University Doctor's Financial/Sexual/Mentoring Arrangement with Non-Student Leads to Title IX Claim

Not a student or "bona fide intern[]," no Title IX claim, the judge concludes.

In Doe v. Univ. of Michigan, decided last Thursday by Judge Shalina Kumar (E.D. Mich.), Doe claimed that, when she was a "a nineteen-year-old student at Michigan State University," she met Dr. Schoenfeld, "a forty-nine-year-old gastroenterologist at the University" of Michigan "through an online website where they each sought a personal relationship." (Michiganders of all institutional loyalties will appreciate that the two universities are not the same.) According to Schoenfeld's filing in a related defamation suit he filed against Doe in California, the site was SeekingArrangement.com, and "Seeking Arrangement's advertised purpose was facilitating relationships between younger 'sugar babies' and more established 'sugar daddies.'"

From the Court's summary of the facts and alleged facts,

Doe hoped to attend medical school. Doe and Schoenfeld entered a "mentoring relationship with intimacy," in which Schoenfeld would pay Doe $1250 per month and help her attain her goal of attending medical school, and Doe would have sex with Schoenfeld and "maintain her appearance." Over the course of this relationship, Doe alleges Schoenfeld subjected her to sexual violence and abused her. Their sexual relationship lasted a few months, from February 2013 to May 2013. But Schoenfeld continued mentoring Doe so that she could one day gain admission to the University's medical school.

There appears to be no dispute that the financial and sexual arrangement existed (Schoenfeld seems to have acknowledged it the California defamation lawsuit). The allegations of sexual violence and abuse, however, are very much disputed: As a result of the California litigation, Doe entered into a judgment retracting the allegations, as part of a settlement in which Schoenfeld promised to pay her and her then-lawyer $150K, though she is trying to recant the retraction—a bit more on that at the end of the post. Back to the court's statements of the allegations in Doe's Complaint (which the court assumed for purposes of deciding the motion to dismiss):

In 2015, Schoenfeld offered Doe an internship at the University's Taubman Center …. Doe accepted and began the internship without submitting any type of application, providing any identification, undergoing a background check, or completing HIPAA compliance training. Indeed, Doe did not receive any communications or acknowledgement from the University about an internship or shadowing opportunity, nor did she sign any code-of-conduct attestations as typically required.

Doe did not explore whether she needed to take any such steps to formalize the internship, and she did not receive an ID or visitor badge from the University for use whenever she was on the premises. Schoenfeld did not notify anyone within the University that he planned to have Doe shadowing him, and University administration and leadership did not approve of any shadowing arrangement for Doe.

Without the University's knowledge or preapproval, Doe shadowed Schoenfeld in the Taubman Center on more than one occasion, although it is disputed exactly how many times. Doe estimates that she shadowed Schoenfeld at least once a week through the winter and summer of 2015. Schoenfeld states that Doe shadowed him fewer than 10 times. These shadowing visits consisted of Schoenfeld "asking individual patients if they would allow Ms. Doe to passively observe [their] interactions. If the patient granted verbal approval, then [he] allowed Ms. Doe to observe."

Schoenfeld allegedly assured Doe that he obtained permission from the University before offering her the internship. However, during the internship, Schoenfeld instructed Doe that if anyone asked why she was on the premises, she should tell the person that she was a family friend of Schoenfeld, which she later realized was to avoid raising their suspicions. He also instructed Doe to wear blue scrubs for the same purpose.

Doe ended her internship in August 2015 because Schoenfeld's actions made her feel increasingly uncomfortable. For example, instead of using a public elevator, Schoenfeld would only walk her up to the Taubman Center's restricted access floor through a private stairwell, where he would touch her inappropriately. Doe also felt progressively uncomfortable by Schoenfeld's written communications to her. Doe told Schoenfeld that she was done with the internship because she needed time to focus on her MCAT examination. But she left primarily because she felt sexually and verbally harassed by Schoenfeld. [Again, all these appear to just be Doe's allegations. -EV]

After Doe had ended their relationship, Schoenfeld allegedly stalked her and approached her at an off-campus Walgreens in August 2017.

In January 2018, Doe contacted the University's Title IX office to report Schoenfeld for rape and "predatory behavior." … [D]efendants Baum and Seney, the University's Title IX Coordinator and Assistant Coordinator … informed Doe that they could not conduct a formal investigation because Doe was not an active University student or employee but they would conduct an informal investigation into her report….

In September 2019, Doe learned through a public social media post that Schoenfeld was interviewing for a position at Stanford University that would involve both practicing medicine and teaching. Out of concern that Schoenfeld would use this role to target Stanford students in the way he targeted Doe, Doe contacted Stanford's Title IX office and reported her experience with him.

After Doe began making allegations against him, Schoenfeld brought a defamation suit against her in California. In order to settle that case, Doe eventually sent written statements to several private parties retracting some of her allegations against Schoenfeld. Doe then filed this suit.

The court dismissed Doe's Title IX claim:

As a threshold matter, Doe must have standing to bring a Title IX claim. As a nonstudent, Doe establishes such standing if she shows she experienced discrimination "while participating in, or at least attempting to participate in," a University education program or activity. According to Snyder-Hill v. Ohio State Univ. (6th Cir. 2022), even if the so-called internship was not a bona fide education activity because it was merely a guise for Schoenfeld's exploitation, Doe could be deemed as "attempting to participate in an education program"—and thereby establish factual standing—if she "believed that [s]he was receiving a bona fide" internship with the University's Taubman Center.

Defendants argue that the limited discovery completed by the parties establishes that Doe could not have believed that she was attempting to participate in a bona fide internship. They point to evidence that shows (1) she engaged in lies and deception with Schoenfeld regarding her presence at the Taubman Center; (2) she failed to investigate or comply with University policy or complete any required application, training, or background screening; and (3) the University did not provide acknowledgement, let alone any express or implied authorization of her presence at the Taubman Center.

Doe fails to counter defendants' argument and evidence. She argues that defendants did not follow their policies and procedures in connection to her internship with Schoenfeld. But she does not dispute the evidence that shows she engaged in lies and deception during her internship, overlooked any steps typically required to establish a real University internship—such as submitting an application—and received no administrative authorization for her internship.

Moreover, she offers no other evidence to show she believed that she was attempting to participate in a legitimate University internship. Because the evidence demonstrates that Doe did not believe that shadowing Schoenfeld at Taubman Center was a bona fide internship offered by the University, the Court … dismisses her Title IX claim against the University … for lack of standing.

Doe is now trying to set aside the judgment that contains the retractions, alleging that she signed it because of duress from her then-lawyer and that it violates a California statute restricting nondisclosure agreements in sexual harassment and assault claims; the California trial court declined to set aside the judgment, and Doe has appealed. I hope to blog separately about that interesting legal issue, and also about Doe's retroactive pseudonymization in that California case (as well as her pseudonymization in the federal case).

Thomas L. Kent represents the university defendants in the Title IX case.