A young man is suing Princeton College after the anvil of feminism led to a botched Title IX investigation against him — after two girls who allegedly teamed up to accuse the young man of “choking” them both and he was suspended last year.
College officials use Title IX investigations to get at the root of sexual assault and misconduct allegations: Did she really get assaulted? Is this man the culprit? But in John Doe’s case, a miscarriage of justice is evident.
And not only did Princeton suspend Doe, but there’s also a black-mark on his transcript now— alerting future colleges, grad schools, and employers that he was found responsible for misconduct while he was a young student.
But do the women’s claims hold up?
According to the suit, one young woman, referred to as “Jane Roe” in the suit, claimed that Doe choked her. At least, that was when her story was straight. The only unbiased witness at the scene said there was no choking at all, but rather, that Jane was drunk and became inconsolable.
Then, after speaking with an investigator, Jane claimed that Doe “grabbed [her] throat and lifted [her] off the ground” for “5-6 seconds.” Then, her story flip-flopped and she claimed he never squeezed her neck at all, but rather just “press[ed] from the front” and curiously…. that she “was mostly upset about how he handled the aftermath.”
This isn’t Jane’s first rodeo.
Recently, she settled a defamation suit that was brought against her by another male student. Coincidentally enough, that was related to her accusing a different male student of choking her.
It is quite unusual for women to be choked on a college campus. More unusual is it happening twice, by two different guys, to the same person. Cameras swarm college campuses, why not check the footage?
The next woman who accused John Doe of harassment, referred to as “Sarah” in the suit, had an oddly similar story to Jane… almost too similar. Sarah too claimed that she was “choked” by Mr. Doe.
Next, Sarah “changed her story in exactly the same way that Jane did” according to the suit.
“What started as a choking became John’s pressing against her neck from the front as they talked” according to the lawsuit, which is almost exactly how the other girl changed her story after being questioned.
In an affront to due process, the Princeton investigator, a Professor, decided to combine the cases from both girls, despite both cases happening weeks apart and despite the possible confabulation between the two girls.
Furthermore, at the start of the trial in 2023, the Professor argued that it would be a “moral failing” for the panel to vote for anything less than expulsion. She was quick to argue she was not sleeping during the interview, but didn’t respond back about how her words might have further prejudiced the school against the anonymous young man.
Those glaring issues and inconsistencies are the tip of the iceberg. The lawsuit points out:
-Jane told Princeton that she first found out she’d been choked when Sarah told her about it. Yet the day after the incident, she’d admitted in a text to John that Sarah had told her she’d seen no such thing.-Jane told Princeton she’d cut off all contact with John in late July of 2022, but John submitted photos showing that he, Jane, and Sarah traveled together after that and even stayed with his family for several nights in late August.-In her first interview, Sarah told Princeton that Jane didn’t have any bruises on her neck after the alleged choking—a fact confirmed by contemporaneous photographs. But in a later interview, Sarah changed her story and claimed that Jane did have bruising.
The evidence needed to put a black mark on John Doe’s college transcript must be “clear and convincing”, but was it?
Justin Dillon, a noted men’s due process lawyer, was sure to add that the investigator determining the future of these students cared so little that she literally fell asleep as the only witness was called.
The Professor claimed she wasn’t sleeping, asserting that you can “see her eyes open and that she was looking down to take notes”.
This all happened, of course, before Mr. Doe knew that the school’s Committee on Discipline (COD) had convicted 98% of all students who have come before their kangaroo court according to recent data, as reflected in the court complaint
Among 700 cases investigated in the 2021-2022 academic year, Princeton found 98% of students guilty of various infractions. This is actually quite strange, because there are only about 8,000 students on campus at any given time.
700 cases of misconduct for 8,000 students seems quite high, and raises my concerns over whether administrative bloat may be trampling student’s expression. I reached out to Princeton University’s press office to ask about the lawsuit and the absurd number of misconduct cases.
“We believe this suit is without merit and will contest it vigorously. We are confident this situation was handled in accordance with University policy” says Jennifer Morril, Director of Media Relations at Princeton.
As for the 700 cases of misconduct in one academic year, Morril suggested that she was unclear of where that number came from. However, she did provide me with a copy of the Princeton 2021-2022 Disciplinary Report, which showed that 1,023 students went through the school’s discipline process — nearly 48% more students than initially thought.
And what might the schools be investigating? They don’t refer to things as “crimes”, only as categories. Over 700 people were found responsible for “health and safety” violations, and 29 students found guilty of theft.
Most infractions are so small that the student doesn’t even have a real consequence. Only 27 were suspended, and 13 students were put on probation. Which raises another question: why is the school doing so much investigating if they aren’t going to actually discipline most students?
And if these girls were really choked, as they claimed, why didn’t they go to the authorities or why didn’t Princeton encourage them to report him to the police? Choking is a life-threatening assault? Why play God?
John Doe’s case is ongoing. He was suspended for two years, but it is unclear if he will be able to, or want to, return to Princeton after his lawsuit is settled. The student is charging the school with a failure to conduct a fair hearing, investigation, and failure to provide a meaningful rationale for his suspension.
This lawsuit was brought to the public attention by Jonathan Taylor, who runs a database tracking the lawsuits students file against their colleges after they face a false accusation. The database is useful to me as a journalist, but — at the cost of a frappuccino — is also useful for parents, researchers and others in academia.
“Our databases are unique in that they are tailored to Title IX matters and especially accused student matters, meaning people can often get the information they seek more efficiently than if they used other databases—some of which are prohibitively expensive,” he tells Legal Insurrection.
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Toni Airaksinen is a journalist covering education in West Palm Beach County. Her works reflect a focus on due process for accused students, The First Amendment, and individual rights. Follow me for future developments on Instagram (click here!) or Twitter (here!).
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