So we have two female identified individuals: Mary Smith and Jane Doe Member of Phi Psi: John Doe Brown student not affiliated with Phi Psi in anyway: Bob Adams
Mary Smith and Jane Doe have stated that they began the night drinking in one of their rooms and according to them had the equivalent of 3-4 drinks. After that they left to a party at another location (they took another drink in a white paper coffee cup). They left the first party after 20-30 mins. After leaving this party they made their way to a party at Phi Psi.
There Jane spoke with John and received a drink from him. She informed him that she was allergic to several different things (pineapple, almonds etc) so John made her a drink (grain alcohol and cranberry juice) that was not from the cooler because that drink had pineapple in it. Both Jane and Mary have claimed that this was the only drink they had at Phi Psi.
Jane took a sip from it, gave it to Mary who also took a sip, Jane then put it down for a bit and then finished the rest of it. Both claim that within 10-15 minutes after the consumption of this drink they began to feel really hazy and as if everyone was looking at them as if they were too drunk.
Mary Smith vaguely remembers returning to her dorm room and struggling to open her door and being sexually assaulted by Bob Adams.
The next morning Mary Smith had a urine test conducted which came back positive for GHB and which was what the University originally communicated to all of the Brown campus.
Jane Doe had a hair test conducted on her (the sample was obtained a month after the incident) it is important to note that the officer who filled out this form did not do so properly. It was not specified on the form whether Brown wanted the hair sample tested in its entirety or just the segment which would correspond to the alleged incident date. They didn't circle one of the two options. (This is important later on)
The hair test (conducted on Jane Doe) eventually came back negative. This would seem to imply that if Mary Smith was indeed drugged it could have not occurred from the drink that she shared with Jane at Phi Psi. Originally the university was under the belief that this test had merely looked at the entire strand of her hair and could not determine whether or not she was exposed to GHB on the incident date in question. However, after further communication the lab remained adamant that they would have detected a spike in GHB levels and that it was negative.
Another thing thats important to note is that GHB occurs naturally in everyone. A test has to make sure to distinguish between endogenous (natural) and exogenous (external) GHB.
John Doe, adamantly denying that he had drugged the girls, had an expert look at the urine test and this expert stated that the level that the lab had used wasn't high enough and would not have distinguished between endogenous and exogenous GHB. Essentially he stated that the urine test was inconclusive and could not be used as evidence to say that Mary Smith had been drugged.
At this point Brown retained its own expert to conduct an independent investigation into both the hair and the urine test. What this expert concluded was that with regards to the urine test the timing of it and the methodology used would not have detected exogenous GHB. In fact, the lab has stopped offering this particular tests due to methodology concerns.
With regards to the hair test he said that it appeared comprehensive with respect to drugs tested but that there was no indication that it had been segmented prior to being analyzed. According to him this is essential to distinguish between exogenous and endogenous GHB. Furthermore he stated that in his experience it is extremely rare to find GHB in drug facilitated sexual assault cases.
With this last point it is uncertain what documents Brown provided the expert as the lab that conducted the hair test has adamantly claimed that they did segment the strand of hair (even though Brown did not specify what they wanted) and that their results were conclusive. Whatever the truth may be regarding this test Brown at this point has deemed this test inconclusive as well.
The fact that his dad is on the board probably has very little to do with the decision. The only thing that has helped him is the fact that he has the money to pay for lawyers in order to get a just and fair due process. If the individual accused had been someone without the means to hire a lawyer and toxicology expert the urine test would surely have been enough to get him expelled.
This is purely conjecture but I believe that Brown's own lawyers probably recommended against having a hearing due to the lack of physical evidence. If John had been found guilty on a "preponderance of evidence" (the girls testimony that they thought they were drugged) John surely would have filed a lawsuit against Brown which in a real court of law (not Brown's kangaroo court) they would have lost.
At the end of the day it is very difficult to know what may have happened that night. The only thing we can get from all of this is that Brown should have never handled this case. They weren't and still aren't prepared to handle something of this magnitude. Its really sad that something that should easily be proved or disproved (a drugging) through scientific means wasn't due to a bunch of sloppy mistakes.