Court Opinion

ID: 9964034
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-26 20:01:13.329101+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:25:10.051316
License: Public Domain

In the

    United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                    ____________________

No. 22-1576
JOHN DOE,
                                               Plaintiff-Appellant,

                                v.

THE TRUSTEES OF INDIANA UNIVERSITY, et al.,
                                       Defendants-Appellees.
                    ____________________

        Appeal from the United States District Court for the
         Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis Division.
      No. 1:20-cv-02006-JRS-MJD — James R. Sweeney II, Judge.
                    ____________________

    ARGUED OCTOBER 27, 2022 — DECIDED APRIL 26, 2024
               ____________________

   Before EASTERBROOK, RIPPLE, and WOOD, Circuit Judges.
     EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. While John Doe was a medical
student at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapo-
lis, he had a romantic relationship with Jane Roe, a fellow stu-
dent, who accused him of physical abuse. The University’s
Oﬃce of Student Conduct investigated and found Doe culpa-
ble. It suspended Doe for one year and imposed conditions on
his return to school. The medical school’s Student Promotions
2                                                     No. 22-1576

CommiUee recommended that Doe be expelled. Dean Jay
Hess of the medical school rejected the CommiUee’s recom-
mendation. 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 sus-
pension but described the Dean’s decision as an exoneration.
This led to investigation by the University’s Prior Misconduct
Review CommiUee, 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 Ed-
ucation Amendments Act of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681–88. The
district court granted summary judgment to the defendants.
2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 59743 (S.D. Ind. Mar. 31, 2022).
   All of Doe’s misconduct took place oﬀ campus. (We refer
to his “misconduct” rather than “alleged misconduct,” be-
cause the University found that Doe engaged in physical vio-
lence against Roe.) There is some doubt how, if at all, Title IX
applies to student-against-student misconduct that appears to
be unrelated to a university or its facilities. See Davis v. Monroe
County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629, 645–48 (1999). This
case does not require us to address whether Title IX required
the University to investigate and act, because it did both. Any
contest under Title IX to the University’s response depends
on proof that it engaged in sex discrimination. 20 U.S.C.
No. 22-1576                                                      3

§1681(a). Coming to the wrong answer in deciding who was
to blame for unwelcome events in a romantic relationship, or
selecting an inappropriate response, or interviewing the
wrong potential witnesses, or listening to too few or too many
witnesses—these and similar maUers are of no concern under
federal law unless the defendants treated men worse than
women (or the reverse). And, as the district court explained,
the record does not support an inference of sex discrimina-
tion. 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 59743 at *11–24.
    After the administrative proceedings began, Doe and Roe
were ordered to stay away from each other. For two weeks
Doe was told to use the University’s facilities in West Lafa-
yeUe, while Roe was allowed to stay in Indianapolis. Doe calls
this sex discrimination. The district judge thought not, ob-
serving that Doe was the principal aggressor. Requiring a
wrongdoer to bear some of the cost of maintaining a no-con-
tact order is hard to call discriminatory. At all events, it is im-
possible to see how this brief relocation maUered to the ulti-
mate decision. Doe’s application to the Kelley School, and the
Dean’s response, came long after and were unrelated to who
was where during the investigation’s early days. Similarly,
the University’s delay in launching an investigation into
Doe’s complaint that Roe hit him on occasion did not contrib-
ute to the ultimate decision, and it is justiﬁed by the fact that
Doe elected not to pursue this charge against Roe.
    Finally, Doe insists that the members of the commiUees
and panels were trained to act in ways favorable to women
and rule against men. That serious charge is not borne out by
the record. The training materials that the judge examined
support a conclusion that the University’s personnel were
trained to favor complainants, but male as well as female
4                                                    No. 22-1576

students had access to the grievance machinery. More women
than men ﬁled complaints, but that can’t be described as sex
discrimination by Indiana University. Doe observes that one
slide (out of 91) in a training program states that 99% of the
perpetrators of sexual violence are men, but another slide re-
minds viewers that “most men are NOT perpetrators”. Still
other slides explain how men can be victims of sexual vio-
lence. The core question under Title IX is whether the people
who resolved Roe’s grievances “acted at least partly on the
basis of sex in [this] particular case.” Doe v. Purdue University,
928 F.3d 652, 669 (7th Cir. 2019). And of that Doe has not the
slightest evidence.
    Doe’s constitutional argument is stronger. The district
court thought that Doe’s claim fails because the University
provided plenty of process. There were hearings before mul-
tiple bodies. Doe could (and did) present both evidence and
argument; he enjoyed the assistance of counsel. He was suc-
cessful in persuading Dean Hess to set aside the Student Pro-
motions CommiUee’s recommendation that Doe be expelled.
How could so much process be constitutionally inadequate?
With respect to educational suspensions and expulsions, all
the Constitution requires is “some kind of hearing”. Goss v.
Lopez, 419 U.S. 565, 579 (1975). Notice and an opportunity for
informal comment suﬃce, Goss holds, and Doe had much
more. See University of Missouri v. HorowiD, 435 U.S. 78 (1978)
(declining to require elaborate adversarial hearings in aca-
demic seUings); Fenje v. Feld, 398 F.3d 620 (7th Cir. 2005)
(same). See also Henry J. Friendly, Some Kind of Hearing, 123
U. Pa. L. Rev. 1267 (1975).
   Yet the fact that Doe received lots of process does not mean
that he had an opportunity to be heard when it maUered most:
No. 22-1576                                                   5

after his application to the Kelley School. Before his applica-
tion, he was under a year’s suspension; afterward, he was ex-
pelled, with a statement by the Dean that would make any
other medical school reluctant to admit him and any hospital
reluctant to employ him if he ultimately received a degree.
Doe was allowed to communicate in writing with the Prior
Misconduct Review CommiUee, but after that—nothing. The
CommiUee denied Doe’s application to study at the business
school and sent a package of papers to Dean Hess at the med-
ical school. Doe did not know that this had happened until he
received the Dean’s leUer expelling him. We asked at oral ar-
gument whether Doe (and other similarly situated students)
received either notice or an opportunity to comment under
similar circumstances. The answer: an unequivocal “no.” It is
hard to see how this could satisfy even the minimal require-
ment of Goss.
    According to the University, the absence of process is ir-
relevant because students lack a property interest in a medical
education. The University is right that property interests de-
pend on statutes and contracts that create legitimate claims of
entitlement, see Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564 (1972),
but wrong to think that property lies in speciﬁc procedural
promises. Under the Supreme Court’s positivist approach,
statutes and contracts create legitimate claims of entitlement,
while constitutional law identiﬁes the process due. E.g., Cleve-
land Board of Education v. Loudermill, 470 U.S. 532 (1985). Cf.
Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 249–50 (1983) (state proce-
dures do not deﬁne liberty interests). As far as we can see, In-
diana University entitles medical students to ﬁnish their edu-
cations unless speciﬁed events happen—failure to pay tuition,
poor grades, violence against other students, and similar mat-
ters. The University does not assert that Dean Hess had
6                                                     No. 22-1576

authority to expel Doe for any reason Hess chose, such as
wearing loud clothes or mocking the football team. Doe thus
had a legitimate claim of entitlement to remain a student un-
less he transgressed a norm. That’s a property interest in con-
stitutional lingo and requires some kind of hearing.
    One more issue needs discussion before we remand. We
have so far referred to the plaintiﬀ as “John Doe.” That’s how
he referred to himself in the pleadings and briefs. But it is not
his real name. The district court said that it permiUed him “to
proceed under a pseudonym to protect his identity.” 2022 U.S.
Dist. LEXIS 59743 *1 n.1. That’s what a pseudonym does, but
this eﬀect is not a justiﬁcation. The norm in federal litigation is
that all parties’ names are public. See, e.g., Doe 3 v. Elmbrook
School District, 658 F.3d 710, 721–24 (7th Cir. 2011), adopted
on this issue by Doe v. Elmbrook School District, 687 F.3d 840,
842–43 (7th Cir. 2012) (en banc); Doe v. Smith, 429 F.3d 706, 710
(7th Cir. 2005); Roe v. DeQelbach, 59 F.4th 255, 259–60 (7th Cir.
2023). See also Doe v. Doe, 85 F.4th 206 (4th Cir. 2023) (same
general approach in another circuit). 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 mi-
nors. Otherwise “the complaint must name all the parties”.
Fed. R. Civ. P. 10(a). 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
aUached to the truth of events as determined in court—may
justify anonymity. Doe 3 discusses this consideration. But “we
No. 22-1576                                                  7

have refused to allow plaintiﬀs to proceed anonymously
merely to avoid embarrassment.” Roe v. DeQelbach, 59 F.4th at
259, citing Doe v. Deerﬁeld, 819 F.3d 372, 377 (7th Cir. 2016).
Doe does not contend that he is at risk of physical harm; his
asserted interest lies in protecting his reputation—even
though the University found that Doe commiUed physical vi-
olence against Roe.
    Consider what happens if someone is charged with crime,
as Doe could have been charged with assault and baUery. Pro-
ceedings before a grand jury are secret, see Fed. R. Crim. P.
6(e)(2)(B), but every indicted defendant’s name is open to the
public, despite the reputational harm to a person who is pre-
sumed innocent. Someone charged with a felony may be
shunned or encounter trouble ﬁnding a job, but a court would
not call that “retaliation” that justiﬁes anonymity. Knowing
that a potential student or employee has been charged with a
crime legitimately justiﬁes steps for self-protection. Or sup-
pose Roe had sued Doe for the tort of baUery. Again his name
would have been on the public record. Doe’s own suit illus-
trates how litigation can harm reputations. In addition to the
institutional defendants, the complaint names three natural
persons, including Dean Hess. Doe wants to protect his own
reputation but did not hesitate to expose Dean Hess to the
reputational injury that would follow from a judicial conclu-
sion that he violated Title IX or the Constitution.
     Why should a plaintiﬀ be able to shield himself from pub-
lic knowledge of his acts when throwing a harsh light on iden-
tiﬁed defendants? If there should be a diﬀerence, it ought to
run the other way—as plaintiﬀs enjoy an absolute privilege
against claims of defamation for what they say in their com-
plaints and briefs. Restatement (Second) of Torts §587. Why
8                                                    No. 22-1576

should plaintiﬀs be free to inﬂict reputational harm while
sheltering themselves from loss if it turns out that their
charges are unfounded? Especially not when the defendants
believe that the pseudonymous plaintiﬀ already has used se-
crecy to aUempt to deceive another entity (the Kelley School)
about what happened. (We do not say that Dean Hess was
right about this; the possibility of error is why the Constitu-
tion requires some kind of hearing.)
    Our decisions, like those in other circuits, have aﬀorded
district judges discretion to permit pseudonymous litigation
when the balance of harms justiﬁes it. In this case a magistrate
judge permiUed Doe to keep his name out of the public eye
even before the defendants had an opportunity to take a po-
sition. The magistrate judge’s brief opinion mentions a multi-
factor approach drawn from opinions of a few district judges,
an approach that has not been adopted by this circuit. For ex-
ample, the ﬁrst factor was whether the defendant is an educa-
tional institution. We don’t see how this consideration is per-
tinent. Suits by or against educational institutions are litigated
in the public view all the time. The magistrate judge also
wrote that disclosure would reveal “information of the ut-
most intimacy,” which is an odd way to describe the Univer-
sity’s ﬁnding that Doe engaged in assault and baUery. This
suit is not about what happened during sexual relations. It
presents a claim of sex discrimination, certainly, but the de-
fendants rather than Doe are the accused discriminators. Fed-
eral courts adjudicate thousands of sex-discrimination suits
annually without concealing the plaintiﬀs’ names.
    The magistrate judge found that Doe faces a risk of “stig-
matization from the community and the public at large”, yet
this circuit has held that embarrassment does not justify
No. 22-1576                                                      9

anonymity. The magistrate judge did not ﬁnd that Doe faces a
risk of physical harm or retaliation (and could not properly
have done so without an evidentiary hearing). For his part,
the district judge said only what we have already quoted: that
pseudonyms enable anonymity. That will not do. “It is im-
portant that a reviewing court be conﬁdent that the [district]
court actually engaged in the careful and demanding balanc-
ing of interests required in making this determination.” Doe
3, 658 F.3d at 722. That cannot be said of the events in this case.
     At oral argument we directed the parties to ﬁle supple-
mental briefs addressing the propriety of anonymity. Defend-
ants contended Doe’s name must be revealed. Doe, unsurpris-
ingly, took the contrary position. His submission tells us that
plaintiﬀs in Title IX suits regularly are allowed to conceal their
identities. But the assertion “this is how things have been
done” is not a justiﬁcation for doing them that way. It says
more about the litigation tactics used by plaintiﬀs’ lawyers
(such as inducing a magistrate judge to make a decision be-
fore defendants even have time to reply) than about legal en-
titlements. The principal appellate opinion that the magistrate
judge cited, Doe v. Columbia University, 831 F.3d 46 (2d Cir.
2016), recognized that the plaintiﬀ was using an alias but did
not analyze the propriety of that step. The same can be said of
Doe v. Purdue University, supra. Lots of other decisions are sim-
ilar and do not create a Title IX easement across the norm of
using litigants’ names. (The statute itself does not provide for
anonymous suits.)
   Neither Doe nor the district court relied on 20 U.S.C.
§1232g(b), which restricts institutions that receive federal
funds from releasing educational records under certain cir-
cumstances. (Doe mentions §1232g but does not develop an
10                                                   No. 22-1576

argument.) The statute does not apply directly; after all, Doe
is not an educational institution and is free to disclose his own
records. We need not and do not consider when, if ever, this
statute may limit public access to students’ identities—for ex-
ample, whether it oﬀers nonparties such as Roe greater pro-
tection than what is available to someone such as Doe who
sets litigation in motion.
    The district judge abused his discretion when permiUing
“John Doe” to conceal his name without ﬁnding that he is a
minor, is at risk of physical harm, or faces improper retalia-
tion (that is, private responses unjustiﬁed by the facts as de-
termined in court). Title IX litigation is not an exception to the
norm that adult litigants are identiﬁed by name.
    But it does not follow that we should immediately put the
real name in the public record. The magistrate judge’s ex parte
order allowed Doe to prosecute this suit in secret. Now that
we have found the assurance to be an abuse of discretion, Doe
is entitled to an opportunity to dismiss the suit under Fed. R.
Civ. P. 41(a)(2). This is how we proceeded in Doe v. Smith, 429
F.3d at 710. Plaintiﬀ may choose to withdraw the suit and
keep his name secret, just as he could have withdrawn the suit
had the magistrate judge ruled against him.
    The judgment is vacated and the case remanded to the dis-
trict court. If Doe elects to continue with the suit, his true
name must be disclosed to the public, and the district court
must decide what remedy is appropriate for Dean Hess’s fail-
ure to allow Doe an opportunity to present his position before
expelling him. If Doe elects not to reveal his name, the com-
plaint must be dismissed. The district court then would need
to decide, as Rule 41(a)(2) provides, whether the dismissal is
with or without prejudice.