Doe

*1039 John Doe, formerly an undergraduate student at the University of Southern California (USC), appeals from the trial court's denial of his petition for writ of administrative mandate, by which Doe sought to set aside his expulsion. ( *113 Code Civ. Proc., § 1094.5 ( § 1094.5 ).) Doe was expelled after respondents Kegan Allee, Ph.D., sued in her official capacity as Title IX Investigator for USC, 1 and, ultimately, Ainsley Carry, Ed.D., in his official capacity as USC's Vice Provost for Student Affairs, found that Doe engaged in nonconsensual sex with another USC student, Jane Roe, 2 in violation of the university's Student Conduct Code.

Doe argues that he was denied a fair hearing because respondents (principally Dr. Allee) were biased, and because USC's student disciplinary procedure is fundamentally flawed, in that it provides no mechanism for a party accused of sexual misconduct to question witnesses before a neutral fact finder vested with power to make credibility determinations. While we conclude that Doe failed to meet his burden of proving respondents were actually biased against him, we nonetheless conclude that USC's disciplinary procedure failed to provide a fair…