Under threat of a lawsuit, and with no objective evidence of any wrongdoing, the University of Michigan has opted to vacate a ruling of sexual assault brought against a male student—three life-changing years after the fact.

The male student, Drew Sterrett, was enrolled as a student at Michigan when he was informed in the summer of 2012—over a Skype hookup with university officials—that a female student, whom the legal paperwork names as “CB,” had accused him of a sexual assault which allegedly occurred several months earlier.

As Slate’s Emily Yoffe—a rare left-wing critic of the purported campus rape epidemic—describes:

The sexual encounter in question took place in March 2012, in the spring semester of Sterrett’s freshman year. Legal documents described how the female student, CB, who was a friend of Sterrett’s, asked to stay in his room because her roommate was having guests. He expected her to sleep on a mat on the floor and was surprised when she got into his bunk bed. Soon the two were kissing, then more; CB asked Sterrett about a condom, and he got one. Their encounter went on for so long, and was so loud, that Sterrett’s roommate, who was trying to sleep in the top bunk, sent Sterrett an annoyed Facebook message about being kept awake. The roommate later gave a sworn statement that he was close enough to the pair that he would have heard, and intervened, if CB had said no or objected.

The semester ended, and Sterrett and CB left school. The events that prompted the university investigation of Sterrett are described in an affidavit sworn on his behalf by LC, a friend of CB and her sophomore-year roommate. While CB was home for the summer, her mother discovered her diary, in which the young woman described her drinking, drug-taking, and sexual encounters. (In her own deposition, CB confirmed the contents of the diary.) After confronting her daughter with her discovery, CB’s mother drove her to campus, where CB made her accusation. She never reported it to the police.

Upon returning to campus in the fall, Sterrett was greeted by a “Sexual Misconduct Investigation Report” which held him responsible for the sexual assault on CB. He was told he was suspended until 2016, a year after his alleged victim was to graduate. He was not allowed to face or question CB and he was not given a list of witnesses used in making the determination.

Sterrett responded by filing suit against Michigan in federal court, alleging that he had been deprived of his due process rights by the University. Ultimately, after unsuccessfully attempting to have the case dismissed, Michigan agreed to a settlement vacating its ruling of sexual assault against Sterrett and removing it from his transcript. In exchange, Sterrett promised to discontinue his lawsuit and not make any attempt to re-enroll at Michigan.

Drew Sterrett is far from alone in being railroaded by the collegiate justice system. Colleges and universities have been under heavy pressure from the Obama Administration’s Education Department and its Office of Civil Rights to strengthen their campus policies and practices regarding rape and sexual assault, and many young men are being caught in the crossfire .

As Yoffe describes in her article for Slate:

In the past five years, about 70 male students found responsible for sexual misconduct have brought lawsuits against their schools, alleging that their treatment violated their contractual or due process rights or was so biased as to constitute sex discrimination against them.

It remains to be seen whether the pressure of these student lawsuits can serve as a counterweight to the threats made by Obama’s heavy-handed Office of Civil Rights.