Title IX Victory: Falsely Accused Student Awarded Six-Figure Settlement In Sexual Assault Case

A University of Illinois-Bloomington student was awarded six figures in damages after a jury found the university had discriminated against him based on his sex.

The student, who will be referred to as John Doe, appears to be the first student who has won on Title IX grounds – that is, he was found to be discriminated against specifically because he was a male and not on the grounds that the school breached its contract with him.

In June 2020, John was a student at IU and matched with a woman who will be referred to as Jane Doe on a dating app. On the evening of June 16, 2020, Jane texted John and agreed to come to his house for a date, even after John suggested meeting somewhere else. Jane arrived at John’s house, and the two talked for a bit. They had two glasses of wine, including a glass Jane had poured for each of them.

Just after midnight, Jane received a phone call from a friend asking if she needed a ride home, but she said no. She texted the friend about 40 minutes later to say “looks like I’ll be here a hot minute,” according to court documents reviewed by The Daily Wire.

Jane would later claim that immediately after this, she “blacked out” and didn’t remember anything that happened – and suggested that John had drugged her.

John says in his lawsuit against the university that Jane showed no signs of incapacitation or being blacked out – which is a state of mind where the brain doesn’t form short-term memories, but people in such a state can appear completely coherent. He said Jane started kissing him, and the two went up to his room where they, two math majors, completed complex math problems. The two then laid down in John’s bed and, according to John, Jane initiated sexual contact with him, removing her shirt and bra and initiating kissing.

John said in his lawsuit that he asked to stop, feeling they were moving too fast. He went to the bathroom and returned to find Jane asleep in his bed, so he got into bed next to her and fell asleep as well.

At some point, Jane started receiving calls from her roommate but wouldn’t wake up when John tried to let her know. He said he eventually answered the call and said Jane was asleep and didn’t want to talk. Jane’s roommate told him that she was coming to get Jane.

This roommate later said they found Jane naked in John’s bed and that she appeared “out of it.” With John’s help, the roommate and another friend gathered Jane’s things and left John’s house.

Early the next morning, John texted Jane to say he was “sorry about last night,” referring to the awkwardness of Jane leaving his home. Jane claimed she didn’t know what happened and that her roommate was mad at her. Jane claimed she “did not know how she got that drunk” and told John she was “really sorry,” according to court documents.

The two discussed the events of the previous night and Jane’s level of intoxication. About seven hours after their encounter, Jane texted John, saying, “You do realize you sexually assaulted me, right? I just talked to my roommate and got a much better idea of what happened last night.”

John didn’t respond.

A couple of days later, Jane went to the hospital for a rape test kit and drug test. She then reported John to the police and IU. Police investigated, and no charges were brought, but IU went ahead with its own investigation that didn’t allow John full use of counsel, denied him the ability to cross-examine witnesses, and gave him only a single, time-limited chance to see the evidence against him.

He was found not responsible for drugging Jane – and she never turned over the results of her drug test – but was still found responsible for sexually assaulting her, even by her own admission she only had 2-and-a-half glasses of wine.

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John sued the university, and the case went all the way to a jury trial, which ruled in favor of John and awarded him $136,782.60, which, according to his attorney, Jonathan Little, is less than what he paid in legal fees.

Little told The Daily Wire that he typically represents victims but has been taking cases involving false accusations of men on college campuses.

“The process given to these men is just a farce,” he said, noting that the current campus climate at IU and other schools “gives the impression that any young lady can run to Illinois University and cry rape.”

He added that IU spent the trial going over its policies, essentially arguing that it could follow its own policies and not the law set forth under Title IX.

“IU’s hubris lost them this case and I hope that what we did is replicable – I believe that it is – and I hope that other lawyers can look at this and do the same thing,” he told The Daily Wire.

The university did not respond to a Daily Wire inquiry prior to press time.