Princeton University Faces Lawsuit Over Title IX Violations
Princeton University is facing a lawsuit that accuses the university of engaging in Title IX violations, among other wrongdoings. The lawsuit was filed on June 20 by an anonymous male student, “John Doe.” The lawsuit names the trustees of the university as defendants and accuses them of breach of contract, negligence, and violations of Title IX.
The complaint describes that Doe began studying at the university in 2022. Soon after, two women, Jane Roe and Sarah Smith, who are described as friends, filed separate charges that alleged Doe choked them on two different occasions. After a disciplinary hearing in front of the school’s board, Doe was suspended from the university for two years.
Doe’s lawsuit maintains that the choking incidents never happened and that the disciplinary hearing was heavily biased against him.
The lawsuit describes that the two victims who filed their charges recounted “curiously similar behavior” in which Doe allegedly choked them in public. However, a witness to the choking incident involving student Sarah Smith, referred to in the lawsuit as Student 4, says that the story Smith told was not true.
The complaint also alleged that during the investigation, Smith’s story “see-sawed wildly.” According to court papers, Smith told investigators Doe choked her and “lifted off the ground” for “5-6 seconds.” She would later share a different story in which Doe did not squeeze her neck, but “pressed on the front.”
Doe argues that the school's judgment was heavily biased against him. The lawsuit explains, “Like the investigation, John’s hearing was also rife with bias and prejudgment.” The lawsuit continues, “According to a source involved in the panel’s deliberative process, most of the panel members had decided John was guilty before the hearing even started, and one of them — Professor Elizabeth Harman — even gave an impassioned speech arguing not just that John was guilty, but that it would be a ‘moral failing’ to vote for anything other than expulsion, which the source believed intimidated the student members of the panel into finding him responsible.”
The complaint argues the board of trustees violated their breach of duty because they failed to follow the University’s Code when moving through the disciplinary hearing with Doe. The university failed to apply the “Clear and Persuasive” standard when handling his case, denied his appeal, and rejected other elements that should have been followed per the University's code.
Under violations of Title IX, Doe says the University engaged in “gender bias” that deemed Doe guilty of the accusations against him because Princeton gave differential treatment to cases of assault brought by women against men.
A Princeton University spokesperson shared a statement following the lawsuit. The statement read in part, “We believe this suit is without merit and will contest it vigorously. We are confident this situation was handled in accordance with University policy.”
Doe’s lawsuit is asking the university to vacate his suspension, expunge any disciplinary hearing from his record, reinstate his enrollment at the school, and pay damages.
