Cheerleader date rape case: Was Coastal Carolina football player treated fairly?

A civil trial opened Wednesday in federal court in Florence in a case involving a former college football player, a cheerleader, Coastal Carolina University, Clemson University football and an alleged date rape.

The issue before the 10-person jury is whether Coastal Carolina University unlawfully discriminated against the football player because he is a male when, after a drawn-out internal discipline process, Coastal found the football player responsible for sexually assaulting a female cheerleader and permanently expelled him from the university.

The case is unusual in that it not only takes an in-depth look at the rarely-glimpsed, secretive process of how universities handle student date rape allegations, but also in that cases of this type rarely get an airing in a public court.

“Very few of these cases go to trial,” said Joe McCulloch, a Columbia lawyer who handles cases representing males at S.C. colleges and universities accused of pushing sex upon a female student.

The reasons these cases rarely get to trial, said McCulloch, is that the accused might win the case before the university review board, a university might settle a case to avoid going to court, or the accused person who lost his case before university’s review board might not want the notoriety of filing a lawsuit that would lead to a public trial.

Another wrinkle in this case is that the presiding judge is a woman, Sherri Lydon, who recently overruled a motion by Coastal Carolina to throw the entire case out. “John Doe” had enough evidence for a jury to rule upon, Lydon ruled.

Because of Coastal’s expulsion, football player “John Doe” not only lost a “full tuition athletic football scholarship for the 2017-2020 Coastal football seasons and academic years,” he has not been able to transfer to an NCAA Division I college football program, either as a walk-on or as someone seeking a full or partial athletic scholarship, his lawsuit says.

In court records, the player is called “John Doe” because he contends he is a victim in a case where he has been wrongfully expelled from Coastal of a sex crime he didn’t commit. The State is not naming him because he was never formally charged with a crime.

And Clemson University football coach Dabo Swinney, who had at first welcomed John Doe as a walk-on after he left Coastal and let him work out with Clemson’s team, told the football player he could no longer work out with Clemson’s team after Swinney learned about the expulsion, according to records in the case.

On Wednesday, Coastal Carolina University declined comment, saying it did not discuss pending litigation. When the lawsuit was filed in 2018, Coastal Carolina released a statement saying in part: “The university acted properly and will vigorously defend the lawsuit.”

Clemson had no immediate comment.

The case is titled “John Doe vs. Coastal Carolina University.”

The cheerleader, identified in court records only as “Jane Doe,” is not a party to the lawsuit.

Police: no crime

Coastal Carolina, with some 10,000 students, is a state-supported public university in Conway in Horry County, about 10 miles west of Myrtle Beach.

“This case takes a microscopic look at the process by which the university handled the charges,” said McCulloch.

The essence of John Doe’s case is this: Coastal’s investigation of the allegations ”was biased against the male being accused ... (and) slanted in favor of Jane Doe and took her statements at face-value, while mischaracterizing or disbelieving John Doe’s statements,” the complaint said.

“Coastal has deprived John Doe, on the basis of his sex, rights to due process and equal protection,” the complaint said.

The 34-page complaint gives John Doe’s version of events:

In 2016, John Doe, a native of South Carolina had “earned a position on the (Coastal) football team after a solid performance during spring 2016 practice,” the complaint says.

Before coming to Coastal, John Doe was a “star athlete” and captain of his varsity football team and had “opportunities to earn a full tuition paid football athletic scholarship to both the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Coastal,” but chose Coastal, the complaint said.

In 2016, John Doe and the cheerleader attended an afternoon off-campus pool party, after which the couple drank a limited amount of alcohol and then went back to his apartment and had “consensual sexual intercourse,” the lawsuit said. They had known each other previously and had had sex several times before, the complaint said.

Afterwards, the cheerleader made an allegation to both the Conway Police Department and Coastal Carolina officials that John Doe had forced sex on her that afternoon.

“After a diligent in-depth investigation, the city of Conway Police Department made the informed decision not to pursue Jane Doe’s report of non-consensual sexual intercourse,” the complaint said.

Although Jane Doe had alleged that the football player had dragged her by the hair, surveillance cameras that caught much of the couple’s walk from the party to the apartment showed them conversing and being at ease in each other’s company, the complaint said.

In December, 2016, Coastal Carolina convened a Student Conduct Board that took testimony from the football player, the cheerleader and reviewed documents in the case. The board was made up of five faculty members, two female and three male.

The board deliberated two hours, then unanimously found in favor of the football player, the complaint said.

Days later, after the deadline for the appeal had passed, the cheerleader filed for an appeal and was granted a new hearing, the complaint said. At the new hearing, no new evidence was presented, the complaint said.

In the meantime, John Doe applied to and was accepted at Clemson University for the 2017 spring semester. Football coach Swinney allowed him to come to football practices and participate, court records said.

But in March 2017, after Coastal Carolina officials issued a new decision in “John Doe’s” case, Coastal Carolina permanently expelled him. When coach Swinney learned of the expulsion, he told “John Doe” he could keep coming to practice, but not work out with the team, court records said.

Judge keeps case against school alive

Coastal Carolina had asked U.S. District Judge Sherri Lydon, who is presiding over the trial, to throw out “John Doe’s” case.

Lydon refused.

In an 18-page ruling on March 1, Lydon called Coastal’s decision-making process in expelling the football player “perplexing,” given that the first Student Conduct hearing had found him innocent and there was no new evidence presented at the second hearing.

It is possible that in this case, Coastal was “unusually generous towards the female appellant,” Lydon wrote. “The Court finds that Plaintiff has put forward evidence that would allow a reasonable jury to doubt the outcome of his disciplinary proceeding and find a causal connection between the erroneous outcome and gender bias.”

Attorneys for Coastal Carolina in the case are John Connell Jr. and Hunter Freeman, both of Greenville, and James Gilliam and Henrietta Golding, both of Myrtle Beach. Attorneys Clarence Davis and Jim Griffin, both of Columbia, represent “John Doe.”

The case is being brought as a Title IX case, after a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program offered by an institution receiving federal financial assistance.

Coastal “receives tens of millions of dollars in federal funding for research and development, as well as student financial aid,” John Doe’s lawsuit says.

This story was originally published March 11, 2021 at 5:00 AM.