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On Aug. 17, a jury awarded nearly $4 million to Peter Steele, the former Pacific University student who sued the school after it expelled him over claims of sexual assault. He argued that the school failed to follow Title IX policies.
A jury threw out that claim, but still awarded him millions of dollars for emotional harm. The jury agreed that “Pacific University’s conduct constituted an extraordinary transgression of the bounds of socially tolerable conduct or exceeded any reasonable limits of social toleration,” according to the instructions given to jurors prior to their deliberations.
Last year, WW covered one of the many strange aspects of the case after Steele’s attorney dredged up old accusations against the school’s general counsel and Title IX coordinator, Jennifer Yruegas. Years earlier, Yruegas started a cannabis farm and was sued by her business partners after it went belly up.
Related: A Pacific University Dean’s Past Life Growing Weed Is Coming Back to Haunt Her
The jury never heard that story: A judge ordered the evidence suppressed. But they did hear plenty more about Yruegas, who had communicated extensively with Steele’s accuser.
“Yruegas is supposed to play a neutral role in these proceedings,” Steele’s attorney, Kevin Sali, told the jury. Instead, he argued, Yruegas was “working with [the complainant’s] attorneys to to talk about ways to keep Steele separate from school and specifically how to do so without using that procedure that’s set up for their protection.”
A spokesman for Pacific University says it’s considering an appeal. “At every step in this situation, we followed our policies and procedures, and we did not discriminate on any basis,” Blake Timm says.
This isn’t the end of legal scrutiny for Yruegas. Pacific faces several ongoing lawsuits by male employees, also accusing the school of discrimination.