This lawsuit was filed on September 30th of last year and has just settled without any critical judicial decision (motion to dismiss, for summary judgment, etc.). It argued that MSU failed to provide Doe with sufficient notice of the charges against him before they summoned him into a meeting with administrators.

In particular, the notice was “so vague that John did not know what it was in reference to: it did not identify who filed the complaint, where or when the alleged incident occurred, or what the incident actually was.” However, “the tone of the meeting established an atmosphere where John felt like Mr. Gordon and Ms. Butler were on his side.”

Key Points in the Complaint

Essentially, this looks like one of those cases where the administrators summon a student to their office for an unannounced fishing expedition.

Afterward, the University circulated a “memorandum” to both parties for them to review. It was “riddled with inaccuracies”:

The complaint also stated that:

“MSU found John responsible for a Policy violation and subsequently denied his appeal while failing to provide any rationale for its decisions, further demonstrating that MSU’s process was merely a superficial façade designed to meet its end goal of having John suspended for four-years.”

There appear to be many other problems with the way MSU handled this case, both in terms of bias and general incompetence, and the complaint is rather detailed in describing both. In addition, this appears to be a sympathetic plaintiff: he was a student with a good academic record whose grades and mental health plummeted the more serious his relationship with the complainant became, and both his grades and health substantially improved after breaking up with the complainant.

Until, of course, he was accused of raping her.

The complaint can be read here. The critical documents of this case can, of course, be found in our Title IX Lawsuits Database.