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The latest on Dez Wells: was Xavier right to expel him?

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If you missed the post earlier, no criminal charges have been filed against former Xavier forward Dezmine Wells, but that doesn’t mean that this is the end of the controversy.

After the ruling, Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters laced into the University for the way that they handled the case, calling the system “fundamentally unfair” and “seriously flawed”.

“It’s up to that private institution,” he said on a radio interview with 700 WLW, “I just believe that in this particular case, we would never take anything to court. It just wouldn’t happen.”

Xavier responded to Deters’ comments with a statement of their own ... :

Federal law (Title IX) and federal regulations and guidances prohibit universities from ceding student conduct matters to the criminal justice system. The federal law requires schools to act quickly and all schools, by law, must use the “preponderance of the evidence” standard, whereas the criminal justice system uses the “probable cause” standard to indict, and the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard to convict.

The process used by the Xavier University Conduct Board is the standard used in American universities. The conduct board heard evidence that may or may not have been heard by the Grand Jury. After the conduct board reached its decision, the matter was considered and upheld by an appeal board of members of the student body, faculty and staff and is final.


... which Wells’ defense attorney, Merlyn Shiverdecker, called “self-serving gobbledygook.”

“I think they were committed to the process and not the fairness of the outcome. Dez Wells got thrown under a bus because of their commitment to the process,” Shiverdecker told ESPN.com. Wells is considering legal action against the University.

But what no one is mentioning here is that Xavier may have had their hands tied. You see, federal investigators have been looking into whether or not Xavier broke Title IX anti-discrimination laws when dealing with sexual assault allegations in recent years. When you combine the very first line of Xavier’s statement with this tweet from Jeff Goodman, who said the incident that resulted in Wells’ expulsion was sexual in nature, and, well, I’ll let you reach your own conclusions.

Wells will not be returning to Xavier. It appears that he will be visiting Louisville and Memphis, according to both Dave Telep and Jon Rothstein, and possibly Texas and Maryland as well. It’s probably worth noting that Wells’ high school coach, Kevin Keatts, is an assistant at Louisville, as well as Kareem Richardson, who coached at Xavier last season. Louisville technically doesn’t have a roster spot available for Wells, but that hasn’t been an issue for the program of late.

Rob Dauster is the editor of the college basketball website Ballin’ is a Habit. You can find him on twitter @robdauster.