Women students, expelled after reporting assaults, sue Purdue

Purdue University has been hit with another lawsuit over expelling students following investigations into allegations of sexual assaults, but in this instance, the students banished from the school were the accusers.

The plaintiffs, who filed under the pseudonyms of Mary Doe and Nancy Roe, claimed the university retaliated against them after they each reported separate attacks by different male students. They claim Purdue violated Title IX while the investigation was “slipshod” and the investigators made “discriminatory assumptions” about each woman’s behavior.

“Purdue treated the Plaintiffs as if they were the accused harassers, imposed lesser penalties on the male students who were accused of harassment, and punished the Plaintiffs for making protected Title IX complaints,” the complaint stated.

The lawsuit, Mary Doe and Nancy Roe v. Purdue University, et al., 4:18-cv-00089, was filed Nov. 13 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.

According to the complaint, Purdue has implemented a policy that allows for women to face discipline, including expulsion, if they cannot prove their claims to the satisfaction of the university’s decisionmakers. Both women have since appealed, and their expulsions have been converted to two-year suspensions.

Purdue is not the only Indiana university facing lawsuits over investigations into sexual assaults. To date, at least 10 complaints have been filed in federal court against at least six Indiana institutions of higher education. However, this appears to be the first lawsuit filed by the accusers who were dismissed after alleging they were assaulted.  

Doe, 20, claims she was assaulted in her dorm room by a male student who had threatened another female student’s life and had since been excluded from the campus. She reported the incident to university policy and spoke with a university investigator but then exercised her right to refrain from participating in the investigation.

The lawsuit asserts the university held Doe’s decision not to take part in the investigation against her and did not give her notice that she had become the target of the investigation. In the end, Purdue alleged Doe had fabricated the assault and expelled her.

Roe, 21, alleges she was assaulted by a male student who walked her to her dorm room after she became intoxicated at a fraternity party. The male student, according to the complaint, served the drinks to Roe.

Although Roe was incapable of consenting, she claims the male student sexually assaulted her, choked her, and made audio recordings of the assault. Roe received medical treatment for her injuries and reported the incident to the university. Purdue investigated and determined Roe had made the report maliciously and expelled her.

Both women are alleging Purdue violated Title IX by denying them federally guaranteed equal access to educational opportunities and by suspending them, which was unlawful retaliation. They also claim the decision to suspend them violated their constitutionally guaranteed right to equal protection and due process.

The women are seeking reinstatement to Purdue and an award for compensatory and punitive damages plus attorney fees.

This is the second lawsuit filed against Purdue University filed after the school’s investigation into another allegation of sexual assault. The first lawsuit, filed by a male student identified as John Doe, claimed the university used a “Kafkaesque process” to investigate the accusations made against him by a former girlfriend.

Similar to the two women students, Doe asserts Purdue violated Title IX as well as the 14^th Amendment’s right to due process. He claims the investigation into the allegations did not include any kind of hearing, allow for cross-examination or sworn testimony, and he was not provided access to the evidence, so he could not adequately defend himself against the allegations.

The university determined John Doe violated the school’s anti-harassment policy and suspended him for one academic year.

Doe filed a lawsuit but after the Northern District of Indiana Court granted summary judgment to Purdue, he appealed to the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals, Oral arguments in John Doe v. Purdue University et al., 17-3565, were heard Sept. 18, 2018.