Appeals court revives UW-Madison Title IX lawsuit

A lawsuit against the University of Wisconsin-Madison by a woman who accused a former football player of sexual assault can move forward, the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week.

The ruling overturned a decision by a lower court, which issued a summary judgment in favor of the university.

In 2019, a woman who said she was assaulted by Badgers wide receiver Quinterz Cephus filed a lawsuit against the university after it readmitted Cephus after he was found not guilty in a criminal trial. The woman’s lawsuit accused the university of acting under pressure from the public and donors without considering the impact his return to campus would have on her education.

The Seventh Court of Appeals wrote that a reasonable jury could find in the woman’s favor and overturned a 2022 summary judgment in favor of the university. The case now returns to the circuit court for trial.

“A jury is of course free to accept the university’s framing that it was not dismissive of (the woman) and would have acted if there was a more acute threat,” the court wrote. “It is not our role, however, to decide the strength of competing evidence. That is a role for the jury to play, and we must allow it that opportunity.”

The university expelled Cephus after an investigation by the school found that it was likely he assaulted the woman in 2018. After his acquittal in a criminal trial in 2019, the university faced pressure from fans and donors to readmit him to the school. He was readmitted prior to the start of the 2019 football season.

The university did not inform the woman, who had a protective order against Cephus, about its decision. In her lawsuit, the woman said the university violated federal gender equity laws by shutting her out of the reinstatement decision.

“There is sufficient evidence apart from the exclusion of [the woman] from the readmission process that could lead a jury to conclude that the university unreasonably readmitted Cephus because of a desire to further the football program’s interests,” the court wrote.

The woman said the decision affected her education since she avoided parts of campus where she might run into Cephus, avoided social gatherings and took easier classes due to the stress, which delayed her graduation.

“The university acted with deliberate indifference if it made its readmission decision in response to public pressure,” the court wrote.