No Pseudonymity in Title IX Wrongful-Discipline Lawsuits, Holds Seventh Circuit
From Friday’s Seventh Circuit opinion in Doe v. Trustees of Ind. Univ., written by Judge Frank Easterbrook and joined by Judge Kenneth Ripple and Diane Wood:
While John Doe was a medical student at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, he had a romantic relationship with Jane Roe, a fellow student, who accused him of physical abuse. The University’s Office of Student Conduct investigated and found Doe culpable. It suspended Doe for one year and imposed conditions on his return to school. The medical school’s Student Promotions Committee recommended that Doe be expelled. Dean Jay Hess of the medical school rejected the Committee’s recommendation. So, as of March 2020, Doe was under suspension with a right to return in a year, after satisfying the conditions.
Doe then applied to the University’s MBA program at the Kelley School of Business. His application disclosed his suspension but described the Dean’s decision as an exoneration. This led to investigation by the University’s Prior Misconduct Review Committee, which told Dean Hess that Doe had “withheld pertinent information and gave false or incomplete information” to the business school. Dean Hess concluded, without inviting further response from Doe, that he is unfit to practice medicine and expelled him from the medical school, effective June 16, 2020.
That decision led to this litigation, in which Doe accuses the University of violating both the Due Process Clause of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment and Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681–88….
Substantive details omitted (see here for more), but here’s the pseudonymity analysis:
The norm in federal litigation is that all parties’ names are public. Judicial proceedings are open to the public, which has an interest in knowing the who and the how about the behavior of both judges and those who call on the large subsidy of the legal system.
One justification for anonymity is youth. Fed. R. Civ. P. 5.2(a)(3) requires the use of initials rather than names for minors. Otherwise “the complaint must name all the parties.” Doe is well into his adult years (recall that the events in question occurred while he was a medical student). A substantial risk of harm—either physical harm or retaliation by third parties, beyond the reaction legitimately attached to the truth of events as determined in court—may justify anonymity…. But “we have refused to allow plaintiffs to proceed anonymously merely to avoid embarrassment.” Doe does not contend
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