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Texas Tech releases Title IX documents on Duffey suspension after ruling

Sarah Rafique

They had two different recollections of what happened the night of April 16 last year.

But, ultimately, a Texas Tech Title IX hearing panel sided with a woman who alleges Jett Duffey had sex with her twice when she was too incapacitated to consent, according to a disposition letter provided to A-J Media following an open records request in January.

Still, on Friday, the Texas Tech quarterback’s attorney said a grand jury didn’t find sufficient evidence to prosecute the case.

Duffey, a redshirt freshman, was suspended from Tech for the spring and summer semesters, but is expected to return in the fall. The last day of his suspension is Aug. 23.

Documents regarding the Title IX hearing were provided to A-J Media on Thursday, one day after spring football practice ended and nearly two weeks after the Texas Attorney General’s Office ruled the university must promptly release the information. Tech officials said the delay was a result of their office checking with the U.S. Department of Education to ensure releasing the letter, which for the first time publicly identifies the reason for Duffey’s suspension, is not a violation of federal privacy laws.

The day before the letter was released to A-J Media, football coach Kliff Kingsbury said he expects the quarterback to be back with the team by the first day of fall semester classes. He also said he’s comfortable with Duffey rejoining the team.

“It’s university policy, really,” Kingsbury said Wednesday. “They decided, based on the allegations, that he serve a one-year suspension and that’s what we’re going by as a program. So that was a ruling not in our hands at all. It’s all university policy.”

Title IX hearings are different than the criminal court system in that students are not considered “guilty” or “not guilty,” but rather “responsible” or “not responsible” for a policy violation, Matthew Gregory, Tech dean of students, told A-J Media earlier this year.

After the woman in this case reported a sexual assault to Texas Tech police, it was referred to the Lubbock Police Department, which then referred the case to the Lubbock County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.

On Friday, Duffey’s attorney, Chuck Lanehart, provided A-J Media with an email from Assistant Criminal District Attorney Edward Wharff, which states the sexual assault allegation stemming from that night was no-billed on March 21, meaning a grand jury concluded there was not sufficient cause to criminally prosecute the case. The day before, however, the district attorney’s office said the case was currently in its office.

“He’s been devastated by this,” Lanehart said of Duffey. “Fortunately, he’s had a lot of support from the Texas Tech athletic department, from his family.”

The woman’s lawyer, Gary E. Smith, declined to answer questions about the case last month and again on Friday, only saying that Tech’s Risk Intervention &Safety Education handled the situation correctly.

Smith previously sent a letter to Tech and several of its employees on Sept. 30, saying the woman “suffered physical, emotional and psychological damages as a result of the incidents described above in excess of the statutory limitation of the liability of Texas Tech University for these assaults.”

The incident

In an interview with a Tech Title IX investigator on Aug. 12, before the Sept. 15 hearing, Duffey says a woman was in town visiting his roommate, another member of Tech’s football team.

But, after his roommate invited someone else to sleep in his bed, Duffey invited the woman to sleep with him and he claims she agreed.

According to a transcript of the interview between the investigator and Duffey, he goes on to say he had sex with the woman twice after she voluntarily laid down with him and they began kissing one another in his bed at his Lubbock apartment. The 30-page transcript was provided by Duffey’s lawyer.

Duffey alleges the woman was not intoxicated.

However, toward the end of that same interview, the investigator tells Duffey the woman said she was intoxicated to the extent of not being able to move. She claims while she was lying in his roommate’s bed, Duffey began touching her private parts.

According to the investigator, the woman alleges Duffey carried her out of that room and into his room and had sex with her twice, first while she was “so intoxicated, she couldn’t really move,” and then while she was sleeping.

After the investigator provided Duffey with graphic details of the sexual encounter from the woman’s perspective — including her saying she felt like a doll flopping and that she woke up during the second time with him on top of her having sex — Duffey said, “This is crazy.”

“I can’t imagine myself doing something like that,” he told the investigator.

The incident happened April 16 and the woman reported it to campus police in June. After investigative interviews were conducted by the Title IX office, it went to a hearing Sept. 15.

The three-person hearing panel unanimously found Duffey responsible for two counts of sexual misconduct in the form of non-consensual intercourse. He was found not responsible for a third count of sexual misconduct in the form of digital penetration.

Written statements

Lanehart provided A-J Media with six witness affidavits, taken at his office in June, after the woman reported the incident to Tech and police.

The affidavits provide each person’s account of what happened the night of the incident, including that the woman was visiting from out of town and brought “a lot of alcohol” to Duffey and his roommate’s apartment.

The roommate’s affidavit states he met the woman on the dating app Tinder and they met in person for the first time when she was visiting Lubbock and staying at his and Duffey’s apartment.

A second affidavit says the woman got upset at the party when she noticed the roommate talking to another person at the party.

A third witness says he found the woman sleeping in the restroom and later she tried to kiss him, thinking he was another person, according to an affidavit. That affidavit, however, says he could smell alcohol on her breath, but she was not moving around like she was drunk.

Another affidavit says when the woman left Duffey’s apartment the next morning, nothing seemed unusual.

None of the affidavits address how Duffey and the woman came to be in the same room.

Written notes Duffey used during the Title IX hearing state a possible motivation for the woman’s accusation was a way to get back at his roommate for “the shabby way he treated her that night.”

Because the affidavits were taken at Duffey’s attorney’s office, Lanehart said during the hearing, the woman accused him of collaborating with witnesses — a claim Lanehart vehemently denies.

Still, “the panel expressed overarching concerns regarding the credibility of many witnesses,” according to a Title IX disposition letter for Duffey, which Tech released to A-J Media three months after an open records request for the information.

The letter says the “panel was mindful that many of the witnesses who were present toward the end of the night, just before the sexual activity occurred, were close friends of (Duffey).” It goes on to say the only witness who didn’t provide an affidavit “had an account that was largely inconsistent with the statements provided by other witnesses, and, importantly, corroborated key aspects of (the woman’s) account.”

“Despite concerns of possible collusion among (Duffey’s) witnesses, even they confirmed that the (woman) was intoxicated to the point of vomiting and had to be physically helped out of the bathroom,” the letter says.

Outcome

Duffey was suspended for two semesters, with the panel noting “(Duffey’s) behavior, while a serious violation of university policy, was neither aggravated by the use of force,” and the woman’s intoxication did not appear to be induced by him.

After the hearing and suspension, Duffey filed an appeal, but the university upheld its initial findings. He then filed a civil suit against the university on Nov. 30, accusing Tech of violating his due process rights and marking the first time Tech was sued by a person found responsible of a Title IX violation.

The lawsuit, which was dismissed March 3 at Duffey’s request, questioned the racial makeup of the all-white panel who heard a case where a white woman accused Duffey, who is African-American, of sexual assault. Duffey and his attorney are also opposed to the university’s methods in determining if a person is incapacitated and accuse Tech officials of dismissing relevant witness statements.

The suit delayed the release of the Title IX outcome letters following A-J Media’s open records request in January because the university referred it to the Texas Attorney General’s Office for an open records ruling. Even after the suit was dismissed, Tech argued the documents should not be released since the university could still face litigation from both parties in the case.

However, the AG said since the documents A-J Media requested were provided to all parties involved, the letters were required to be released.

Throughout the process, Tech spokesman Chris Cook also said the university’s athletics department was not involved at all.

“This was a university-run process and once the student serves the suspension or the terms of the suspension, then the student is allowed back into the university but also is allowed back into student activities,” Cook said. “That’s typically how that process works.”

(A-J Media sports reporter Don Williams contributed to this story.)