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University of Denver Reportedly Suspended a Student Based Purely on Hearsay

University of Denver Reportedly Suspended a Student Based Purely on Hearsay

“believes the claims against her stem from her outspoken conservative views”

Someone said that someone said that the student said something. Does that sound like a fair reason for suspension?

The College Fix reports:

University suspends student after ‘some people said that other people said that she said offensive things’

Testimony was almost exclusively hearsay; student maintains her innocence

The University of Denver recently suspended a freshman student for fall quarter 2018 for having allegedly used several slurs frequently in everyday conversation, with the school saying that the behavior violated its harassment policy by creating “a hostile environment of divisiveness and disrespect.”

The student, meanwhile, has denied any wrongdoing in the matter, and a campus watchdog group has raised serious concerns about the university’s approach to the controversy.

Addison Puffer, an outspoken conservative and student government senator, claims that her suspension is unjust since most of the evidence against her is based on hearsay, and other individuals in a similar situation received warnings and were not suspended. She said she believes the claims against her stem from her outspoken conservative views.

The College Fix has corresponded with Puffer extensively about the matter, and has reviewed the entire investigation report, along with appeal documents.

The Fix also reached out to several officials who were directly involved in the investigation to set up interviews. Lili Rodriguez, University of Denver’s vice chancellor, replied for all of them: “As I hope you can appreciate, we respect the privacy of our students and do not comment on student matters. We are ethically and legally bound to protect that privacy.”

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Comments

since most of the evidence against her is based on hearsay

“Most”? Doesn’t sound like a slam-dunk in the making.

    Tel in reply to tom_swift. | June 9, 2018 at 1:48 am

    tom-swift,

    If you actually read the case all the way through (as I have) you will find exactly ONE student who claimed he was called a name (fag) while he and the accused young woman were in a car. There were two other people in that car and the university declined to interview them. So you have ONE case of he said/she said.

    There is also a larger context for this issue: 88 students were living in a house for a “Leadership” program. As with all student housing, certain groups emerged, including an SJW group and a small conservative group. One conservative male student hung some conservative posters on his door. The SJW’s immediately freaked out and the RA told the conservative guy to take down his posters. There was bad feeling, and later in the school year, some from the SJW crowd accused several conservative students of using racial and homosexual slurs. This young lady vehemently protested her innocence and found out that all but one of the “accusations” were second or third hand, ie gossip.

    When she was found guilty (based on hearsay and one guy whose motivation certainly stemmed from the rivalry at the leadership house), she contacted FIRE. They helped with her appeal, and the school moved the goalposts, insisting that this young lady had used the word “oriental” instead of Asian. Of course, this wasn’t the original issue, and, quite frankly, “oriental” has been rejected because of its Western-centric origins and not because it is a slur of any kind. The appeal was denied based on this sleight of hand.

    So now the young lady is suing and I wish her much luck. I hope she gets a ton of money and I hope that this school is forced to change its policy for suspension.

      Milhouse in reply to Tel. | June 10, 2018 at 12:32 am

      “Oriental”? What’s wrong with that? Asia is in the orient. As viewed from the perspective of the English language, the same language that considers Asia a separate continent from Europe, simply because the Greeks, who invented the idea of continents, thought the Black Sea went all the way to the North Pole.

      And what else does one call East Asians in the UK, where “Asian” refers exclusively to Subcontinentals?

Reportedly.

Almost everything posted to this site falls under “reportedly”, Milhouse.

Weird how your slavish devotion to narrow precision is always so situational.

BTW, Tommy Peterson has gone missing. Perhaps he had another “bad experience” at some undisclosed jail cell.

    jhn1 in reply to Fen. | June 9, 2018 at 2:40 pm

    Any cite and or update on missing Tommy?

    Milhouse in reply to Fen. | June 10, 2018 at 12:26 am

    Wow. Talk about not getting it. Do you seriously not see the inherent contradiction in the headline?

    Milhouse in reply to Fen. | June 10, 2018 at 12:28 am

    Oh, and I call BS on your “missing” person report. He’s in prison, where he belongs, and if anything had happened to him we’d know about it. And his name is not Tommy Robinson.