WIN! Seventh Circuit Upholds Accused Male’s Due Process, Sex Discrimination Claims. Rules Purdue’s Hearing is a Sham.
Since 2011, more than 480 students accused of sexual misconduct have sued their universities over campus judicial processes they believe were fundamentally unfair and led to erroneous findings of responsibility. However, relatively few of these cases, which often settle in the early stages of
litigation, have made it to the federal appellate courts. Now, in an opinion issued late last week, the Seventh Circuit has ruled that an accused student has plausibly alleged that Purdue University held an unfair proceeding that violated the student’s due process rights. The court also held that the university may have unlawfully discriminated against the plaintiff, suing anonymously as John Doe, on the basis of his sex.
…A former Purdue University student was accused of sexual assault by his ex-girlfriend. Purdue, using procedures that provide little to no ability for accused students to defend themselves, found the male accused student responsible and suspended him for one year. He was expelled from the school’s Navy ROTC program, lost his ROTC scholarship, and was forced to give up his dream of joining the Navy. Doe claimed he was unfairly suspended from both the University and Navy ROTC after he was discriminated against in a sexual assault accusation. The appellate decision lists several flaws inherent in Purdue’s Title IX-deciding process, including the fact that committee members had not prepared for Doe’s panel hearing; a failure to provide Doe a copy of the investigatory report of the alleged assault; and a possible inclination to believe the [alleged] victim’s rendition of events because she is a woman.
The court ruled that John Doe had adequately alleged that Purdue used unfair procedures that violated his right to due process. For one thing, the court was deeply troubled by the fact that John was not allowed to see the investigative report, finding that “withholding the evidence on which it relied in adjudicating his guilt was itself sufficient to render the process fundamentally unfair.” The court also found that the hearing was a “sham” because two of the three panelists openly admitted they had not read the investigative report, meaning that “they decided that John was guilty based on the accusation rather than the evidence,” and because they had deemed Jane more credible than John without ever speaking with her or even receiving a statement she had written herself. This lack of a meaningful credibility assessment was “all the more troubling because John identified specific impeachment evidence,” such as the fact that Jane may have been angry with him for reporting her suicide attempt.
The court allowed John’s due process claim to proceed based on his request for an injunction “ordering university officials to expunge the finding of guilt from his disciplinary record,” and ordered the lower court to address that claim on remand.
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