Can Vanderbilt Student Suspended for Alleged False Accusations Sue Vanderbilt Pseudonymously?
An excerpt from Magistrate Judge Jeffery Frensley’s opinion Friday in Poe v. Lowe (M.D. Tenn.):
In the fall of 2020, Plaintiff Parker Poe enrolled as an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University. Plaintiff took a leave of absence from school in April 2022, during which time he and others anonymously made and shared posts on at least two social media websites concerning Roe. Some of those posts alleged that Roe had sexually assaulted women.
Roe disputed the allegations and filed a lawsuit to uncover the identities of the anonymous posters. Poe was revealed as one of the posters. Roe and members of his family provided this information to Vanderbilt officials who opened an investigation of Poe for apparent violations of several provisions of the Vanderbilt Student Handbook. After a nearly two-month investigation, university officials concluded that Poe had committed three violations of the Student Handbook. Plaintiff was accordingly suspended from school, among other sanctions. Poe’s subsequent appeal of his sanctions was unsuccessful, and his suspension began in April 2023.
Plaintiff filed the present complaint in Tennessee state court in March 2024 against Defendants for their actions in investigating and sanctioning Plaintiff. He contemporaneously filed a motion to proceed pseudonymously, which the state court granted. Defendants removed this action [to federal court] in April 2024 and filed the motion to reconsider shortly thereafter. Plaintiff then filed his amended complaint wherein he made hundreds of references to Roe using Roe’s legal name. The Court granted Roe’s emergency motion to intervene, temporarily sealed the amended complaint, and ordered the parties to confer regarding Roe and Poe’s pseudonymity. After failing to resolve the issue, Roe filed the “Motion to Protect,” seeking to permanently seal the amended complaint and require the use of pseudonyms for references to himself and his family members for the durat
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