‘Rape’ outrage

Princeton hearing unfair: vic’s suit

Princeton University allowed a Nobel Prize-nominated professor to defend an alleged rapist during a 2011 campus disciplinary hearing while his accuser was given only a graduate student as her counsel, the accuser says in a lawsuit.

The plaintiff claims an “enormous imbalance of power” was the result during a college disciplinary hearing that cleared the accused attacker.

The suit filed Monday in Mercer County Superior Court identifies the woman as “Jane Doe,” the accused as “John Smith,” and does not name the professor.

“[Princeton] allowed a rape and sexual assault of one of its graduate students to go unpunished and without any consequence,” the suit reads, adding that the victim suffered “severe emotional distress, emotional and psychological injuries/ trauma, humiliation, and anguish.” Doe alleges the rape happened in December 2010.

Doe alleged she was forced to endure “highly improper questions” during the hearing. She and the alleged attacker were both Ph.D. students.

The university allowed the accused man’s adviser to act as a “prosecutor,” the suit claims.

“I don’t mean to get too personal . . . [tell us] how many boyfriends you’ve had?” the professor allegedly pressed Doe at the hearing, amid other inquires about her past sexual history and whether she may have missed the “signals” the man was sending out.

University officials sided with the alleged attacker, and Doe left the department a short time later to avoid seeing him, according to the court documents.

Doe further accused Princeton authorities of incorrectly telling her evidence collected from a rape kit would not be admissible in a campus disciplinary hearing.

Michael Hotchkiss, a Princeton spokesman, said the matter “was handled in accordance with the university disciplinary procedures in place at that time” and that the school would “need time to review and digest the allegations in the complaint which . . . relate to conduct that occurred a decade ago.”