Several responses were filed last week in a Title IX lawsuit against Purdue University over how the school handled reports of sexual assault on its campus.
In September, a jury found Purdue retaliated against a student who came forward with reports of a sexual assault and treated her differently because she was a woman.
The jury also found that the conduct of Alyssa Rollock, Vice-President for Ethics and Compliance at Purdue, and Katie Sermersheim, Associate Provost and Dean of Students at Purdue, was in “malicious or in reckless disregard” of the student’s rights.
The jury did not order the Purdue administrators to pay damages, and also did not find that they had treated the student differently because she was a woman.
In October, the university urged the court to rule in their favor, alleging the jury had made a “logic error” by finding the university had treated a student differently because she was a woman but individual administrators had not.
In their response, the plaintiff’s attorneys wrote that they found no such error in the jury’s decision - pointing out that while Purdue administrators did not individually violate the Equal Protections clause, they did act with malicious disregard of the student’s rights.
“It is no defense to a Title IX complaint to say, ‘We retaliate against ALL students who make complaints of sexual harassment, male and female,’” attorneys wrote.
Attorneys also outlined what they called the school’s continued “retaliatory behavior” toward the student.
“Despite a verdict that they violated the law, they continue to call the Plaintiff ‘dishonest’ in court filings and elsewhere” attorneys wrote. “They have even gone so far as attempting to publicly reveal her identity by linking to it on the docket. Nothing the Plaintiff or her attorneys can do appears to protect her from this continuing campaign of spite.”
Purdue University has also appealed the court's initial verdict to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
An attorney for the university did not respond to a request for comment.
