Elijah Wells v. Creighton Preparatory School, No. 22-2340 (8th Cir. 2023)
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Creighton Preparatory School expelled Plaintiff after he made lewd remarks about a teacher. Plaintiff sued Creighton under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 on the theory that the school had discriminated against him by failing to perform an “adequate and impartial investigation.” The district court granted Creighton’s motion to dismiss. It first dismissed the Title IX claim because Plaintiff had failed to “allege [that] his sex played any part in the disciplinary process at all.” Then, with the federal question gone, it declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s breach-of-contract claim.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that Plaintiff does not allege that Creighton faced external pressure to punish male students, much less gave in by expelling him. The court reasoned that without an allegation of that kind, the complaint fails to plausibly allege the sort of “causal connection between the flawed outcome and gender bias” required to make an erroneous outcome theory work.
Further, the court wrote that treating men and women differently can support an inference of sex discrimination, but it requires identifying a similarly situated member of the opposite sex who has been “treated more favorably.” For Plaintiff, he had to find “a female accused of sexual harassment” who received better treatment. There are no female students at Creighton, an all-boys school, let alone any who have faced sexual-misconduct allegations. The court explained that to the extent that Plaintiff argues that believing them over him raises an inference of discrimination, there is nothing alleged that the school did so because of his sex.
Court Description: [Stras, Author, with Shepherd and Kobes, Circuit Judges] Civil case -Title IX. Plaintiff failed to plausibly allege that the defendant school discriminated against him on the basis of sex; assuming for the purpose of analysis that plaintiff's allegations gave rise to an inference of bias, nothing in the complaint plausibly linked his expulsion to the fact that he is male; similarly, his alternative theory that the all-male school engaged in selective enforcement, plaintiff could not point to a female student who faced sexual-misconduct allegations or anything plausibly alleging discrimination based on gender; there is no private right of action to enforce 34 C.F.R. Sec. 106.8(c) regarding publication of grievance procedures; the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff's state law claim for breach of contract. [ September 19, 2023 ]
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