The campus sexual assault lawsuit brought by an unidentified male student against Purdue University, which was one of the first such cases to be heard by a federal appellate court since the U.S. Department of Education issued its “Dear Colleague” letter in 2011, is still awaiting a ruling from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals while the number of similar complaints being added to the dockets of circuit courts around the country continues to grow. Oral arguments in the lawsuit, John Doe v. Purdue University, 17-3565, were heard Sept. 18, 2018. Judges Diane Sykes, Amy St. Eve and Amy Coney Barrett were the panelists who listened to the arguments in Purdue and four other cases that day. Rulings have been handed down in all the other disputes, but the Purdue case remains. The issues central to the Purdue case are echoed in many of the campus sexual assault cases brought against institutions of higher education across the country. In West Lafayette, the unnamed male student was suspended from Purdue and dismissed from the Navy ROTC after the university investigated and found an allegation of sexual assault made by the student’s former girlfriend was credible. The male student claimed the university violated his Title IX rights by discriminating against him on the basis of his sex. He described Purdue’s investigation of the allegation as a “Kafkaesque process” that presumed the woman’s story was true rather than presuming he was innocent.
theindianalawyer-Marilyn Odendahl
