ST. LOUIS –– A federal judge threw out a sexual harassment suit brought by two students at a chiropractic school on July 31.
Judge Catherine D. Perry of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri dismissed a complaint brought by Morgan Pearson and Kirsten Kirkpatrick against Logan University, alleging the school did not properly respond to another student's sexual harassment.
According to court documents, Pearson and Kirkpatrick entered the private school in 2015. The two women claim another student, only referred to as F.S., asked for their phone numbers and called them several times a day.
The judge found that the school investigated Pearson’s complaint to the extent possible consistent with her expressed desire for confidentiality.
Pearson claimed F.S. followed her to her car and campus job. He also allegedly pressed himself against her during a lab exercise.
According to the court documents, Pearson contacted Shelly Sawalich, a dean at the school and Title IX coordinator. Sawalich asked Pearson for copies of text messages allegedly received from F.S., but Pearson said she deleted them.
The university's honor council also interviewed those involved, the records state, but did not find F.S. responsible for the alleged stalking.
“The moving party has the burden to establish both the absence of a genuine issue of material fact and that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law," Perry wrote in her opinion. "Mere allegations, unsupported by specific facts or evidence beyond the nonmoving party’s own conclusions, are insufficient to withstand a motion for summary judgment.”
Perry found that the school investigated Pearson’s complaint to the extent possible consistent with her expressed desire for confidentiality, and “there was no evidence from which a reasonable fact finder could conclude that it was deliberately indifferent to Pearson’s complaint.”