Judge Faults University for Requiring Student to Prove He Was Innocent of Sexual Misconduct
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga erred in finding a student guilty of sexual misconduct based on his inability to prove he had obtained verbal consent from a woman who described her own memory of their encounter as clouded by intoxication, a state judge has ruled. The state-court judge held that Steven R. Angle, the campus’s chancellor, had rendered an "arbitrary and capricious" decision last December in ordering the expulsion of Corey Mock, a senior. In demanding that Mr. Mock prove he had obtained verbal consent in advance of sexual intercourse, Mr. Angle held the student to an untenable standard, partly because the campus’s code of conduct defines as consent not just verbal messages but "acts that are unmistakable in their meaning," according to the judge, Carol L. McCoy of the chancery court in Nashville.