Doe v. Columbia Univ.
| Decision Date | 29 July 2016 |
| Docket Number | August Term, 2015,Docket Nos. 15-1536 (Lead),15-1661 (XAP) |
| Citation | 831 F.3d 46 |
| Parties | John Doe, Plaintiff-Appellant-Cross-Appellee, v. Columbia University, The Trustees of Columbia University, Defendants-Appellees-Cross-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Philip A. Byler, Nesenoff & Miltenberg, LLP, New York, NY, (Andrew T. Miltenberg, on the brief), for Plaintiff-Appellant-Cross-Appellee.
Paul R.Q. Wolfson, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Washington, DC, (Bruce M. Berman, Saurabh Sanghvi, Alan E. Schoenfeld, on the brief), for Defendants-Appellees-Cross-Appellants.
Before: LEVAL, DRONEY, Circuit Judges; KOELTL, District Judge.1
Leval
, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiff, a Columbia University student who is identified by the pseudonym John Doe, appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Furman, J. ), dismissing his amended complaint (“the Complaint”) under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6)
“for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted.” The Complaint alleges that Defendant Columbia University2 violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. (“Title IX”), and state law, by acting with sex bias in investigating him and suspending him for an alleged sexual assault. We conclude that the Complaint meets the low standard described in Littlejohn v. City of New York , 795 F.3d 297 (2d Cir. 2015), of alleging facts giving rise to a plausible minimal inference of bias sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss, which we hold applies in Title IX cases. We therefore VACATE the judgment and REMAND.
I. Factual Background
On a motion under Rule 12(b)(6)
to dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim, the only facts to be considered are those alleged in the complaint, and the court must accept them, drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor, in deciding whether the complaint alleges sufficient facts to survive. See
DiFolco v. MSNBC Cable L.L.C. , 622 F.3d 104, 110–11 (2d Cir. 2010). Furthermore, the plaintiff is at liberty to plead different theories, even if they are inconsistent with one another, and the court must accept each sufficiently pleaded theory at face value, without regard to its inconsistency with other parts of the complaint. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(d)(3) (); Gregory v. Daly , 243 F.3d 687, 701 n. 12 (2d Cir. 2001). Needless to say, the facts a plaintiff alleges in the complaint may turn out to be self-serving and untrue. But a court at this stage of our proceeding is not engaged in an effort to determine the true facts. The issue is simply whether the facts the plaintiff alleges, if true, are plausibly sufficient to state a legal claim. For that reason, the court, in judging the sufficiency of the complaint, must accept the facts alleged and construe ambiguities in the light most favorable to upholding the plaintiff's claim. If the complaint is found to be sufficient to state a legal claim, the opposing party will then have ample opportunity to contest the truth of the plaintiff's allegations and to offer its own version. In light of those rules, we set forth below facts alleged in Plaintiff's Complaint in the light most favorable to him, drawing reasonable inferences in his favor.
On the night of May 12, 2013, Plaintiff, a male Columbia freshman who upon completing his freshman year became a varsity athlete, was studying for a final exam in his residence hall. At approximately 1:00 a.m. a female classmate and member of the same circle of friends, identified in this litigation by the pseudonym Jane Doe, approached him and initiated a conversation. They took an hour-long walk together, and eventually began discussing the topic of “hooking up.” The Complaint alleges that, in the interest of privacy for a sexual encounter, Jane suggested using the bathroom of her dormitory's suite. She insisted on using her suite rather than his because her ex-boyfriend was Plaintiff's roommate. She told Plaintiff to wait in the bathroom while she went to her bedroom to retrieve a condom. She then undressed herself in the bathroom, and they proceeded to have sex. Over the next two weeks, Jane contacted Plaintiff twice to express doubts about how their friends would react.
After the start of the next school year, on September 24, 2013, Rosalie Siler, Defendant's Assistant Director for Gender-Based and Sexual Misconduct, contacted Plaintiff to inform him that a fellow student had made allegations of sexual assault against him, and advised him to come in for a meeting. The next day, Plaintiff met with Siler, who gave him a formal written notice that he was charged with “Non-Consensual Sexual Intercourse” in violation of the school's Gender-Based Misconduct Policies for Students (“GBMPS”), which established procedures for responding to allegations of sexual assault on campus. He was told that, as a consequence of Jane Doe's accusation, the University had issued an order barring him from contact with her and restricting his access to residence halls on campus. Although Plaintiff was advised that he was entitled to access the on-campus Counseling & Psychological Services, he was not advised of other sources of support during the disciplinary process.
Plaintiff was summoned to meet on September 25, 2013, with the Columbia Title IX investigator, Jilleian Sessions-Stackhouse, who Plaintiff alleges, referring to her prior experience, was not gender neutral. In her role as Title IX investigator, Sessions-Stackhouse was “charged with creating the narrative account that is eventually adopted by the [disciplinary] panel.” A 90. Plaintiff told Sessions-Stackhouse that the encounter had been consensual and that there had been witnesses at the residence hall lounge that night who could be helpful. The Complaint alleges that Sessions-Stackhouse's response was hostile. She did not ask him about the witnesses, interview them, or follow up with them in any way.3 According to Plaintiff, “[a]t all times, [he] was under the impression that Ms. Sessions-Stackhouse would investigate and follow up on [his] account of the evening once he conveyed his side of the story; [but] as it turns out, that never happened.” A 89.
According to the Complaint, Sessions-Stackhouse's questioning of Plaintiff was akin to cross-examination calculated to elicit a confession. She failed to tell him he could submit his own written statement to her or to the disciplinary panel, and failed also to advise him that he was entitled to seek the support of a student advocate. Nor did she advise him of resources available to him to aid him in the process.
Plaintiff alleges in contrast, upon information and belief, that, in meeting with Jane Doe, Sessions-Stackhouse took a narrative account without leading questions and without hostility, giving Jane thorough advice as to the resources available to her. The interviews conducted by Sessions-Stackhouse were not recorded. She took handwritten notes.
On October 21, 2013, Plaintiff reported to Siler that Jane Doe's friends had harassed and assaulted him on campus. Siler “did not take [his] complaint ... seriously.” A 91-92.
On October 22, 2013, Plaintiff met with Sessions-Stackhouse to review her notes from their previous meeting. He “observed that [her] notes inaccurately and inadequately paraphrased [Plaintiff's] verbal account of the events.” A 92. On January 25, 2014, Plaintiff met with Interim Assistant Director, Deputy Title IX Coordinator Virginia Ryan (Siler's replacement) to review Sessions-Stackhouse's report.
According to the Complaint, the report falsely depicted Plaintiff as having inflicted nonconsensual sex on Jane Doe, by virtue of having coercively pressured her over a period of weeks to have sex with him.4 The report showed that Sessions-Stackhouse had disregarded Plaintiff's account of Jane Doe's clearly expressed consent, and failed to reconcile Jane's account with conflicting information provided to Sessions-Stackhouse by India Knight, who was a friend of Jane's, about Jane's motivation on May 12. The report also allegedly failed to include statements of persons, including Jane's roommate, “who had occasion to witness Jane Doe in the weeks before” the encounter as well as on that night. A 104-05, 95. Plaintiff attempted to correct Sessions-Stackhouse's mistakes. Ryan gave Plaintiff a form to state his response, which he completed and returned on January 29, 2014.
Soon thereafter, Ryan provided Plaintiff with a hearing date of February 12 and gave him a list of the panelists. According to Plaintiff, at no point during the investigative process did Sessions-Stackhouse, or any administrator, advise him that he was entitled to seek advice and counsel from his Dean of Students.
In the period preceding Plaintiff's disciplinary hearing, Columbia students had expressed concern that the University did not take seriously the complaints of female students about sexual assaults by male students. Various student organizations had “alleged that the school [was] not being firm enough in the disciplinary process” in cases involving accusations by female students of sexual misconduct by male students. A 97. This controversy reached the press. On December 11, 2013, a New York Post article declared, “Columbia drops ball on jock ‘rapist’ probe: students.” Id. The article quoted several female students asserting that Columbia had mishandled their sexual assault complaints, failing to act with expediency in investigating, giving lenient sanctions, and conveying an overall tenor of “dismissal” with regard to the serious nature of the complaints. The article stated that the University's...
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