Poe v. Lowe

1

PARKER ROE, Plaintiff, v. DR. MELANIE LOWE, et al., Defendants.

No. 3:24-cv-00368

United States District Court, M.D. Tennessee, Nashville Division

November 13, 2024

MEMORANDUM OPINION

WAVERLY D. CRENSHAW, JR. UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Following his academic suspension, Plaintiff Parker Poe^[1] brought a ten-count complaint against Vanderbilt University (“Vanderbilt”), Associate Professor Dr. Melanie Lowe (“Lowe”), Director of Student Accountability Dr. Jeremy Bourgoin (“Bourgoin”), former Assistant Dean of Students, Community Standards and Support Neil Jamerson (“Jamerson”), Director of Student Care Network and Student Care Coordination Lisa Clapper (“Clapper”), Executive Director of Student Access Service Dr. Jamie Bojarski (“Bojarski”), and Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Students, School of Engineering Dr. Cynthia Paschal (“Paschal”) (collectively, “Defendants”), alleging various statutory violations, torts, and a breach of contract. Before the Court is Defendants' Motion to Dismiss First Amended Complaint (Doc. No. 62) (“Motion”), to which Poe has responded in opposition (Doc. No. 77), and the Defendants replied (Doc. No. 83). For the following reasons, the Motion will be granted in part and denied in part.

I.FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS^[2]

A. Background and Events Leading to the Disciplinary Procedure

Vanderbilt is a private research University, located in Nashville Tennessee, that receives federal funding. (Doc. No. 34 ¶¶ 14, 385). All other defendants were employees of Vanderbilt “[a]t all times relevant.” (Id. ¶¶ 11-13, 15-17). Poe attended Vanderbilt as a student. (Id. ¶ 20). Underlying this lawsuit is a disciplinary procedure against Poe, which resulted in Poe's suspension and additional sanctions. Poe alleges that irregularities in this procedure were illegal.

The FAC, which incorporates Vanderbilt's Student Handbook for the 2021 to 2022 school year (“Handbook”) and Vanderbilt's Standards of Conduct (“Standards”), alleges that Poe enrolled at Vanderbilt in 2020. (Id. ¶ 20). In 2022, Poe “took a semester off from Vanderbilt to prepare and apply to a highly competitive and specialized internship.” (Id. ¶ 21). Poe later accepted a job offer with an out-of-state company for the Spring semester of 2023, during which he took remote classes at Vanderbilt to remain on track to graduate. (Id. ¶¶ 21-23).

In April of 2022, while he was away from campus, Poe felt “a moral and ethical obligation to take a stand with the victims of sexual assault,” which prompted him to repost allegations of sexual assault and “roofying”^[3] against another student, Simon Roe (“Roe”),^[4] on a social media platform called Yik Yak.^[5] (Id. ¶¶ 22-23). Poe had no personal knowledge of wrongdoing by Roe but had “learned about [Roe's] negative reputation from various credible sources, including other students and numerous social media posts.” (Id. ¶ 28). Poe believed the rumors about Roe to be true. (Id. ¶ 33). In addition to Poe's posts, there were hundreds of similar posts targeting Roe by other students. Although Vanderbilt “monitored” those posts, Vanderbilt's “lack of action” allowed students to continue to make such posts. (Id. ¶¶ 40-41).

B. The Investigation

Roe's father complained about the offensive posts to Assistant Dean Jamerson in February and April of 2022, but “no action” was taken until the fall of 2022, when Roe filed suit for defamation. (Id. ¶¶ 41-44). During discovery, Roe “obtain[ed] identifying information of several student posters,” including Poe. (Id. ¶¶ 45). Roe's father provided the information to Jamerson, and demanded that “all posters who made posts concerning his son be severely punished” and that Vanderbilt conduct remote hearings to speed up the disciplinary procedure. (Id. ¶¶ 45, 47). “Jamerson was clearly worried about his own repercussions as a result of [Roe] now having retained counsel” given that “Jamerson had taken zero action whatsoever after [Roe's father] lodged at least two different complaints to him nearly one year prior and accused Vanderbilt of not protecting his son.” (Id. ¶ 48). The FAC alleges that Roe's father's continuous involvement in the disciplinary procedure “deep[ly]” influenced Jamerson and the disciplinary procedure itself, in violation of Vanderbilt's policies set forth in the Handbook. (Id. ¶¶ 48, 69-73, 82-86, 89).

On January 3, 2023, Jamerson corresponded with Vanderbilt's Student Accountability department and Office of Sexual Misconduct to determine which entity had jurisdiction. (Id. ¶ 52).

In that correspondence, Jamerson acknowledged that “multiple students, including female students, had been identified as having made the posts,” and there was a “concern that one of the female students may allege they [sic] had been sexually assaulted by [Roe] or were [sic] speaking on behalf of a victim.” (Id.). Ultimately, only Poe was investigated and charged, even though Roe's father had also filed a complaint against two female students. (Id. ¶¶ 53-54, 59-61). According to the FAC, this was the result of an “affirmative decision [by Jamerson and Director of Student Accountability Bourgoin] to avoid investigating the female posters,” which amounted to “selective enforcement.” (Id. ¶¶ 60, 76). Moreover, to provide “closure” to Roe and cast blame on a male, Bourgoin decided to blame Poe for all posts and “secretly” designate him as the “instigator” of all posts. (Id. ¶¶ 55-57). This resulted in Bourgoin filing an official complaint against Poe, which attributed various posts to Poe that he did not make. “This was hidden from [Poe] during the investigation and during the appeal request, so [Poe] could not properly defend nor appeal these added complaints/charges.” (Id. ¶¶ 62-63). The official complaint also contained parts of Roe's father's complaint, which Burgoin selectively copied and pasted so to reflect “only the portion that could be attributed to [Poe],” while omitting portions incriminating the female posters. (Id. ¶¶ 62, 359, 390-91).

As a result of the investigation and official complaint, Vanderbilt charged Poe with three violations of the Handbook: harassment, disorderly conduct, and impersonation. (Id. ¶¶ 68-91). Poe claims he never received adequate notice of these charges, which itself is a violation of Vanderbilt's policies. (Id. ¶¶ 63-72, 90, 100-104, 114, 144, 146, 178). He also contends that the definitions of his charges were vague, and that Defendants allegedly altered the definition of certain charges to influence the outcome of the investigation. (Id. ¶¶ 90-99). Poe claims there were many other flaws and biases in the investigation, including that Bourgoin relied on misleading personal-impact statements that Poe never had a chance to review, withheld exculpatory evidence, refused certain witness testimony, accepted all of Roe's statements as true, and essentially placed the burden on Poe to disprove his own guilt. (Id. ¶¶ 51, 74, 77-78, 107- 125, 128, 131-33, 141, 143, 145). Ultimately, Poe “never had a chance of any unbiased review at any stage of this matter” because the Defendants “predetermined” the result of the disciplinary procedure. (Id. ¶¶ 69-70, 79, 88-89, 107).

C. Notification Regarding the Outcome of the Investigation

The FAC alleges that the Defendants were unnecessarily and purposefully hurtful in the way they notified Poe about the results of the investigation. Concerned that the results of Vanderbilt's investigation were “adverse” and could cause Poe to end his life, Poe's mother asked Vanderbilt to delay the results of the investigation until Poe returned to Vanderbilt from his internship. (See id. ¶¶ 207, 212-15). Jamerson and Bourgoin denied this request and scheduled a call for March 6, 2023. (Id. ¶¶ 214-215). Poe's mother was not informed that they had scheduled a call. (Id. ¶ 217).

It was known and documented at Vanderbilt that Poe was suicidal. (Id. ¶ 216). Bourgoin acknowledged that the results of the investigation “will likely be rough” on Poe, and Director Clapper emailed Bourgoin the night before the call, stating “[t]he parents better have flown out there. [L]ol.” (Id. ¶ 216, 219). Nonetheless, “[a]fter being informed that Poe's parents were not with [him] . . . . Bourgoin delivered the outcome with a smirk on his face.” (Id. ¶ 221). The outcome was that Vanderbilt found Poe responsible for all three alleged violations and disciplined him as follows: suspension, notation of the suspension on Poe's academic record; prohibition from being on campus; prohibition against transferring credits earned elsewhere during the suspension period; completion of a seminar; obligation to read a book and watch a movie;^[6] meeting with a member of Project Safe;^[7] and obligation to submit reflection papers. (Id. ¶¶ 157, 179). “Upon receipt of the decision . . . [Poe] made an actual attempt to commit suicide.” (Id. ¶ 224).

D. Appeal

Poe appealed Vanderbilt's decision on various grounds, but his appeal was denied. The FAC alleges that Vanderbilt's appellate procedure involved “severe and harmful contract violations.” (Id. ¶¶ 108 154). For example, it alleges that Lowe, who was in charge of the appeal, improperly relied on information outside of the record, found Poe responsible for an entirely new charge, applied a new definition of “disorderly conduct” that did not appear in the Handbook, improperly “rubber stamped” unsupported findings without considering the entire record, and failed to recognize that the punishment was “severely disproportionate and inconsistent with prior cases” as well as Vanderbilt's policies requiring that students be treated equally. (Id. ¶¶ 235, 260- 61, 271-74). Lowe further failed to consider Poe's lack of prior disciplinary violations-a factor required by the Handbook. (Id. ¶¶ 274-76). Finally, Jamerson...