Expelled former Yale captain plans to sue school
Jack Montague, the former Yale basketball captain who was expelled last month after an allegation of sexual misconduct, is prepared to sue the university.
A statement issued Monday by Max Stern, Montague’s attorney, details the process by which Montague, a senior, was expelled from the university and says the expulsion was “excessive by any rational measure.” It also describes Montague’s relationship with his accuser and disputes her claims that the two did not have consensual sex.
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The statement references the woman’s account of the incident in question, which was relayed to independent investigators hired by Yale. It says she and Montague slept together in his room “on four occasions in the fall of 2014.” The two had sexual intercourse on two of those occasions, one of which, she says, she did not consent to.
Montague says the sex was consensual.
“On the fourth occasion, she joined him in bed, voluntarily removed all of her clothes, and they had sexual intercourse,” Stern’s statement reads. “Then they got up, left the room and went separate ways. Later that same night, she reached out to him to meet up, then returned to his room voluntarily, and spent the rest of the night in his bed with him.”
A year later, the woman, a junior at Yale, reported the alleged rape to a Title IX coordinator, who “filed a formal complaint with the University-Wide Committee,” the statement says. That started the process that eventually led to Montague’s February dismissal.
From Stern’s statement:
Only two persons could have known what happened on that fourth night. The panel chose to believe the woman, by a “preponderance of the evidence.” We believe that it defies logic and common sense that a woman would seek to re-connect and get back into bed with a man who she says forced her to have unwanted sex just hours earlier. And yet the Dean accepted this conclusion and ordered Jack to be expelled. His decision was then upheld by the Provost.
We strongly believe that the decision to expel Jack Montague was wrong, unfairly determined, arbitrary, and excessive by any rational measure. Yale has been oblivious to the catastrophic and irreparable damage resulting from these allegations and determinations. The expulsion not only deprives Jack of the degree which he was only three months short of earning, but has simultaneously destroyed both his educational and basketball careers.
The response from Montague comes a day after Yale’s basketball team learned of its matchup for its first NCAA tournament appearance since 1962. Montague played in his final game for the Ivy League champions on Feb. 6 and his former teammates have publicly shown support. In one instance, teammates wore T-shirts with his number and nickname. The gesture raised the ire of some on campus, leading to posters on campus with pictures of the shirts with a different message: “Stop supporting a rapist.” The team later apologized.
Stern wrote that the posters were slanderous.
“Last week, the media widely reported on statements made by Yale students and posters put up on campus which condemned Jack Montague directly as the named culprit and as a rapist, thus slandering him with this accusation,” the statement says. “He was never accused of rape and Yale took no steps to correct these actions. As a result, Mr. Montague has no choice but to correct the record.”
Stern was critical of the timing of Yale’s decision, which came a month before a published report from the Association of American Universities was “highly critical of the incidence of sexual assault on the Yale campus.”
“Jack has been pilloried as a ‘whipping boy’ for a campus problem that has galvanized national attention,” the statement says.
Yale, a No. 12 seed in the West Region, is scheduled to face No. 5 seed Baylor on Thursday in Providence, Rhode Island.
Before his dismissal, Montague averaged 9.7 points per game for the Bulldogs.
Here is the statement from Montague's attorney in full:
Montague Public Statement by Josh White
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Sam Cooper is a contributor for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!
