We are writing on the behalf of American University Washington College of Law’s Lambda Law Society and The Women of Color Coalition, to express our disappointment in our fellow students in the Executive Board of the Mock Trial Honor Society and the University’s Administration for their unwillingness to ensure a safe environment for the current and future students of the Mock Trial Honor Society.

On August 25th, 2021, Jordan Hulseberg publicly came forward with abuses he and several other students experienced with the Mock Trial Honor Society and the mishandling of the situation by the University’s administration. These abuses included discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, race, ethnicity, and class. While this recently became public to the student body, the University’s administration has been aware of these abuses for months, including receiving guidance from the Title IX office. However, no substantial changes have been made, nor has Jordan received course credit protections for coming forward. Instead of offering course credit protections, the University has violated Jordan’s Title IX rights by asking him to either work with the people who discriminated against him in order to receive course credits for Mock Trial Honor Society or drop the credits entirely.

Since Jordan’s statement, numerous affinity groups and organizations, including (but not limited to) Lambda, BLSA, LALSA, and SBA have put out statements and action items that we believe would increase accountability and decrease the potential for a recurrence of this behavior among both Mock Trial and the WCL administration. As of yet, we have seen little movement from either Mock Trial or the University's administration.

Mock Trial held a meeting with the affinity groups, limited to half an hour, where many groups voiced concerns about the lack of democratic elections in honor societies, and general lack of accountability and oversight that has been revealed by the proceedings surrounding this Title IX complaint. Both in terms of time given to the meeting, and the responses from the three e-board members present, the meeting felt inadequate and no substantive changes seem to have arisen from it, making it feel mostly performative. Further, the e-board mentioned its plans to implement amendments to their constitution on September 29th; however, they are performative measures that preserve the e-board’s power, leaving room for continued discriminatory abuses. We have followed up to request a continuing conversation with Mock Trial and received a response which did not indicate that they wished to have additional discussion.

What The University Must Do:
1) The University must issue a public apology to Jordan Hulseberg for violating his Title IX rights and must immediately offer him course credit protections, as well as course credit protections for other students within Mock Trial that no longer feel safe in the organization.

2) The University must issue a public apology to the entire student body for not offering us a system of organizational accountability, which has led to rampant discriminatory abuses; they must also apologize for the mishandling of this situation and further trauma created by University faculty and deans negligently attempting to address these abuses.

3) The Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Affinity Relations, led by Dean Lisa Taylor, must conduct a full audit of recruitment and deliberation records, as far back as available, for all Honor Societies to identify discriminatory practices and opportunities for students to insert bias, consciously or unconsciously.

4) The WCL Faculty and Administration must approve a formal process for students to submit grievances against other students, faculty, staff, and administrators, and make that process available to the student body. While it would be beneficial for such a process to exist with the Dean of Student Affairs, we fear Dean David Jaffe is not capable of handling such complaints. Therefore, we encourage this process to be handled by someone equipped to meet these particular needs of students.

What Mock Trial and Honors Societies Must Do:
1) The Mock Trial Honor Society, and other societies, must amend their constitutions so that they only use objective standards and data in determining team admission decisions. Further, they must adhere to a transparent process in deliberations and be supervised by a neutral third-party observer when deliberations take place.

2) Mock Trial Honors Society must make its information available for an immediate substantive audit, and provide information moving forward that is easily reviewable as a lack of reviewable material up to this point is of concern/

3) All Societies should amend their Constitutions in the following manner:
a) The team leadership must be chosen by a democratic vote of all Society members.
b) The Constitutions must be amended to remove the ability of students to unilaterally decide team assignments, and give such power to a rotating committee of administrators, faculty, coaches, and team members who are both on the executive board and not on the executive board of the Society.
c) The Constitutions must be amended to remove unilateral authority from students to expel members of the team, and give such adjudicatory power to a committee of administrators, faculty, and coaches.

Until these issues are addressed, we find it inappropriate for American University Washington College of Law to advertise itself as being a “safe,” “inclusive” University that “champions what matters.” By continuing to ignore instances of discrimination and not offering protections to students who come forward, the University is mischaracterizing the environment it has advertised to prospective students.

We deserve better.

Respectfully, 
The undersigned