California Appellate Tracker

Doe v. University of Southern California

December 11, 2018

Substantial evidence supported finding by the university that a student had cheated on a biology exam, and since this determination was moreover made by a fair procedure, the trial court incorrectly granted the student’s administrative mandamus petition.

Reversing the trial court, this decision denies Doe’s administrative mandamus petition challenging USC’s disciplining him for acting with another student to share answers on a biology exam. The two sat next to each other in the examination room and inexplicably had identical versions of the same multiple choice test despite the usual practice of giving the same questions in altered order to adjacent students. Both wrote answers in large letters in the test books, and they answered a statistically improbable number of questions the same, including giving identical wrong answers to some questions. Substantial evidence thus supported USC’s decision that they had cheated. USC also made that determination by a fair procedure. USC made the evidence on which it relied available to Doe in a timely manner and did not intimidate him from assembling evidence in his defense—merely warning him not to harass or intimidate other students or faculty.

California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 7 (Perluss, P.J.); September 19, 2018 (modified & published October 9, 2018); 2018 Cal. App. LEXIS 911

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Doe v. University of Southern California

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