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An excerpt from today’s long decision by Judge Thomas Cullen (W.D. Va.) in Doe v. Va. Polytechnic Inst. & State Univ.:

In the fall of 2024, Plaintiff John Doe (“Johnny”), then a student at Virginia Tech (“VT” or “the university”) and member of its Corps of Cadets, was accused by two female students of sexual assault.

Johnny’s first accuser, Pauline Poe, with whom he previously had at least two consensual sexual encounters, claimed that Johnny had continued to engage in sexual intercourse with her after she withdrew consent. A couple weeks later, Jane Roe, a fellow member of the Corps of Cadets, complained that Johnny, with whom she had previously been intimate, had sex with her after a night of heavy (underage) drinking. Jane, who claimed to have no memory of this encounter, later alleged that it amounted to sexual assault on Johnny’s part because she was incapacitated.

After receiving these two complaints, VT officials sprang into action. The same day that Jane reported Johnny to VT’s Title IX office—over five weeks after their allegedly non-consensual encounter—the university issued a campus-wide alert about the purported sexual assault. VT’s email did not identify Johnny or Jane by name, but it provided the specific location of the alleged incident and noted that the parties involved knew each other. Although no one from the Title IX office had yet to investigate Jane’s claims—let alone get Johnny’s side of the story—the campus-wide email characterized him as “the offender” and Jane as “the survivor.” The following day, a VT official placed Johnny on interim suspension, which resulted in his being evicted from his dorm room, pending the outcome of separate Title IX and student-conduct investigations.

VT officials investigated Pauline’s and Jane’s claims over the next six months. Johnny, who vehemently denied sexually assaulting anyone, maintained his innocence throughout the process, and he desperately tried to present abundant evidence that he claimed substantially undermined his accusers’ claims and their credibility.

As to Pauline Poe, Johnny pointed out—to the investigator, to the hearing officers, and to anyone else who might listen—that her roommate (whom Pauline had initially claimed would confirm her account) largely refuted it. Johnny also noted that a local judge, who denied Pauline’s request for a permanent protective order against Johnny, characterized key aspects of her account as “extremely unique, if not bizarre.”

Johnny also alleged that Pauline withheld—and even doctored—various text messages they had exchanged the night of the alleged assault. He also claimed that Pauline omitted a critical detail of her later accounts to VT investigators—specifically, her allegation that Johnny had threatened her with a knife before they had sex—when she initially reported the encounter to local police.

Finally, Johnny presented a report from a forensic nurse who examined a photograph that Pauline gave to VT investigators. According to Pauline, this photograph depicted a bruise that she suffered during their non-consensual encounter. The forensic nurse, however, opined that it depicted no such thing.

Regarding Jane Roe’s sexual-assault claim, Johnny alleges that he presented substantial evidence that disproved her account. He pointed out that Jane had initially waited more than five weeks to report him to VT’s Title IX officials, and that she only did so then to receive immunity from a charge of underage drinking that stemmed from her imbibing on the night of the alleged assault. According to Johnny, this underage-drinking charge was Jane’s second serious disciplinary infraction while a member of the Corps of Cadets, and a conviction could have resulted in Jane losing her ROTC scholarship.

Although Jane later downplayed her disciplinary exposure for underage drinking, she filed her Title IX complaint against Johnny the day before she was scheduled to stand trial on that charge (and, according to Johnny, shortly after she had discussed matters with Pauline). As soon as Jane accused Johnny of sexual assault, VT granted her immunity for underage drinking and the disciplinary proceeding that may have resulted in the loss of her scholarship was dropped.

What’s more, Johnny marshalled considerable evidence to refute the notion that Jane was incapacitated—the required mental state for a victim of sexual assault under these circumstances based on VT’s policies—when they had sex. He presented detailed written testimony from a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, who regularly advises the accrediting body for university Title IX investigators.

In her report, this expert, who examined the record evidence, explained that, although Jane was likely intoxicated at the time she had sex with Johnny, Jane had not—based on her own account of the night in question, the accounts of multiple eyewitnesses who interacted with her at the time, and other evidence—exhibited any signs incapacitation. Specifically, the psychologist noted that, just prior to climbing into her bed with Johnny, Jane had walked another student back to his dorm, sent several coherent text messages, cleaned up after another student who had become ill from drinking, and changed her clothes.

Johnny also pointed VT investigators to Jane’s conduct towards him in the days and weeks following this alleged sexual assault. Not only did she wait over five weeks to accuse him, but, in the interim, she sent Johnny several friendly text messages, including one in which Jane described herself as his “sugar baby,” and another in which she asked to travel with him over the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. And three weeks after the alleged sexual assault (but before she had accused him of it), Jane had Johnny back over to her dorm room for another night of underage drinking.

Johnny’s efforts to disprove these accusations ultimately proved futile. The VT officials who investigated both incidents allegedly gave short shrift to this exculpatory and impeachment evidence and ultimately substantiated Pauline’s and Jane’s claims of sexual assault. They submitted their written findings to disciplinary tribunals for formal adjudication. Although Johnny claims that he attempted to present this same exculpatory evidence at the ensuing hearings, his defense largely fell on deaf ears.

The hearing officers, applying preponderance-of-the-evidence standards, ultimately concluded that it was more likely than not that Johnny had sexually assaulted Pauline and Jane. Based on their determination in Jane’s case, the hearing officers recommended that Johnny be expelled from VT. Johnny appealed those decisions, but his appeals were summarily denied. Consistent with Virginia law, once the expulsion was considered final, VT officials placed a notation on his official transcript indicating, for posterity, that he had been expelled for committing sexual assault.

According to Johnny, all of this was preordained given the deep-seated anti-male bias of the VT officials who investigated and adjudicated Pauline’s and Jane’s sexual-assault claims, as well as inherent anti-male bias in VT’s Title IX policies, the combination of which made it nearly impossible for him to defend against false accusations of sexual assault. Johnny contends that by imposing arbitrary, inconsistent, and shifting standards for evaluating the sexual-assault claims, denying him a meaningful opportunity to confront and cross-examine his accusers at those hearings, and effectively ignoring substantial evidence that largely refuted the purported victims’ accounts, VT and its officials violated his rights under the Constitution and federal anti-discrimination law, specifically Title IX….

The defendants correctly point out that the constitutional rights Johnny alleges VT administrators violated were not clearly established by United States Supreme Court or Fourth Circuit precedent at the time his investigations occurred. As such, the doctrine of qualified immunity unquestionably bars his claims against these individual defendants for money damages.

But that does not end the inquiry—far from it. Johnny has alleged abundant facts that, if true, raise grave concerns about the way VT, through these administrators, conducted the investigations of Pauline’s and Jane’s sexual-assault claims, as well as the ultimate outcomes of those inquiries. Simply put, Johnny has alleged facts that, if true, raise a plausible inference the VT discriminated against him in these investigations because he is male and, in so doing, violated Title IX. Accordingly, Johnny’s claims against the university will be allowed to proceed, as well as a single official-capacity claim against one of the administrator defendants.

The post Lawsuit Against Virginia Tech Alleging Anti-Male Bias in Title IX Proceedings Can Go Forward in Part appeared first on Reason.com.

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The Supreme Court issued a resounding victory for donor privacy and free speech last month in First Choice Women’s Resource Centers v. Davenport, but it is cold comfort to the hundreds of thousands of nonprofit organizations around the country that must continue handing over similar information to the IRS every year.

First Choice reaffirmed that the First Amendment strongly protects the privacy of nonprofit supporters. The case arose after New Jersey’s attorney general issued a sweeping subpoena to First Choice, a Christian, pro-life medical nonprofit serving pregnant women, new mothers, and fathers. The subpoena demanded the names and addresses of nearly all of First Choice’s donors. The Supreme Court unanimously held that such demands inflict real and immediate harm because they deter people from associating with disfavored groups—even if the government promises to keep the information confidential.

This outcome should not be surprising. Nearly 70 years ago, in NAACP v. Alabama, the Supreme Court recognized the “vital relationship” between the First Amendment and privacy. Few people might be willing to donate to a controversial or dissident group if that information might fall into the wrong hands. And NAACP v. Alabama was a perfect example: the Alabama attorney general tried to obtain a list of the NAACP’s members in a blatant move to discourage people living in the Jim Crow South from supporting the civil rights organization. The Supreme Court blocked the effort because the attorney general failed to show that Alabama had an important need for such sensitive information.

Drawing on this precedent, First Choice once again explained that demands for donor information inevitably chill First Amendment freedoms. And that’s true, the Supreme Court held, the moment the demand is made. Organizations can therefore go straight to federal court to protect their privacy without waiting for a state court to order them to comply.

First Choice will have implications far beyond one New Jersey subpoena. To its credit, the federal government recognized as much, filing an amicus brief urging the Court to rule in the nonprofit’s favor.

But it’s a much different story for the federal government in Buckeye Institute v. Internal Revenue Service, a case that our organization, the Institute for Free Speech, is litigating in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

In Buckeye, the IRS is defending a broad disclosure regime that requires hundreds of thousands of nonprofits to disclose donor information to the federal government every year. Five years ago, in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, the Supreme Court held that disclosing this information—which appears on a tax form called a Schedule B—creates a “real and pervasive” chilling effect on the First Amendment. But the IRS claims that because donors to Buckeye can receive a tax deduction for their charitable contribution, Bonta doesn’t apply.

On the same day the Supreme Court announced its decision in First Choice, the IRS was in the 6th Circuit arguing that courts should not second guess the government’s claimed need to stockpile a treasure trove of sensitive donor data.

The central question in Buckeye is what standard courts must apply to evaluate the law. The Supreme Court’s decision in First Choice reaffirmed that “any demand” for donor information requires the government to satisfy “exacting scrutiny.” That means the government cannot compel organizations to reveal their donors without first proving that collecting this information is necessary to further an important government interest.

But in Buckeye, the federal government has urged the court to adopt a far more deferential approach on the theory that nonprofit organizations can avoid the disclosure requirement simply by forgoing tax-exempt status. This interpretation would allow the government to condition valuable tax benefits on a willingness to surrender one’s fundamental rights.

Buckeye is far more than a technical dispute about tax forms. At stake is whether the federal government can systematically collect the identities of tens of thousands of nonprofit donors—year after year, across the entire country—despite no suspicion of wrongdoing, and without even a second glance from the courts.

First Choice recognizes how critical associational privacy is to the freedoms we all cherish. But those freedoms mean nothing if the courts do not apply the scrutiny to government overreach that the Constitution demands.

The post The Supreme Court Protected Donor Privacy. The IRS Didn't Get the Memo. appeared first on Reason.com.

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While addressing a crowd of manufacturing workers in Missouri this week, Vice President J.D. Vance detailed how his staff is tirelessly working to root out fraud in the federal government.

“There is a simple principle that I have, which is: If you are committing fraud against the American people, you should go to prison,” Vance said.

After waiting for the cheers to die down, he continued, “If you are a public official, and you are not fighting against fraud, you ought to have your money taken away, because [officials] should not be able to steal from all of you.”

Yes, if there is one thing the Trump administration simply will not tolerate, it is the theft of public money or government officials getting rich off such fraud.

But, wow, that sure seems to be happening a lot these days.

On the same day that Vance was speaking, the White House and the federal Department of Justice put the finishing touches on an agreement that will transfer nearly $1.8 billion from American taxpayers to President Donald Trump.

Officially, the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” will provide payments to “redress claims of others who suffered weaponization and lawfare.”

In reality, this is a massive taxpayer-funded slush fund that Trump will be able to distribute to his friends and allies—including those who rioted at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. The fund will be controlled by a five-member board, with all five appointed by the attorney general and removable by the president at any time without cause.

This should be one of the biggest scandals in presidential history. Trump sued himself, then agreed to settle the lawsuit with an amount of taxpayer money that his lawyers determined. It’s so brazenly corrupt that it feels absurd. Plenty of politicians engage in self-dealing, but you’d have a hard time finding an example of one who grabbed the cookie jar so directly and stuck his hand inside, in full view of the public.

“The entire affair reeks of corruption,” wrote Reason‘s Joe Lancaster earlier this week.

In this administration, that stench is becoming overwhelming. The Anti-Weaponization Fund is merely the most blatant example (so far) of Trump’s corruption, but it is just one part of a cavalcade that’s happening right in front of everyone’s faces.

Government records show that Trump bought and sold millions of dollars in stock in companies that contract with or are regulated by the federal government, as first reported last week by investigative outfit Sludge. Disclosures filed earlier this month with the Office of Government Ethics show that Trump made more than 3,600 stock trades during the first three months of the year.

A few really stand out. Trump bought stock in the tech company Palantir just before it inked a massive government contract. He also bought $680,000 worth of stock in Eli Lilly, a pharmaceutical company. “The timing of Trump’s purchases coincides with several favorable government decisions benefiting the drugmaker’s GLP-1 business, including progress toward a long-held goal: qualifying the drugs for reimbursement from Medicare, the government health insurance program primarily serving seniors, when they are prescribed for weight loss,” reported KFF Health News.

The White House has denied that there is any conflict of interest in those decisions, but the potential for one seems obvious.

And, like with Vance’s comments this week, the gulf between what the administration says and does is vast. During the State of the Union address in February, Trump called for a ban on members of Congress trading stocks. Conservatives have complained for years about former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) and other high-ranking officials using their positions and insider information to enrich themselves.

Instead of draining that swamp, Trump is now engaged in the same behavior.

Then, there are the foreign entanglements, many of which seem to involve Trump’s children and their spouses. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, is one of the administration’s top negotiators in the Middle East. He also runs a private equity firm that accepted a $2 billion investment from the government of Saudi Arabia in 2024, and he’s reportedly been soliciting other investments while negotiating an end to the war with Iran.

The Gulf States, in particular, are threatened by a long-term war, which could further destroy their oil and gas infrastructure. How much would they be willing to pay Trump’s family to make the war go away sooner rather than later? This is gangster-type stuff masquerading as diplomacy.

Meanwhile, Trump’s sons have reportedly been given a stake in a Kazakh mining company that recently won a $1.6 billion contract from the administration. Separately, the U.S. Air Force has agreed to buy drones from a company partially owned by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.

And the hypocrisy is rank. Republicans drew up articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden because of the corrupt links between his son, Hunter Biden, and a Ukrainian oil company. Now, the Trump administration is seemingly mocking the Bidens for not thinking big enough.

Asked in January about his family making money on business deals while he’s president, Trump told The New York Times that “nobody cared” when he limited such behavior during his first term.

“I prohibited them from doing business in my first term, and I got absolutely no credit for it,” he said. “I didn’t have to do that. And it’s really unfair to them.”

“The president is profiting off the office and making foreign policy decisions based on business interests to a level we’ve never seen or even conceived of before, and apparently nothing is being done to stop it,” wrote journalist Isaac Saul in an exhaustive, 6,000-word essay at Tangle earlier this month.

What can be done? For starters, administration officials should follow the example of Treasury Department general counsel Brian Morrissey, who resigned this week, apparently in response to the creation of the $1.8 billion slush fund.

The “Anti-Weaponization fund” is so egregious that it might actually get some Republicans in Congress to rediscover their spines. “We’re gonna try to kill it,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R–Pa.) when asked about the fund. “You can’t do that.”

“We are a nation of laws, you can’t just make up things whole-piece,” Sen. John Cassidy (R–La.), who lost a primary election earlier this month, told The Hill. “It is as if somebody sued themselves and agreed upon a settlement with themselves that’s going to be funded by the rest of us. If that’s the case: What?!”

The ultimate remedy to this pattern of behavior is impeachment. That power was given to Congress for specifically this type of misconduct, so that lawmakers could address “the abuse of violation of some public trust,” as Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 65.

Outright public corruption is a problem on its own terms, of course. It means fewer tax dollars are available for public services, and causes capital investments to be misallocated because of cronyist considerations.

It also undermines the norms and institutions that are supposed to prevent corruption—and, thus, encourages more of it. Sure, roll your eyes at the “norms” all you want, but there doesn’t appear to be any law or rules that prevent a president from suing his own Justice Department and then settling the lawsuit and pocketing a ton of taxpayers’ money. Dozens of other men have held the presidency without doing that. Now that one has, it becomes easier for the next to do it too.

This is a slide that must be stopped before it gets worse. Conservatives who hand-wave Trump’s corruption with whataboutism, focused on Biden or Hillary Clinton or anyone else, are doing the opposite of that. Ignoring Trump’s corruption will invite more and worse from him and others.

And the next time Vance talks about how this administration is focused on reducing fraud in government, he should be booed and laughed off stage.

The post Trump's Corruption Is Brazen, Obvious, and Costly. Will Enough Republicans Try To Stop Him? appeared first on Reason.com.

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A 56-year-old Haitian man being held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in Arizona died from complications from an untreated tooth infection, a medical examiner’s report released earlier this month found.

Emmanuel Damas died on March 2 after being transferred to a local hospital from the Central Arizona Florence Correctional Center, a private correctional complex that houses ICE detainees. A report by the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office, obtained through a public records request, concluded that Damas “died as a result of Complications of Necrotizing Mediastinitis with Neck and Retropharyngeal Abscess in the setting of Severe Dental Caries and Periodontal Disease.”

Mediastinitis is a life-threatening chest infection. A retropharyngeal abscess is a large, life-threatening collection of pus at the back of the throat, also resulting from a severe infection.

The autopsy results, first reported by the Arizona Mirror, come as deaths in ICE custody have reached an all-time high and allegations of abuse and neglect continue to pour out of federal detention centers.

For example, after Geraldo Lunas Campos, a detainee at the Camp East Montana detention facility in Texas, died on Jan. 3, ICE initially claimed that he committed suicide, but the El Paso Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his death a homicide by asphyxiation. Multiple detainee witnesses told news outlets that guards choked Lunas Campos to death after he refused to stop asking for his medication.

Reason also previously reported on the case of Marie Ange Blaise, a 44-year-old Haitian national who died last April of a heart attack at a private detention facility in Broward County, Florida. Blaise’s son told a county investigator that his mother said in a phone call with him on the day she died that staff refused to let her see a physician for chest pains. Detainees who witnessed Blaise collapse told human rights groups there was also a slow staff response, and guards initially ignored them when they yelled for help.

Damas was transferred to ICE custody last September after being arrested and charged in Buffalo, New York, with assault and battery, according to an ICE report on his death. The report says Damas “received regular medical and dental evaluations” and that he declined recommendations for tooth extractions.

On Feb. 19, Damas was transferred to a hospital where he was diagnosed with acute respiratory failure due to septic shock. He remained ventilated and on life support until he died on March 2.

However, Arizona Family reported that Damas’ brother, Presley Nelson, said Damas told medical staff at the detention center that he had a toothache in mid-February, but he was not sent to a dentist. The outlet wrote that Nelson “believes the staff at the facility did not take his brother’s complaints seriously, even though it was a treatable condition.”

In response to the medical examiner’s findings, Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D–Ariz.) said in a press release that “a toothache should never escalate into a fatal medical emergency, especially while someone is in government custody and entirely dependent on detention staff for access to care.”

In March, Grijalva and two other Arizona Democrats demanded an investigation into Damas’ death and the release of his full medical records. Grijalva said that her office has yet to receive the “full records, transparency, or accountability that his family deserves.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The post An ICE Detainee Died from a Tooth Infection, Autopsy Report Says appeared first on Reason.com.

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