The Supreme Court defended an earlier ruling from Justice Amy Coney Barrett, deferring to a decision Barrett and her appeals court colleagues made when she sat on the bench for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Monday, the court declined to take up the case of John Doe v. Purdue, a lawsuit in which an anonymous student sued the school for unfairly finding him guilty of sexual assault and suspending him for a year, a punishment that cost him his spot in the Navy ROTC program.
The case led to one of the most influential appellate decisions on campus sexual assault which was issued by a three-judge panel, that included Barrett, in 2019.
In a decision siding with the student, the appeals court agreed that the university violated his right to due process and engaged in gender discrimination under Title IX.
In an opinion and order authored by Barrett, the panel said it was “plausible” that Purdue’s investigation panel “chose to believe Jane [Doe] because she is a woman and to disbelieve John because he is a man.”
“The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied,” the Supreme Court’s Monday order list stated. “Justice Barrett took no part in the consideration or decision of this petition.”
