A former Yale student who was expelled after being accused of sexual assault is suing one of his accusers for defamation – and is seeking $110 million in damages from the school because he was unable to graduate.
Saifullah Khan, 30, who was expelled in 2019, filed the lawsuit more than four years ago – 20 months after he was acquitted of raping a student on Halloween night in 2015, but months later blamed the school for the crime. “responsible”.
The case has since slowly made its way through Connecticut courts, culminating in a recent ruling last June in which legal experts said the then-21-year-old woman was not immune from a defamation lawsuit.
Khan – a member of the class of 2016 whose student was targeted over the allegations – was found not guilty in a court of law of committing the alleged rape.
After his exoneration – which came at the height of America’s #MeToo movement – Khan was reinstated as a full-time student in 2018, but faced protests from the student body, the lawsuit says.
2019 expelled Saifullah Khan (seen here during his trial in 2018) filed the lawsuit more than four years ago – months after he was acquitted of raping a student in her dorm on Halloween 2015 but found “responsible” by a judge. Months later, he was fired by the university’s disciplinary committee
After his exoneration – which came at the height of the #MeToo movement in America – Khan was reinstated as a full-time student in 2018, but faced protests from the student body, the lawsuit says, before eventually being expelled from the school as a two-year-old months later
Nearly a month later, another student — one of Khan’s key supporters during the trial and a former romantic partner — came forward to claim that Khan slapped him during a consensual threesome in Washington in June 2018.
These claims, made in an interview with the school newspaper, led to Khan being suspended again – and ultimately expelled from school in January 2019 after the school decided he was “responsible” for the other unproven act , even without conviction.
The ruling came more than three years after the alleged assault was first reported and gave way to Khan’s new lawsuit, which has now been given the green light.
It is seeking $110 million in damages, arguing that the school violated its rights throughout the investigation, particularly a federal law called Title IX, which governs how universities handle sexual assault hearings.
The above-mentioned damages resulted from hindrance to his graduation, damage to his reputation and violation of his right to privacy, the lawsuit says – along with alleged instances of emotional distress.
The filing details how Khan was arrested for the alleged rape in November 2015 before his trial, originally scheduled for 2017, was postponed after Yale police did not provide the defense with interviews with potential witnesses.
Before providing Khan’s version of events, lawyers wrote that the Afghan neuroscience student, who began studying at Yale in 2012, was expected to graduate “with a Yale baccalaureate” and was “on the verge of graduating.” “a world full of promise”.
“On the night of Halloween in 2015, Mr. Khan met with a student, Jane Doe, whose name is being kept confidential out of respect for the University’s confidentiality obligations in Title IX proceedings,” it said.
The couple – described by the prosecution and defense as “acquaintances” – met at a party sponsored by “an off-campus secret society” and then attended a performance by the Yale Student Orchestra in Woolsey Hall, “an auditorium on the campus”.
‘Mister. “Khan and Jane Doe knew each other from multiple encounters on campus,” the lawsuit continues, before describing how the couple left the performance early after the unnamed victim suddenly became ill.
Doe, meanwhile, claimed in interviews eventually conducted by police that she was so drunk that she had difficulty showing her ticket, vomited and ended up sitting with Khan, whom she thought was an acquaintance.
The alleged victim at the time said she had never been drunk before the evening in question, when she consumed several alcoholic drinks at the Shabtai Jewish Society’s off-campus party.
The two walked around campus together for a while before returning to their co-ed dormitory, the lawsuit says, and eventually to the girl’s dorm.
There she said Khan had forced himself on her despite her drunken state – an account that Khan and his team have continued to deny after successfully refuting her in court with detailed cross-examination.
“I cried, I tried to say stop, but I’m not sure anything came out,” Doe testified before a 12-member jury that ultimately found Khan not guilty, saying emotionally at one point: “I remember feeling him inside me.”
Nearly a month later, another student — one of Khan’s key supporters during the trial and a former romantic partner — came forward to claim that Khan slapped him during a consensual threesome in Washington in June 2018
However, under questioning, attorneys pointed to a description Doe gave police of her Halloween costume “that attempted to avoid the fact that she was dressed in a provocative manner” and a rough account of how The couple had gotten into it In the first instance, the lawyers had poked so many holes in their defense that the jury was unable to find Khan guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
After almost three hours of deliberations, Khan was acquitted – although his fight against the now unproven allegations still had to be decided on the school front.
As the lawsuit notes, much of the Connecticut campus knew about Khan at the time, as did The Yale Daily News and other news outlets [covering] “I followed the process closely and portrayed Mr Khan in an extremely unfavorable light.”
Upon his return to school the next year — after his requests for readmission the previous school year had been allegedly ignored for months — Khan was confronted with that climate, which included a student petition circulated online calling on Yale not to readmit him .
Within a few weeks, it collected almost 78,000 signatures, Khan’s lawyers emphasized – painting a picture of the pronounced diversity of opinions that prevailed at the school at the time.
There were also violent protests on the Connecticut campus — and Khan, his lawyers wrote, was ordered to live off campus even though he was still taking a full course load of five courses.
The case surrounding Khan — an immigrant who attended an Ivy League school on a full scholarship — is now being used to re-analyze how schools handle assault allegations. He recently appeared on the BBC documentary The Night In Question to talk about the case
Before presenting Khan’s version of events, the lawyers wrote that the student, a Yale University student since 2012, was “on the threshold of a world of promise” before his world was turned upside down. He was expelled before he had the right to complete his bachelor’s degree
Amid this social climate, new allegations of sexual assault soon emerged in October, in the form of an interview for the Yale Daily News with Jon Andrews – once one of Khan’s fiercest supporters and a board member of Families Advocating for Campus Equality, an advocacy group advocates for the defense of college students accused of sexual assault.
He alleged to the newspaper that Khan – who is bisexual – attacked him and physically assaulted him several times during a consensual threesome in Washington, D.C., two months after the trial concluded.
Andrews – who joined the group after himself being expelled from Hanover College in Indiana for sexual assault – also claimed that Khan regularly used sexually explicit and disturbing language about women over the course of their romantic relationship.
“Being with Saif for the nine months we were together was like slowly suffocating,” Andrews told the News about the couple’s failed relationship. “Every day he involved me more and more in his twisted world.”
“There is no doubt in my mind that the process Yale used to establish facts was completely flawed,” attorney Norman Pattis — who has also represented several members of the Proud Boys — said of his client’s case in 2019. A ruling That The court that arrived last June confirmed the lawyers’ complaint
Within three months, Khan was officially expelled from the school based on a decision by the school’s university-wide Sexual Misconduct Committee, which was formed in 2011 and includes about 40 members selected from across the school.
They found Khan – who was made to wait in a room during the trial – responsible for the 2015 sexual assault of Doe, but did not mention the other allegations made by Andrews.
In addition to not being allowed into the room with the panel, under the rules of the hearing, neither Khan nor his lawyer were allowed to cross-examine the accuser – who also claimed that Khan, who was sleeping on her couch, insisted not to tell anyone to talk about their sexual encounter and create a schedule for the previous night over breakfast.
This and other cases deemed to have failed to give Khan a reasonable chance to defend himself were cited by Connecticut Supreme Court jurists in June when they ruled 7-0 to allow Khan to defend himself Lawsuit against the school to advance doe.
The latest ruling is significant because the federal government is expected to change regulations in October that govern how colleges must handle cases of sexual misconduct.
The Biden administration will reverse changes made by the Trump administration in 2020 that allow cross-examination of accusers and other requirements.
However, in the same decision, the Connecticut court said that college students who report sexual assault deserve some immunity for their statements to school investigators, even if the process is not quasi-judicial.
However, this immunity would only apply if the statements are not malicious. It is the first time that the regional court has dealt with the issue.