From Vengalattore v. Cornell Univ., decided yesterday by the Second Circuit (Judge Amalya Kearse, joined by Judges José Cabranes and Rosemary Pooler):
Vengalattore is a male of Indian descent. He became a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Physics … in 2009…. One [of his laboratory assistants], a graduate student—called "Jane Roe" in this litigation—worked on a Vengalattore experiment from 2009 until late 2012. She, inter alia, struggled with her lab assignments and often took professional criticism personally; was somewhat unprofessional in her language and conduct; falsely accused others of breaking lab equipment; and objected to "work[ing] long hours" as she stated would be expected of "Indians." Roe withdrew from Vengalattore's project in November 2012. In the Spring of 2013, she told a professor who collaborated in Vengalattore's research "if I have my way, [Dr. Vengalattore] will have a hard time getting tenure."
In May 2014, during the Physics Department's consideration of Vengalattore's request for tenure, Roe sent the tenure review committee a letter alleging that Vengalattore had once angrily thrown a five-pound piece of equipment at her. In September 2014, two days after learning that the committee had recommended that tenure be granted, Roe told Physics Professor Ritchie Patterson that Vengalattore had engaged in sexual misconduct with her. That accusation was relayed to Alan Mittman, Director of Cornell's Office of Workforce Policy and Labor Relations.
Dean Gretchen Ritter, responsible for approval of tenure decisions in the College of Arts and Sciences, was informed of Roe's accusation while she was considering Vengalattore's tenure request. Mittman proceeded to conduct numerous informal interviews of Roe, keeping the Dean informed of Roe's allegations; Vengalattore was not similarly informed. On February 13, 2015, Dean Ritter denied Vengalattore's request for tenure.
One business day later, Mittman, with Sarah Affel, Cornell's Title IX coordinator (the "investigators"), conducted the first interview with Roe that was recorded. In that February 16, 2015 interview, Roe told the investigators that she had been raped by Vengalattore in late 2010, and that she thereafter had a secret consensual sexual relationship with him until December 2011.
On February 27, 2015, Vengalattore, still unaware of Roe's accusations, appealed to the University appeals committee, challenging the denial of his request for tenure. On the next business day, March 2, Mittman summoned him to appear at the Title IX office on March 3 "to 'review [an] alleged romantic relationship with a student under [his] supervision in or around the 2011 calendar year.'"
In the March 3 interview, Vengalattore was informed of Roe's allegation that he and she had had a consensual sexual relationship. Vengalattore denied it. Toward the end of the three-hour interview, he was informed that Roe also accused him of rape. He responded by asking for the assistance of counsel; the investigators told him that was not necessary, and continued with the interview. Vengalattore throughout denied having had any sexual, romantic, or other unprofessional relationship with Roe.
As described in Part I.C.1. below, the Complaint alleged that the investigation was conducted in a manner that was designed to support Roe's accusation. For example, Roe had told the investigators that the sexual relationship began during the final week of the Fall 2010 semester, on a day when Vengalattore had not come to the lab and she went to his house at 7 p.m. to check on him. She said he invited her in and began kissing her; that she initially resisted but then agreed to have sex with him; that she considered this to be rape; that she spent the night with him and went with him to the lab the following morning; and that they then had a secret consensual sexual relationship until December 2011. When Vengalattore asked on what date Roe claimed he had raped her, the investigators refused to answer. Instead they asked Vengalattore to take a blank December 2010 calendar and mark off for them the days he had been in town….
