A Princeton University student was suspended for two years after two women accused him of choking them on separate occasions. He presented text messages and other evidence to show their stories didn’t add up. He says he was treated with hostility during his campus hearing, where one administrator allegedly fell asleep.
The student, referred to only as John Doe in his lawsuit against the university, now alleges Princeton violated his constitutional rights by ignoring his evidence and allowing his accusers to repeatedly change their stories.
Princeton Freshman
March 2023
In March of 2023, John was a freshman at Princeton University and became friends with a fellow female student referred to in court documents as Sarah Smith.
Then, while attending an event at a Princeton Eating Club on March 3, John asked Sarah to keep an eye on his female friend — a woman only referred to as “Student 3” in the lawsuit — because she previously had a bad experience at a similar event. John wanted to make sure she felt safe.
Later, when John realized Sarah wasn’t keeping track of their mutual friend, he angrily confronted her. He admitted to getting close and yelling at her, prompting three different female students to stop and ask Sarah if she was okay. She said she was. The lawsuit also shows that a nearby security guard at the event witnessed the scene and did not intervene.
When Sarah left the event, John texted her to make sure she returned home safely. He would later learn that she almost immediately told her roommates about him yelling at her, but never mentioned anything about him choking her or engaging in any other physical contact.
April 1, 2023
A month later, on the night of April 1, John’s high school friend — only referred to in court documents as “Jane Doe” — came to visit him at Princeton. It was Jane’s first time visiting John’s school.
That night, John, Jane, Student 3, another person referred to as “Student 4,” and John’s roommate were all in his dorm room. Everyone but John’s roommate was drinking. The four who were drinking then left for an event and while they walked, John and Jane kissed briefly. Student 3 – who had a crush on John – became upset and walked away, with Student 4 consoling her. Jane then shared a kiss with Sarah, whom she met the day before. John became upset at this interaction, because he had feelings for Jane and Sarah knew this.
John and Jane started arguing, while Sarah, who was highly intoxicated, lay on the ground. While arguing, Jane suddenly collapsed and fell backwards into John before falling to the ground, screaming and crying. In his lawsuit, John questioned whether Jane did this “to end the argument, to bind her newfound Princeton friends to her, or because she was having some sort of genuine incident.”
Jane claimed she was having a traumatic flashback to when her ex-boyfriend choked her. She said “Z choked me” and “he choked me,” according to John’s lawsuit.
The group took Jane to Sarah’s room, but Jane asked to speak with John alone in the common room. Even though the two spoke, it was not until the next night that Jane first claimed John had choked her. John knew he didn’t choke her, but had no reason to doubt her sincerity at the time, so he told her he didn’t remember doing that. Over the next few days, Jane would write in text messages that John genuinely seemed to not remember allegedly choking her.
During this time, however, Sarah and Jane became fast friends. Sarah told Jane she believed John could have choked her – even though Sarah didn’t see it – because, Sarah claimed, John had choked her weeks earlier. To John’s knowledge, it was the first time Sarah had ever accused John of choking her.
John apologized to both women for yelling at them, and over the next few weeks, Jane repeatedly tried to get him to admit to choking her, which he wouldn’t. In one exchange, Jane claimed John “literally choked [her] out,” even though she never claimed to have lost consciousness. When John wouldn’t admit that he choked her, Jane responded by saying John “d[id]n’t even think [he] did anything that wrong.” John replied to this text by saying he had “acted wrong on many things,” but refused to concede that he choked her.
Jane eventually demanded that John go to therapy, threatening to report him to Princeton if he did not. John agreed but soon stopped going because he said he didn’t think he was receiving any benefit.
At one point, Jane threatened to report John if he didn’t call his parents and tell them he choked Jane while recording the conversation. John placed the strange call but only said he tried to pull Jane in to talk to her, and may have “damaged her windpipe ever so slightly.” Even with this recording, which John referred to in his lawsuit as “blackmail,” he refused to say he choked Jane.
While all this was going on, Sarah and Jane continued to spend time with John, as part of groups or one-on-one. At one point, both women even stayed at John’s parents’ house for several days.
By the end of the summer, John began commiserating with a mutual friend about their respective relationships with Jane and told each other how they were a little afraid of her. John believes Jane learned about this conversation, which may have been the catalyst for her to report John to Princeton.
John Phelan via Wikimedia Commons
Jane Reports John To Princeton
September 2023
In early September of 2023, Jane reports John to Princeton, claiming he choked her five months earlier after she didn’t reciprocate a kiss and then kissed Sarah. When Princeton interviews Sarah as part of its investigation, she claims John had choked her at the beginning of March.
John, however, would not receive first notice of the report until September 26.The notification simply stated someone submitted a report about him and requested an interview that same day. He received no other details or written notice of the allegations against him. The investigator assigned to the case also told John he couldn’t have a lawyer or even his parents present during the meeting or the disciplinary process.
During the interview, John was informed that two students, Jane and Sarah, had accused him of choking them on separate occasions months earlier. Although Jane wasn’t a Princeton student, she was still allowed to file an accusation with the school.
October 1, 2023
John prepares a written response to the allegations and collected evidence, which he submits on October 2.
October 7, 2023
John asks for an update on the investigation. He is told the school is seeking additional interviews from witnesses, without disclosing which witnesses.
October 23, 2023
Contrary to Princeton’s stated policies regarding disciplinary proceedings, John still has not received written notice of the allegations against him and has not been formally charged.
On the same day, John receives an email from Princeton’s deputy dean of undergraduate students, Joyce Chen, asking him to schedule a meeting with her to discuss the disciplinary process. John meets with her the next day and is told he will soon receive a packet of evidence and that a hearing for the matter would be scheduled just three days later, on October 27.
The hearing would be held over Zoom and judged by two faculty members and three students, along with Dean Chen, the chair of the disciplinary committee.
John asked that the hearing be rescheduled and his request was granted. The hearing was moved toNovember 1.
October 25, 2023
John is finally provided written notice of the charges against him. The charges state that while he was possibly intoxicated, he placed his hands around the neck of Jane, a non-student visiting from another university and applied pressure and/or choked her. He was also charged with the same infraction for Sarah.
John again requests the hearing be moved back so that he can properly review the large packet of evidence they provided.
October 31, 2023
The day before the scheduled hearing, John receives an updated version of the evidence packet, containing 60 additional pages of evidence, which included interview summaries of witnesses the accusers had asked to be questioned. John was also notified that Jane would not attend the hearing, depriving John of the ability to question her. John responds by asking again if the hearing could be delayed.
At 6:24 p.m. that same day, the dean says she doesn’t know if the hearing can be delayed.
Twenty minutes later, the dean sends John yet another updated evidence packet with even more information.
November 1, 2023
The next day, November 1, at 12:39 p.m., just six hours before the scheduled hearing, John is informed that his delay would be granted and the hearing would be held on either November 6 or 7 at 7:15 p.m. John was also told if he wanted to write an updated statement he could submit a new statement by 9:00 a.m. on November 3 – less than 48 hours away.
November 4, 2023
Just two days before the new hearing, John receives another updated packet. The dean informs him that since he brought up the lack of evidence submitted by the accusers, she allowed the women to submit written statements including more evidence.
William Thomas Cain/Getty Images
Interviews And Evidence
November 6, 2023
Just 45 minutes before the hearing, the dean informs John he cannot ask leading questions during the hearing, but refuses to tell him which witnesses would be called.
The final evidence packet John receives makes it clear that Princeton’s investigator interviewed Sarah and Jane three separate times, and were prompted to provide responses to what John said during his sole interview with the investigator. John was never similarly prompted to respond to what the women said. In fact, the first time he learned of any of their varied statements was in the evidence packets he kept receiving before the hearing.
Student 4 – the only person who actually witnessed the incident between John and Jane – was also interviewed only once, while a female witness to an unrelated disciplinary charge against John was interviewed twice. John had been told the unrelated charge would not be brought to the attention of the disciplinary committee unless he was found responsible for choking Sarah and Jane.
The evidence packet also showed that the investigator interviewed five students identified by the accusers – none of whom had any first-hand knowledge of the alleged incidents. At the same time, the investigator never interviewed Student X, despite filing a defamation lawsuit against Jane, nor did she interview John’s roommate, who interacted with Jane and Sarah in the days after the alleged incident with Jane.
John also learned that male witnesses were not asked about alleged bruising on Jane’s neck following the alleged incident, while female witnesses were – and they provided conflicting accounts.
Further, just before the hearing, Princeton interviewed Sarah’s roommates after John noted that she never told them about his alleged choking. Yet John’s roommate was not interviewed, even though he could have said whether Jane’s neck was bruised and whether Jane slept in John’s room for the rest of her stay at Princeton after the incident.
Sarah and Jane’s witnesses were also given ample time to rebut John’s testimony, but neither John nor his witnesses were given the same opportunities. And while the packet redacted many parts, things that were prejudicial to John were not, such as unsubstantiated claims that he was “pro-life,” “sexist,” and “racist.”
Finally, the evidence packet showed numerous inconsistencies in Sarah and Jane’s allegations, yet Princeton never sought to clarify. For example, Jane’s story changed from not remembering anything about the night in question due to alcohol and later being told what happened, to claiming she remembered John accidentally grabbed her too hard. At one point, she texted John that he had almost “murdered two women in cold blood.”
First Interview
During her first interview with Princeton, Jane claimed John grabbed her throat and lifted her off the ground to the point she needed to stand on her tiptoes. Sarah also said in her initial interview that she didn’t see any marks on Jane’s throat, but in her second interview claimed to have seen a “slight bruise on the left side of [Jane]’s neck.”
Second Interview
In her second interview, Jane claimed he choked her for only 5-6 seconds. She also claimed Sarah saw the choking, but John submitted a text message from Jane saying Sarah had not seen the incident.
Further, Jane said she fell to the ground after John choked her, but after seeing John and Student 4’s statements about her oddly falling backwards into John’s arms, she changed her story to say that she “immediately tried to put some distance between herself and [John]” by “turn[ing] away from him,” adding that John then “grabbed [her] torso,” causing her to scream and fall to the ground.
Third Interview
In her third interview, after seeing evidence presented by John, Jane changed her story again to say that John “did not squeeze the sides of her neck with his fingers,” which would have been required to lift her off the ground, as she previously claimed. Instead, she now said he only “press[ed] from the front as we were facing each other,” which meant John never could have lifted her off the ground.
As for Sarah’s allegations, she was never asked why she never discussed the alleged choking with John and only appeared angry with him for yelling at her. She was also not asked why she cropped images of text messages she submitted as evidence that removed her responses to John’s questions.
John submitted photos of Jane from the week after the incident showing no bruising on her neck, which was visible in the photos.
John was also able to show through evidence that Jane’s own parents didn’t seem to believe her story. Her mother at one point asked Jane if she was thinking of leaving Princeton earlier or “did you guys make up,” and Jane’s father seemingly dismissed her claims that John “choked” her by saying “I think [John] is OK.”
Princeton investigators also found that John and Jane kissed after the alleged incident, as John had said during his interview. The evidence also showed that Jane lied about sleeping in Sarah’s room out of fear after the alleged incident, with John submitting photo evidence showing Jane had slept in his room for two nights, and that Sarah had also slept in his room during one of those nights.
Jane also claimed she ended her friendship with John after he stopped going to therapy, but he was able to show texts between them more than a month after she learned he was out of therapy, including photo evidence that she and Sarah stayed at John’s house after this revelation.
John also provided text messages that Jane was still in contact with him even after she made the allegations against him to Princeton.
The evidence packet, according to John, also significantly undermined Sarah’s claims, with her friends and roommates saying she had only been upset because John yelled at her and never suggested he had choked her. After being presented with this evidence, Sarah changed her story to say John didn’t mean to choke her, but merely “pushing” on her neck – a change that was nearly identical to the descriptive change Jane had made.
Sarah, too, claimed she spoke to John very little after the alleged incident, but photos and texts presented by John showed that was not true.
Robert Merkel via Wikimedia Commons
The Hearing
Despite the contradictions to the women’s claims, the hearing began on the evening of November 6, 2023.. In his lawsuit, John said he learned from a source involved in the hearing panel’s process that the panel members had determined he was guilty before the hearing even began. Professor Elizabeth Harman allegedly gave an impassioned speech saying John was guilty and that it would be a “moral failing” to vote for anything other than to expel him.
Despite the fact that the incidents were unrelated and occurred weeks apart, the hearing included both allegations against John.
As John suspected, he and Student 4 – the only witness to the alleged incident with Jane who said no choking occurred – were treated with hostility by the panel, asked the same questions repeatedly with slight changes, and jumping on any perceived inconsistency. By contrast, Sarah and Jane’s witnesses, as well as Sarah herself, were not questioned about the numerous inconsistencies and changing statements, nor were they treated with hostility.
While John was questioned for more than an hour and a half, Sarah was questioned for just 30 minutes. She wasn’t asked about her inconsistencies but rather about John’s character.
Members of the panel, according to John, also repeatedly demanded he explain why these two women would lie about the incidents, indicating the burden of proof lay with John and he had to disprove their claims, rather than Princeton needing to prove their claims.
For example, one panel member allegedly asked John:
You think that the fact thatJane spent time with you means that she wasn’t concerned about you as a danger, and how do you square that with her repeatedly demanding that you go to therapy, telling you that you have a serious problem, telling you that you need to tell your parents that you were violent with her?
After John pointed out the changes in Sarah’s testimony, another panel member asked:
I guess, have you given any reason for [Sarah] to react this way?
To John, this indicated that the panel member didn’t care that Sarah had contradicted herself if John couldn’t explain why she did it.
To further illustrate that the panel didn’t need to hear Sarah’s testimony to convict John, John in his lawsuit includes a photo of Professor Harman allegedly falling asleep while Sarah spoke.
In a statement to The Daily Wire, Harman said:
This is a screenshot of me awake, with my eyes open, looking down at the page as I take notes on the hearing.
The panel also twisted John’s attempt in March to look out for a fellow student as somehow controlling. One panel member asked him:
You’ve referred a couple times to the fact that you were concerned about Student 3. Is that right? Who you wanted people to look out for? And I think what you’re saying is ‘Look at me. I’m a good guy. I was concerned about Student 3.’ And I just wanted to ask you if you could address a sort of different way of seeing this, which is that it’s intrusive for you to decide to make sure that Student 3’s okay by having people follow her. And indeed, she was followed by the one guy following her who you asked to follow her, that’s intrusive and controlling potentially. And then also that you are getting mad at someone for kissing Jane is also, you are taking yourself to have a say in how these other women in your life behave in an intrusive and controlling manner. Can you just see something if someone had that reaction to the stories that are being told?
Confused, John asked for clarification:
I guess I’m trying to understand the question. So, the idea is that because I was trying to look out for Student 3 and someone could think that looking out for Student 3 is actually an intrusion, and so I’m the kind of person who makes intrusions, and so I’m the kind of person who would be upset about a kiss enough to attack someone. Is that the question?
The panel member responded by saying they wanted John to agree that someone might see his actions as controlling. The panel member added:
You think you have a say and an entitlement to tell these women, friends of yours, how they should behave, what should be happening to them.
John Phelan via Wikimedia Commons
The Verdict
Unsurprisingly, by 10:00 a.m. the following morning, just 10 hours after the hearing ended, John was found responsible. On November 8, he received the panel’s formal decision letter, which didn’t provide any rationale for the decision. It also neglected to identify what version of Jane or Sarah’s allegations he had been found responsible for.
John put together an appeal that detailed all the unfairness he experienced during the investigation, but his appeal was denied.
He was also denied the ability to review the full video recording of the Zoom hearing. He was only allowed access to the audio. He also was required to listen to the audio in a specific room on Princeton’s campus, could not get a copy of the audio or record it himself, could not use a transcription service to transcribe the interview, and he could only manually transcribe and take notes during his single listening session.
John is now suing Princeton for breach of contract, due process violations, and sex-based discrimination.
In a statement to The Daily Wire, Princeton said it believes this lawsuit “is without merit and will contest it vigorously,” adding, “We are confident this situation was handled in accordance with University policy.”
In John’s lawsuit, he lays out Princeton’s policies regarding disciplinary hearings, and includes the fact that 98.5% of accused students have been found responsible. He also includes evidence that anytime a female student didn’t receive the desired outcome – the male accused student expelled or otherwise punished – she would complain to the press and the school would promise to do better, which to John meant finding even more men responsible no matter the evidence.
“Princeton shouldn’t be allowed to toss a good student out of school for two years on the basis of a biased investigation and almost comically flawed hearing,” Justin Dillon, John’s attorney, told The Daily Wire in a statement.
“And don’t even get me started about the Stalinist whiff surrounding the 98% conviction rate. Our client deserved more than the kind of ‘Yes, Comrade!’ process Princeton gave him.”
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[[{“value”:”
A Princeton University student was suspended for two years after two women accused him of choking them on separate occasions. He presented text messages and other evidence to show their stories didn’t add up. He says he was treated with hostility during his campus hearing, where one administrator allegedly fell asleep.
The student, referred to only as John Doe in his lawsuit against the university, now alleges Princeton violated his constitutional rights by ignoring his evidence and allowing his accusers to repeatedly change their stories.
Princeton Freshman
March 2023
In March of 2023, John was a freshman at Princeton University and became friends with a fellow female student referred to in court documents as Sarah Smith.
Then, while attending an event at a Princeton Eating Club on March 3, John asked Sarah to keep an eye on his female friend — a woman only referred to as “Student 3” in the lawsuit — because she previously had a bad experience at a similar event. John wanted to make sure she felt safe.
Later, when John realized Sarah wasn’t keeping track of their mutual friend, he angrily confronted her. He admitted to getting close and yelling at her, prompting three different female students to stop and ask Sarah if she was okay. She said she was. The lawsuit also shows that a nearby security guard at the event witnessed the scene and did not intervene.
When Sarah left the event, John texted her to make sure she returned home safely. He would later learn that she almost immediately told her roommates about him yelling at her, but never mentioned anything about him choking her or engaging in any other physical contact.
April 1, 2023
A month later, on the night of April 1, John’s high school friend — only referred to in court documents as “Jane Doe” — came to visit him at Princeton. It was Jane’s first time visiting John’s school.
That night, John, Jane, Student 3, another person referred to as “Student 4,” and John’s roommate were all in his dorm room. Everyone but John’s roommate was drinking. The four who were drinking then left for an event and while they walked, John and Jane kissed briefly. Student 3 – who had a crush on John – became upset and walked away, with Student 4 consoling her. Jane then shared a kiss with Sarah, whom she met the day before. John became upset at this interaction, because he had feelings for Jane and Sarah knew this.
John and Jane started arguing, while Sarah, who was highly intoxicated, lay on the ground. While arguing, Jane suddenly collapsed and fell backwards into John before falling to the ground, screaming and crying. In his lawsuit, John questioned whether Jane did this “to end the argument, to bind her newfound Princeton friends to her, or because she was having some sort of genuine incident.”
Jane claimed she was having a traumatic flashback to when her ex-boyfriend choked her. She said “Z choked me” and “he choked me,” according to John’s lawsuit.
The group took Jane to Sarah’s room, but Jane asked to speak with John alone in the common room. Even though the two spoke, it was not until the next night that Jane first claimed John had choked her. John knew he didn’t choke her, but had no reason to doubt her sincerity at the time, so he told her he didn’t remember doing that. Over the next few days, Jane would write in text messages that John genuinely seemed to not remember allegedly choking her.
During this time, however, Sarah and Jane became fast friends. Sarah told Jane she believed John could have choked her – even though Sarah didn’t see it – because, Sarah claimed, John had choked her weeks earlier. To John’s knowledge, it was the first time Sarah had ever accused John of choking her.
John apologized to both women for yelling at them, and over the next few weeks, Jane repeatedly tried to get him to admit to choking her, which he wouldn’t. In one exchange, Jane claimed John “literally choked [her] out,” even though she never claimed to have lost consciousness. When John wouldn’t admit that he choked her, Jane responded by saying John “d[id]n’t even think [he] did anything that wrong.” John replied to this text by saying he had “acted wrong on many things,” but refused to concede that he choked her.
Jane eventually demanded that John go to therapy, threatening to report him to Princeton if he did not. John agreed but soon stopped going because he said he didn’t think he was receiving any benefit.
At one point, Jane threatened to report John if he didn’t call his parents and tell them he choked Jane while recording the conversation. John placed the strange call but only said he tried to pull Jane in to talk to her, and may have “damaged her windpipe ever so slightly.” Even with this recording, which John referred to in his lawsuit as “blackmail,” he refused to say he choked Jane.
While all this was going on, Sarah and Jane continued to spend time with John, as part of groups or one-on-one. At one point, both women even stayed at John’s parents’ house for several days.
By the end of the summer, John began commiserating with a mutual friend about their respective relationships with Jane and told each other how they were a little afraid of her. John believes Jane learned about this conversation, which may have been the catalyst for her to report John to Princeton.
John Phelan via Wikimedia Commons
Jane Reports John To Princeton
September 2023
In early September of 2023, Jane reports John to Princeton, claiming he choked her five months earlier after she didn’t reciprocate a kiss and then kissed Sarah. When Princeton interviews Sarah as part of its investigation, she claims John had choked her at the beginning of March.
John, however, would not receive first notice of the report until September 26.The notification simply stated someone submitted a report about him and requested an interview that same day. He received no other details or written notice of the allegations against him. The investigator assigned to the case also told John he couldn’t have a lawyer or even his parents present during the meeting or the disciplinary process.
During the interview, John was informed that two students, Jane and Sarah, had accused him of choking them on separate occasions months earlier. Although Jane wasn’t a Princeton student, she was still allowed to file an accusation with the school.
October 1, 2023
John prepares a written response to the allegations and collected evidence, which he submits on October 2.
October 7, 2023
John asks for an update on the investigation. He is told the school is seeking additional interviews from witnesses, without disclosing which witnesses.
October 23, 2023
Contrary to Princeton’s stated policies regarding disciplinary proceedings, John still has not received written notice of the allegations against him and has not been formally charged.
On the same day, John receives an email from Princeton’s deputy dean of undergraduate students, Joyce Chen, asking him to schedule a meeting with her to discuss the disciplinary process. John meets with her the next day and is told he will soon receive a packet of evidence and that a hearing for the matter would be scheduled just three days later, on October 27.
The hearing would be held over Zoom and judged by two faculty members and three students, along with Dean Chen, the chair of the disciplinary committee.
John asked that the hearing be rescheduled and his request was granted. The hearing was moved toNovember 1.
October 25, 2023
John is finally provided written notice of the charges against him. The charges state that while he was possibly intoxicated, he placed his hands around the neck of Jane, a non-student visiting from another university and applied pressure and/or choked her. He was also charged with the same infraction for Sarah.
John again requests the hearing be moved back so that he can properly review the large packet of evidence they provided.
October 31, 2023
The day before the scheduled hearing, John receives an updated version of the evidence packet, containing 60 additional pages of evidence, which included interview summaries of witnesses the accusers had asked to be questioned. John was also notified that Jane would not attend the hearing, depriving John of the ability to question her. John responds by asking again if the hearing could be delayed.
At 6:24 p.m. that same day, the dean says she doesn’t know if the hearing can be delayed.
Twenty minutes later, the dean sends John yet another updated evidence packet with even more information.
November 1, 2023
The next day, November 1, at 12:39 p.m., just six hours before the scheduled hearing, John is informed that his delay would be granted and the hearing would be held on either November 6 or 7 at 7:15 p.m. John was also told if he wanted to write an updated statement he could submit a new statement by 9:00 a.m. on November 3 – less than 48 hours away.
November 4, 2023
Just two days before the new hearing, John receives another updated packet. The dean informs him that since he brought up the lack of evidence submitted by the accusers, she allowed the women to submit written statements including more evidence.
William Thomas Cain/Getty Images
Interviews And Evidence
November 6, 2023
Just 45 minutes before the hearing, the dean informs John he cannot ask leading questions during the hearing, but refuses to tell him which witnesses would be called.
The final evidence packet John receives makes it clear that Princeton’s investigator interviewed Sarah and Jane three separate times, and were prompted to provide responses to what John said during his sole interview with the investigator. John was never similarly prompted to respond to what the women said. In fact, the first time he learned of any of their varied statements was in the evidence packets he kept receiving before the hearing.
Student 4 – the only person who actually witnessed the incident between John and Jane – was also interviewed only once, while a female witness to an unrelated disciplinary charge against John was interviewed twice. John had been told the unrelated charge would not be brought to the attention of the disciplinary committee unless he was found responsible for choking Sarah and Jane.
The evidence packet also showed that the investigator interviewed five students identified by the accusers – none of whom had any first-hand knowledge of the alleged incidents. At the same time, the investigator never interviewed Student X, despite filing a defamation lawsuit against Jane, nor did she interview John’s roommate, who interacted with Jane and Sarah in the days after the alleged incident with Jane.
John also learned that male witnesses were not asked about alleged bruising on Jane’s neck following the alleged incident, while female witnesses were – and they provided conflicting accounts.
Further, just before the hearing, Princeton interviewed Sarah’s roommates after John noted that she never told them about his alleged choking. Yet John’s roommate was not interviewed, even though he could have said whether Jane’s neck was bruised and whether Jane slept in John’s room for the rest of her stay at Princeton after the incident.
Sarah and Jane’s witnesses were also given ample time to rebut John’s testimony, but neither John nor his witnesses were given the same opportunities. And while the packet redacted many parts, things that were prejudicial to John were not, such as unsubstantiated claims that he was “pro-life,” “sexist,” and “racist.”
Finally, the evidence packet showed numerous inconsistencies in Sarah and Jane’s allegations, yet Princeton never sought to clarify. For example, Jane’s story changed from not remembering anything about the night in question due to alcohol and later being told what happened, to claiming she remembered John accidentally grabbed her too hard. At one point, she texted John that he had almost “murdered two women in cold blood.”
First Interview
During her first interview with Princeton, Jane claimed John grabbed her throat and lifted her off the ground to the point she needed to stand on her tiptoes. Sarah also said in her initial interview that she didn’t see any marks on Jane’s throat, but in her second interview claimed to have seen a “slight bruise on the left side of [Jane]’s neck.”
Second Interview
In her second interview, Jane claimed he choked her for only 5-6 seconds. She also claimed Sarah saw the choking, but John submitted a text message from Jane saying Sarah had not seen the incident.
Further, Jane said she fell to the ground after John choked her, but after seeing John and Student 4’s statements about her oddly falling backwards into John’s arms, she changed her story to say that she “immediately tried to put some distance between herself and [John]” by “turn[ing] away from him,” adding that John then “grabbed [her] torso,” causing her to scream and fall to the ground.
Third Interview
In her third interview, after seeing evidence presented by John, Jane changed her story again to say that John “did not squeeze the sides of her neck with his fingers,” which would have been required to lift her off the ground, as she previously claimed. Instead, she now said he only “press[ed] from the front as we were facing each other,” which meant John never could have lifted her off the ground.
As for Sarah’s allegations, she was never asked why she never discussed the alleged choking with John and only appeared angry with him for yelling at her. She was also not asked why she cropped images of text messages she submitted as evidence that removed her responses to John’s questions.
John submitted photos of Jane from the week after the incident showing no bruising on her neck, which was visible in the photos.
John was also able to show through evidence that Jane’s own parents didn’t seem to believe her story. Her mother at one point asked Jane if she was thinking of leaving Princeton earlier or “did you guys make up,” and Jane’s father seemingly dismissed her claims that John “choked” her by saying “I think [John] is OK.”
Princeton investigators also found that John and Jane kissed after the alleged incident, as John had said during his interview. The evidence also showed that Jane lied about sleeping in Sarah’s room out of fear after the alleged incident, with John submitting photo evidence showing Jane had slept in his room for two nights, and that Sarah had also slept in his room during one of those nights.
Jane also claimed she ended her friendship with John after he stopped going to therapy, but he was able to show texts between them more than a month after she learned he was out of therapy, including photo evidence that she and Sarah stayed at John’s house after this revelation.
John also provided text messages that Jane was still in contact with him even after she made the allegations against him to Princeton.
The evidence packet, according to John, also significantly undermined Sarah’s claims, with her friends and roommates saying she had only been upset because John yelled at her and never suggested he had choked her. After being presented with this evidence, Sarah changed her story to say John didn’t mean to choke her, but merely “pushing” on her neck – a change that was nearly identical to the descriptive change Jane had made.
Sarah, too, claimed she spoke to John very little after the alleged incident, but photos and texts presented by John showed that was not true.
Robert Merkel via Wikimedia Commons
The Hearing
Despite the contradictions to the women’s claims, the hearing began on the evening of November 6, 2023.. In his lawsuit, John said he learned from a source involved in the hearing panel’s process that the panel members had determined he was guilty before the hearing even began. Professor Elizabeth Harman allegedly gave an impassioned speech saying John was guilty and that it would be a “moral failing” to vote for anything other than to expel him.
Despite the fact that the incidents were unrelated and occurred weeks apart, the hearing included both allegations against John.
As John suspected, he and Student 4 – the only witness to the alleged incident with Jane who said no choking occurred – were treated with hostility by the panel, asked the same questions repeatedly with slight changes, and jumping on any perceived inconsistency. By contrast, Sarah and Jane’s witnesses, as well as Sarah herself, were not questioned about the numerous inconsistencies and changing statements, nor were they treated with hostility.
While John was questioned for more than an hour and a half, Sarah was questioned for just 30 minutes. She wasn’t asked about her inconsistencies but rather about John’s character.
Members of the panel, according to John, also repeatedly demanded he explain why these two women would lie about the incidents, indicating the burden of proof lay with John and he had to disprove their claims, rather than Princeton needing to prove their claims.
For example, one panel member allegedly asked John:
You think that the fact thatJane spent time with you means that she wasn’t concerned about you as a danger, and how do you square that with her repeatedly demanding that you go to therapy, telling you that you have a serious problem, telling you that you need to tell your parents that you were violent with her?
After John pointed out the changes in Sarah’s testimony, another panel member asked:
I guess, have you given any reason for [Sarah] to react this way?
To John, this indicated that the panel member didn’t care that Sarah had contradicted herself if John couldn’t explain why she did it.
To further illustrate that the panel didn’t need to hear Sarah’s testimony to convict John, John in his lawsuit includes a photo of Professor Harman allegedly falling asleep while Sarah spoke.
In a statement to The Daily Wire, Harman said:
This is a screenshot of me awake, with my eyes open, looking down at the page as I take notes on the hearing.
The panel also twisted John’s attempt in March to look out for a fellow student as somehow controlling. One panel member asked him:
You’ve referred a couple times to the fact that you were concerned about Student 3. Is that right? Who you wanted people to look out for? And I think what you’re saying is ‘Look at me. I’m a good guy. I was concerned about Student 3.’ And I just wanted to ask you if you could address a sort of different way of seeing this, which is that it’s intrusive for you to decide to make sure that Student 3’s okay by having people follow her. And indeed, she was followed by the one guy following her who you asked to follow her, that’s intrusive and controlling potentially. And then also that you are getting mad at someone for kissing Jane is also, you are taking yourself to have a say in how these other women in your life behave in an intrusive and controlling manner. Can you just see something if someone had that reaction to the stories that are being told?
Confused, John asked for clarification:
I guess I’m trying to understand the question. So, the idea is that because I was trying to look out for Student 3 and someone could think that looking out for Student 3 is actually an intrusion, and so I’m the kind of person who makes intrusions, and so I’m the kind of person who would be upset about a kiss enough to attack someone. Is that the question?
The panel member responded by saying they wanted John to agree that someone might see his actions as controlling. The panel member added:
You think you have a say and an entitlement to tell these women, friends of yours, how they should behave, what should be happening to them.
John Phelan via Wikimedia Commons
The Verdict
Unsurprisingly, by 10:00 a.m. the following morning, just 10 hours after the hearing ended, John was found responsible. On November 8, he received the panel’s formal decision letter, which didn’t provide any rationale for the decision. It also neglected to identify what version of Jane or Sarah’s allegations he had been found responsible for.
John put together an appeal that detailed all the unfairness he experienced during the investigation, but his appeal was denied.
He was also denied the ability to review the full video recording of the Zoom hearing. He was only allowed access to the audio. He also was required to listen to the audio in a specific room on Princeton’s campus, could not get a copy of the audio or record it himself, could not use a transcription service to transcribe the interview, and he could only manually transcribe and take notes during his single listening session.
John is now suing Princeton for breach of contract, due process violations, and sex-based discrimination.
In a statement to The Daily Wire, Princeton said it believes this lawsuit “is without merit and will contest it vigorously,” adding, “We are confident this situation was handled in accordance with University policy.”
In John’s lawsuit, he lays out Princeton’s policies regarding disciplinary hearings, and includes the fact that 98.5% of accused students have been found responsible. He also includes evidence that anytime a female student didn’t receive the desired outcome – the male accused student expelled or otherwise punished – she would complain to the press and the school would promise to do better, which to John meant finding even more men responsible no matter the evidence.
“Princeton shouldn’t be allowed to toss a good student out of school for two years on the basis of a biased investigation and almost comically flawed hearing,” Justin Dillon, John’s attorney, told The Daily Wire in a statement.
“And don’t even get me started about the Stalinist whiff surrounding the 98% conviction rate. Our client deserved more than the kind of ‘Yes, Comrade!’ process Princeton gave him.”
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