From the syllabus of today's Connecticut Supreme Court decision in Khan v. Yale Univ., which summarizes the court's reasoning in a unanimous opinion by Justice Raheem Mullins:
In 2015, D accused the plaintiff [a Yale undergraduate] of sexually assaulting her in her dormitory, and the university suspended the plaintiff. The committee, however, stayed the disciplinary proceedings against the plaintiff pending the outcome of a criminal case that the state had filed against him. The plaintiff subsequently was acquitted on multiple counts of sexual assault, and, in 2018, he resumed full-time student status at Yale.
Shortly thereafter, however, as a result of the reporting in a student newspaper of additional allegations of sexual assault involving the plaintiff, the plaintiff agreed to undergo a mental health consultation, but he refused a request that he meet with university administrators. Subsequently, the university again suspended the plaintiff on the ground that it was necessary for the safety and well-being of the plaintiff and the university community.
Thereafter, the committee convened a hearing in connection with D's 2015 sexual assault complaint. [Details of the procedures at the hearing quoted below. -EV] The university ultimately expelled the plaintiff.
Plaintiff sued D for defamation and interference with business relations, claiming "that D had made false accusations in an effort to have him expelled as part of the #MeToo political movement and a personal vendetta stemming from D's alleged romantic advances toward the plaintiff." But the federal District Court threw out the claims, "concluding that the disciplinary proceedings were quasi-judicial in nature and that D, therefore, enjoyed absolute immunity under Connecticut law for any statements that she had made in the course of those proceedings" (much like witnesses in trials have such immunity from civil lawsuits).
