"I am immediately terminating your Residence Hall Contract. You will not be able to apply for housing on the campus of Southeastern at any point in the future. You are permanently banned from visiting any Southeastern residence hall. The termination of your residence hall contract is final and cannot be appealed".
After this happened to me, I began a search for some other attorney or organization to help me. I tried three attorneys, one with a full case load, another that did not call back after the consultation, and another that was honest enough to say that there is not going to be any attorney in the area that would be interested. (especially since it is a college town).
I should have gotten an attorney from Oklahoma City.
What made perfect sense at the time, was to report this to the U.S. Department Of Education. The only civil rights organization I found was "OCR". An investigative team at OCR opened the case, but they have very limited categories for civil rights violations. About two months into the investigation, there were a lot of delays. I was told that the SOSU has not responded. After that, I was told that the case load for OCR is overloading, that the investigative team's attorney had personal issues, and was also told once again that OCR is behind on their cases. After 16 months, OCR closed my complaint against SOSU, with the reason that "OCR does not have the authority to continue with the investigation". My case was not referred to any other attorneys or organizations.
If this was politics, I'd be wondering if Southeastern Oklahoma State University filibustered my complaint.
I don't think there are any attorneys that browse Rip Off Report, but if there are any people that have had problems in schools and colleges, you should take your complaint to a better qualified organization.
Tim
Grand Haven,#2
Fri, August 21, 2009
This statement is very indicative of the underlying problem with your complaint:
"[the third attorney] was honest enough to say that there is not going to be any attorney in the area that would be interested. (especially since it is a college town)."
Despite your closing statement, there are attorneys who browse ROR (hint hint).
This attorney was not asserting that none of the neighborhood lawyers want to fight the university, as you imply.
Most likely he was telling you that you have no case. Either that or you couldn't afford the legal fees, and the likelihood of prevailing on your alleged civil rights claim was not substantial enough for your case to make economic sense.
Civil rights laws all provide for attorney fee awards when the Plaintiff prevails. And, unlike many individuals and private companies, a state university WILL pay its judgment debt, and will do so in a timely manner.
What I'm getting at here is that ANY lawyer willing to practice civil rights law would have gladly taken up your cause if you actually had a leg to stand on.
As for the OCR, they apparently also determined that you did not have a viable civil rights claim. Yes they took a long time to make such a determination, but they are an overwhelmed and understaffed public agency.
When you conveniently omit important details from your report, such as why you were banned from the residence halls, and what is your perceived basis for a civil rights claim, you lose credibility.
I'm assuming that you are African American or some other minority. You did something you shouldn't have done (and it looks like it was something pretty egregious) in one of the residence halls and were therefore banned. I'm about as liberal as they come, and I love civil rights law, but it sounds like you're refusing to take accountability for your own actions and to accept the consequences thereof.
Inspector
Tobyhanna,#3
Thu, August 20, 2009
Why were you banned? Rape? Drugs? Apparently you did something wrong, why else would the attorneys not want to handle your case?