complaint. At the hearing, D, who had since graduated, provided a statement via teleconference, but she did not testify under oath or provide any sworn statement. The plaintiff and his counsel were not permitted in the hearing room when the hearing panel questioned D and, instead, listened to an audio feed from an anteroom. The plaintiff's counsel was not permitted to speak, question D or any other witness, or raise objections, and the hearing panel denied the plaintiff's request for a recording or transcript of the hearing. Addition- ally, the committee's procedures allowed the parties to submit questions that they wanted the hearing panel to ask and to request tha