A federal appeals court has upheld a prior ruling that three former University of Oregon basketball players were not discriminated against after the school expelled them over rape accusations.
In 2014, a female student accused Dominic Artis, Damyean Dotson and Brandon Austin of rape. The trio sued, alleging discrimination, after the university banned them from campus for 10 years.
No criminal charges were ever filed in the case.
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According to a report from Inside Higher Ed, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss the trio’s lawsuit.
UO spokeswoman Molly Blancett provided the following statement on behalf of the university:
The university respects the decision of the court. We are grateful to the court for acknowledging the hard work of the student conduct team and their handling of this very difficult matter. Specifically, the court credited the 'university’s focus on encouraging students’ personal integrity and cooperative (rather than coercive) interpersonal behavior, interest in providing an environment free of sexual misconduct, and setting up a disciplinary system that provides students an opportunity to be heard.
