Doe v. Ohio State University, 219 F. Supp. 3d 645

Background

John Doe, an OSU joint M.D./M.B.A. student, was expelled after a university Conduct Board found he had sex with a classmate, Jane Roe, who testified she had no memory of the encounter.
Doe alleges OSU administrators knew Roe had an incentive to fabricate (she faced dismissal from medical school but later received an accommodation to repeat the year) and withheld that information from him before the hearing.
Doe sued OSU and five administrators alleging violations of procedural due process; he proceeded anonymously. Defendants moved to dismiss based on Eleventh Amendment immunity and qualified immunity.
The district court treated OSU and official-capacity claims as Eleventh Amendment questions and analyzed individual-capacity claims under qualified immunity, applying Mathews and Sixth Circuit student-discipline precedents.
The court dismissed OSU and official-capacity claims (no prospective relief sought), dismissed claims against investigator Majarían, denied dismissal as to four administrators on certain allegations, and permitted limited discovery on panel training and nondisclosure of Roe’s accommodation.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Eleventh Amendment immunity for OSU and officials in official capacity	Doe seeks declaratory relief that would effectively clear his record and enable re-enrollment; this is prospective relief outside Eleventh Amendment bar	OSU and officials are arms of the State; claims seek retrospective relief and are barred by Eleventh Amendment	Official-capacity claims and OSU dismissed; no plausible request for prospective reinstatement was pled
Qualified immunity re: investigation adequacy (Majarían)	Investigation was biased and incomplete; investigator knew of impeaching facts and failed to pursue them	Due process does not require any particular investigative thoroughness; focus is on decisionmaker, not investigator	Dismissed as to Majarían: no clearly established right to a particular investigatory depth
Panel training bias (Brennan)	Training emphasized victim advocacy/statistics and omitted due-process training, producing actual bias against accused	Adjudicators are presumptively neutral and training alone does not show actual bias	Claim survives as to Title IX coordinator (Brennan) because alleged one-sided training plausibly produced bias; limited discovery allowed on training; other admins dismissed on this theory for lack of specific allegations
Failure to disclose impeachment evidence (FERPA/Brady tension)	Administrators knew of Roe’s accommodation and timing; nondisclosure prevented effective impeachment and denied meaningful cross-examination	No Brady duty in disciplinary proceedings; disclosure may violate FERPA; no clearly established constitutional rule requiring such disclosures	Court declined to extend Brady to this context but found nondisclosure could still plausibly violate due process where case hinges on credibility; permitted limited discovery to determine who knew what and whether testimony was misleading
Right to counsel, discovery, expert testimony, cross-examination format	Doe: needed active counsel, pre-hearing discovery, live expert, and effective cross-examination to ensure fairness	Defendants: no constitutional right to active counsel, formal discovery, live expert testimony, or trial-like cross-examination in university hearings	Court held no clearly established right to active counsel, pre-hearing discovery, or live expert testimony; permitted that re-wording of cross-exam questions did not on its face deny due process

Key Cases Cited

McCormick v. Miami Univ., 693 F.3d 654 (6th Cir.) (Eleventh Amendment arm-of-state and Ex parte Young analysis)
Will v. Mich. Dep’t of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (state-officials-in-official-capacity = suit against State)
Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (permits prospective injunctive relief against state officers)
Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (student disciplinary due process baseline)
Flaim v. Med. Coll. of Ohio, 418 F.3d 629 (6th Cir.) (standards for fundamental fairness in medical-school expulsion hearings)
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (prosecutorial duty to disclose favorable/impeachment evidence in criminal cases)
Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (balancing test for what process is due)
Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (qualified-immunity framework)