Court ruling benefits both sides in John Doe v. Oberlin College expulsion case

A yearslong legal battle over whether Oberlin College improperly expelled a male student found responsible for sexually assaulting a female student in 2016 will continue after both the college and the student benefited from a ruling in a federal appeals court this month. An Oberlin College student going by the alias "John Doe" sued the college, its board of trustees and other officials in 2020. He alleged his constitutional rights to due process and protection from discrimination on the basis of sex under the federal civil rights law known as Title IX were violated. Doe was expelled from Oberlin College after a disciplinary panel found him guilty of sexually assaulting a female student going by the alias "Jane Roe" in court documents while she was intoxicated in February 2016. Nine days after the alleged assault, Roe told professor Meredith Raimondo — who as the college's Title IX coordinator is responsible for ensuring compliance with federal laws preventing sex discrimination on campus — that Doe had assaulted her. The case originally was going to go through "informal resolution," but Roe changed her mind and asked for a formal investigation after Doe hired a lawyer and a private investigator to gather more information about her allegations, both of which were his right under Oberlin's Sexual Misconduct Policy, according to his original lawsuit. Doe also filed a retaliation complaint with the college in 2019, alleging that Roe violated the Sexual Misconduct Policy's retaliation provision because he believed she changed her mind after he complained she was slandering him to other students, according to federal court records. Doe was investigated and expelled after a hearing process. An appeal to the college failed, and he sued in Lorain County Common Pleas Court in March 2020. The case was moved to U.S. District Court in Cleveland the following month, where U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster dismissed it. He ruled that Doe was not entitled to due process under federal law because Oberlin College is a private college and not a public one. Doe and his attorneys then appealed to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. They cited as evidence of sex discrimination that Oberlin College had found every male student accused of sexual misconduct during the 2015-16 school year guilty of at least one violation of the college's policy. That appeal was successful: Doe "has amply stated a claim for sex discrimination in violation of Title IX," Judges Raymond Kethledge and Chad Readler wrote in a 2-1 ruling, with Judge Ronald Lee Gilman dissenting. In a second appeal heard by a different panel of the 6th Circuit Court, Senior Judges Richard Suhrheinrich and Helene White and Judge Jane Stranch ruled partially in favor of the college and partially in favor of Doe.Oberlin College is not subject to federal due process requirements, but new facts that came out after Doe's initial federal lawsuit should be heard by the lower federal court, the judges ruled.Doe's private investigator told him her impression was that the college "had no plans to open a retaliation investigation into Roe," according to the appeals court. Assuming Doe's allegations were enough, "there was no certainty about what action Oberlin would take on Doe's retaliation claim" against Roe, the appeals court ruled. "After all, as Doe alleges, Oberlin took almost two months to officially begin its investigation into Roe's Title IX complaint." It was still possible Oberlin could have investigated Roe for retaliation, the appeals court ruled, and the Polster was right to dismiss Doe's lawsuit under those circumstances. However, the judges "have (since) learned that Oberlin closed its investigation into the incidents involving Doe and Roe. The questions undermining the ripeness of Doe's selective enforcement claims at filing have been answered" and should be heard by the district court, Stranch wrote on behalf of her fellow judges.Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Follow him on Twitter @DaveOBrienCT.