Content Warning: This article contains references to suicide and sexual assault. If you or someone you know needs help, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988.

Stanford’s legal team accuses Meyer family’s legal team of tampering with evidence in wrongful-death lawsuit over former Stanford women’s soccer goalkeeper’s suicide Katie Meyer. The two legal parties are scheduled to meet on December 10 for a case management conference.

The Meyer family filed the lawsuit in November 2022, accusing The university and several trustees for negligence, breach of contract, wrongful death and related charges. right initial complaintshortly before Meyer’s death, Stanford’s Office of Community Standards (OCS) issued Meyer a formal written notice, placing her on hold and threatening her with removal from the University. The letter was intended to inform Meyer of upcoming disciplinary proceedings against her for spilling hot coffee on a football player who was accused of sexually assaulting Meyer’s minor teammate, the complaint states.

complaint alleged that OCS sent the email after hours, when both the OCS office and Stanford Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS) were closed. Despite Meyer’s email response, telling the university he was “shocked and upset,” Stanford employees made no effort to check on Meyer’s well-being, the lawsuit states.

“Katie’s suicide was completed without planning and only in response to the shocking and deeply distressing information she received from Stanford while alone in her room without any support or resources,” the complaint states.

Kim Dougherty, co-founder of the Justice Law Collaborative and lead counsel for the Meyer family, told The Daily that normally the standard of care in disciplinary proceedings should focus on education and development. At Stanford, she said, Meyer’s disciplinary process was approached from a punitive point of view.

“Throughout the entire OCS process, (Meyer) was extremely bullied,” Dougherty said. “Many administrators have failed her throughout the entire process. They breached the standard of care by failing to properly investigate the case. They failed to address her distress concerns.”

University issue a statement responding to the Meyer family’s original complaint shortly after the suit was filed. “We strongly disagree with any assertion that the university is responsible for her (Meyer’s) death. The complaint filed by the Meyer family unfortunately contains allegations that are false and misleading,” the statement said. “The university provided Katie with a counselor to work with her throughout the process and told her she could have a support person of her choice with her in any meeting or conversation with OCS.”

Dougherty argued that the University’s Judicial Charter, which at the time of Meyer’s death had remained unchanged since 1997, was “overly punitive and not educational.”

Last year, the Faculty Senate updated the 1997 Student Judicial Charter to 2023 Student Code of Conduct. The changes allowed for “a more nuanced consideration of alleged violations, a focus on education rather than punishment, a more streamlined process and increased accessibility,” according to The Stanford Report.

“That was done, but for Katie it was far too late. It was far too late. It’s very unfortunate because if they followed the standard of care that regular universities follow and if they had changed it anytime between 1997 and 2021, Katie would be with us today,” Dougherty said.

In a September 2023 court order, Stanford’s legal team he stated that the Meyer family’s legal team used the laptop found in Meyer’s room after her death in an attempt to access Stanford accounts, Meyer’s social media accounts and files, resulting in changes to the laptop’s original data. “This activity resulted in hundreds, if not thousands, of artifacts and files being created, modified and overwritten on the laptop. Some of the original content may be impossible to recover due to the volatile nature of the hard drive and artifacts,” Stanford counsel wrote.

In a July court filing, Meyer’s legal team responded, saying “the allegations are simply baseless distractions from moving this case to trial and an inappropriate attempt to unfairly harass and disparage the plaintiffs.”

Dougherty argued that the allegations were misleading because the University’s legal team received a full forensic copy of the data on Meyer’s laptop and iCloud shortly after her death, and therefore any changes to the original laptop were irrelevant. “Stanford’s lawyers are completely misleading in their statements. Katie’s laptop was literally mirrored less than three weeks after her death. Everything on her laptop was saved, kept and provided to the defendants,” she told The Daily. “They have millions of artifacts from that mirror unit that they can analyze that were preserved literally just weeks after Katie’s death.”

Dougherty explained that some of Meyer’s iCloud data was deleted due to Apple’s retention policies, explaining that the Meyers were not billed or notified of the additional iCloud storage and thus the additional storage was reduced by Apple when the subscription was not continued. “When we took this up with the court, the court found it was not intentional.” she said.

In March, the court awarded the Meyer family’s attorney $8,325 in compensatory damages for opposing motions that the court found to be “well-founded both in fact and in law.” Dougherty said the sanctions were imposed on another law firm previously associated with the case, which sought to obtain evidence about individual defendants.

“The previous adviser received some sanctions related to the movement practice and there are no longer advisers registered in the case,” she said.

Dougherty characterized Stanford’s legal team as “completely adversarial” and willing “to put anyone, including alumni, through traumatic experiences so they can try to defend this case.” “It’s quite egregious the way they’re handling the matter,” she said. “They went from bullying Katie to now bullying the Meyers for trying to get accountability and change at the university.”

Stanford’s media relations team did not respond to The Daily’s request for comment.

In September, California passed Assembly Bill 1575, a measure proposed by Saving Katiean organization that aims to fight “for systemic change at colleges and universities to promote mental health, protect students and prevent suicide.” AB 1575 requires public universities and community colleges to provide students with the option of selecting outside counsel to assist them during disciplinary action initiated by the school administration. As a private institution, Stanford has not yet adopted this measure.

Meyer’s mother, Gina Meyer, expressed her frustration with Stanford’s inaction on the bill. “We’re a little disappointed they haven’t picked it up yet,” she said in an interview with CNN. “Live by this law. It will save lives.”

“He has a similar spirit to her: inclusive, loyal, protective, and his spirit lives on in this law,” Meyer’s father, Steven Meyer, told CNN.

Both legal parties are expected to meet for a case management conference with a judge on December 10. At the conference, Meyer’s legal team plans to begin the process of finding a trial date.

“We tried to do this at the last conference a few months ago, and Stanford refused to commit to trying to set a trial date,” Dougherty said. “We hope to have this case go to trial in either 2025 or early 2026. That’s our goal.”

Pending a court date, the Meyers and their legal team plan to expand the legislative reach of Katie’s Save from California to the nation.

“Our hope is to get justice for Katie, bring some closure and healing to the Meyer family (and) continue to help and assist them in their efforts to change laws nationwide,” Dougherty told The Daily . “It’s so important to protect our students in the future and give them the support they need during difficult times.”