## Facts

- John Doe, a University of Cincinnati (UC) graduate student, and Jane Roe met online, later met in person, and had sex at Doe’s apartment.
- Doe maintained the encounter was consensual; Roe reported it as sexual assault.
- There was no physical evidence corroborating either account, making the dispute turn on credibility.
- Roughly three weeks later, Roe reported the allegation to UC’s Title IX Office; several months after that, UC charged Doe under its student conduct policies.
- UC adjudicated the matter through an Administrative Review Committee (ARC); under UC procedures, witnesses need not appear and may provide written statements instead.
- Roe did not appear at the ARC hearing, but the ARC found Doe responsible based on Roe’s prior statements relayed through investigators and other witnesses.
- UC imposed a two-year suspension, later reduced on administrative appeal to one year.
- Doe sued, alleging that denying any meaningful opportunity to confront his accuser violated Fourteenth Amendment due process; the district court granted a preliminary injunction against enforcing the suspension.

## Issues

1. Whether a public university violates Fourteenth Amendment due process by imposing a significant suspension in a credibility-determinative sexual-misconduct case without providing any meaningful opportunity to confront and question the accuser.
2. Whether, at the preliminary-injunction stage, the accused student showed a strong likelihood of success on that due process claim.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed the preliminary injunction.
- Applying the Mathews v. Eldridge framework, the court held Doe showed a strong likelihood of success that the proceeding was fundamentally unfair.
- Given the severe sanction and the “he said/she said” nature of the evidence, the total absence of any real-time confrontation of Roe created an unacceptably high risk of erroneous deprivation.
- UC’s interests in campus safety, Title IX compliance, and administrative efficiency did not justify completely dispensing with confrontation where credibility was dispositive.
- The court also agreed the equitable factors supported injunctive relief, including irreparable harm from suspension and stigma.

## Legal Principles

- Public university discipline resulting in long-term exclusion must satisfy the Due Process Clause’s requirement of fundamental fairness.
- What process is due is assessed under Mathews v. Eldridge: the private interest, the risk of erroneous deprivation and value of added safeguards, and the government’s interests.
- Due process does not require full criminal-trial procedures in campus hearings, but when liability turns solely on competing credibility accounts and serious sanctions are at stake, some mechanism for real-time confrontation and questioning of the accuser is generally required.
- Reliance on hearsay statements alone, coupled with a complete denial of confrontation, can render a university disciplinary proceeding fundamentally unfair.

## Conclusion

The court held that where a public university adjudicates a sexual-misconduct charge based entirely on credibility and imposes a substantial suspension, due process likely requires some opportunity to confront and question the accuser; UC’s failure to provide any such opportunity supported a preliminary injunction against enforcing Doe’s suspension.


Doe v. Univ. of Cincinnati, 872 F.3d 393 (6th Cir. 2017)