L to R: Katie Meyer; Michele Dauber
Should Katie Meyer’s suicide be blamed on Michele Dauber, Stanford and the Department of Education’s Office of Civil rights?
Stanford University has been sued for the wrongful death of a student: that of Soccer star Katie Meyer. Shortly after the suit was filed, Stanford Law Professor Michele Dauber who has prided herself on “ranting” on social media, deleted her Twitter handle. Screenshots of Dauber’s vile tweets over the years demonstrate the abhorrent standards of Stanford’s when it comes to Michele Dauber’s tweets that could easily lead any student to commit suicide.
"The actions that led to the death of Katie Meyer began and ended with Stanford University,” the lawsuit alleges, and makes public for the first-time details of the allegations that sparked the potential disciplinary action.
Stanford, other universities, colleges and schools in the US have been using disciplinary procedures provided directly or indirectly from the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights under Catherine Lhamon or Russlynn Ali who signed the 2011 unregulated “Dear Colleague” Title IX directive. That letter was drafted by Michele Dauber who has regularly used social media to bully, smear students, professors and others including Johnny Depp and his attorney Camille Vasquez.
Michele Dauber was chair of Stanford’s judicial affairs from 2011 (the year the unregulated Title IX “Dear Colleague Letter” was introduced) - 2013. She stated in 2017 or 2018 that the issue of sexual assault brought women out to vote in droves. In other words, instead of setting out to help tackle campus sexual assault, she was using it as a political tool and the students on campus became her weapons. Dauber’s friend, Catherine Lhamon, running US Ed OCR from 2013–2017 and 2021 to present, stated that the department’s focus on star athletes brought attention to campus sexual assault. She threatened to withhold federal funds from any campus that didn’t follow the Looking-Glass-esq procedures for discipline using a single investigator model to be jury, judge, executioner.
The “Dear Colleague” Title IX letter (“DCL”) spawned a profitable business for several including Brett Sokolow who built an empire on the back of the 2011 federal directive. He was recently sued by a whistleblower for financial misconduct while raking in millions for advising universities, colleges and schools on how to conduct investigations and manage risk see here, here and here).
Stanford has stood by and said nothing about the effects of an ideology that has wreaked havoc on students and their welfare. Students across the country have paid thousands for bloated and biased Title IX administrators while having their own rights severely restricted — rights they would enjoy anywhere other than on a campus subject to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights’ doctrines: the right to due process.
Stanford didn’t even say anything when Michele Dauber used social media to call for extreme violence against Brock Turner, the Stanford Freshman Olympic Swim Team hopeful who was framed as a “rapist” by Dauber. Turner’s chances at due process were denied from the start. Even his defense attorney, Mike Armstrong, had taught in Dauber’s class and given counsel to her family. Armstrong never told his own client of this conflict of interests.
The writing was on the wall for Katie Meyer — no way out. A disciplinary process that assumes guilt from the start and Michele Dauber, Catherine Lhamon, Russlynn Ali and White House “Not Alone” task force affiliates are alleged to be to blame. Whatever the truth might be, it hasn’t mattered because Stanford, like other campuses, simply followed the rules put in place by a cruel and activist driven Department of Education’s Office of (un) Civil Rights.
Stanford knew the details on Brock Turner promulgated to the media by its own tenured professor didn’t match the actual records. But they yielded to Dauber’s propaganda, silent as she worked behind the scenes, colluding with the DA of Santa Clara County, to turn a 19 year old new student into the face of a rapist — for politics. Dauber is lauded on the Silicon Valley Democratic Committee site. It has been suggested that she should head the California Democratic Party. Student welfare at Stanford and at other campuses has become tertiary to institutional risk management, politics and fundraising for politics under fake social justice causes.
Anyone who stands up to support another student in the US is bullied, ostracized, mocked, smeared, denied education. Students have been hospitalized after being bullied for speaking up in support of other students (accusers or accused). The risk of speaking up is not worth it.
Alongside Katie Meyer, the likelihood is that there are two other students whose rights have also been violated: that of the football player upon whom she allegedly spilt coffee for an alleged sexual assault and that of the minor — the alleged victim of sexual assault.
Preponderance of evidence will, of course, find Stanford guilt free. An “independent” investigation by a law firm specializing in risk management will likely be brought in and help minimize any fallout. Reputations will be protected. Students will be disposable. Stanford denies all responsibility even though Stanford created and endorsed the campus environment in which these events took place: the suicide, the coffee spill incident, the alleged rape.
There have been other suicides at Stanford. There have been calls for administrators to step down, for Michele Dauber to be fired (see here and here). All stonewalled.
The rising number of student suicides across the nation is alarming but the Department of Education, administrators, ATIXIA and others fail to admit to their own central role in it all.
“Do unto others as you would have done unto you” is absent in the doctrine coming from the Department of Education, White House “Not Alone” task force or their associates.
Katie Meyer is not the first and she will not be the last unless the Department of Education’s Office of Civil rights, the White House 2014 “Not Alone” task force and the creators of the 2011 unregulated directive are held accountable for hostile environments on campus and the denial of civil rights.
Senators Lamar Alexander and James Lankford warned us about the Department of Education’s overreach in 2016. Katie Meyer is, arguably, a consequence of the department’s failure to listen and to act. Catherine Lhamon has been nothing but arrogant and condescending to anyone who questions her (see here and here).
Katie Meyer’s death was entirely preventable. Common sense would have dictated a different approach — a conversation instead of a heartless email. But common sense is missing because common sense doesn’t need provide for-profit contracts for Title IX. In 2–4 days training a Title IX co-ordinator can get certified by Brett Sokolow’s organization and earn over $100,000 to single-handedly determine the fate of a student. Katie Meyer’s school fees would have included several thousand dollars to cover such administrators. But what was their goal other than to traumatize students and conduct bias investigations? Should anyone pay thousands for these administrators to ruin their lives?
Stanford’s and other universities, colleges and schools' administrations have been utterly cowardly at protecting student interests against an invasive and dangerous group of activists tied to Michele Dauber, Catherine Lhamon, US Ed and the White House “Not Alone” task force. These have been fast to back propaganda such as Rolling Stone’s “A Rape on Campus” fake story or “The Hunting Ground” documentary and silent when it comes to the very real and tragic consequences of the one-sided ideology put forward in these tales. It’s not just one life that is harmed in Title IX investigations. It’s multiple lives — all the people directly involved and the bystanders — the ones who live with the guilt of having seen wrongdoing by administrators; the ones who are not allowed to reach out to their friends who have been accused because of the disciplinary process (see here and here).
No life should be lost on an accusation. No life should be threatened for standing up to be counted. These are students, not adults. They don’t have decades of life experience. Why should they be social experiments or labor trafficked for political activists wanting to get ahead in Washington DC?
The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights and “Not Alone” task force gave specific instructions to administrators, police departments and investigators NOT to alert students they were being investigated but to blindside them for effect.
We saw it in New Hampshire, where the “Dear Colleague” letter was introduced: Concord Police, according to trial records, instructed St Paul’s School not to alert its student, Owen Labrie, that he was being investigated and told the school not to contact him. He was framed for the purposes of the White House “Not Alone” task force’s mission to tackle “Rape Culture” and Laura L Dunn who worked with Michele Dauber on the “Dear Colleague” Letter instructed New Hampshire’s police on how to lead the investigations (see here).
Labrie, a scholarship student, was not warned that he would be charged with anything let alone an assortment of 10 felonies and misdemeanors for a he said/she said encounter with no witnesses which, per the trial records, only involved romantic exchanges and giggling.
The police asked the school to contact his mother only after they got wind of his suicidal thoughts following their tainted investigation. They took no responsibility for what they’d done either to him or to the other students they’d lied to, stalked, bullied or force-fed tales. Who to thank for their methods? Laura L Dunn — a “Title IX expert” & advisor to the White House “Not Alone” Task Force — an “expert” who’d worked with Stanford’s Law Professor, Michele Dauber.
Money, contracts, politics and cover ups have been the name of the game for the White House “Not Alone” task force and its affiliates including Michele Dauber and Laura Dunn. Their viewpoints are supported by the ACLU, Know Your IX, SurvJustice, NSVRC, NCVLI, PAVE, Its On Us, NWLC and others.
We await the outcome of the lawsuit on whether Katie Meyer’s untimely death is officially considered to be the consequence of harmful and soulless directives from US Ed OCR and Stanford’s own law professor, Michele Dauber.
Claire Best heads Claire Best & Associates, an international talent agency representing some of the most respected names in the entertainment industry for film, television, and commercials that was established in 2010. She had 16 years of experience in the agency business as an owner, C.E.O. and C.O.O. before Claire Best & Associates. Prior to becoming an agent in 2002, Claire was a production executive at New Line Cinema and Fine Line Features where she oversaw the production of many well-known domestic and international feature films from 1996-2001. Claire has also produced and executive produced a number of award winning and critically acclaimed features, shorts, and documentaries. She is a voting member of B.A.F.T.A. and the Television Academy (see: clairebest.net).
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