Even accepting as true that K.S. did not initiate the fight, it is not difficult to surmise legitimate reasons for requiring a student involved in a physical altercation to sit in the principal's office. See, e.g., Eilenfeldt v. United C.U.S.D. #304 Bd. of Educ., 84 F.Supp.3d 834, 846 (C.D. Ill. 2015) (dismissing plaintiff's class-of-one equal protection claim where it was conceivable that defendants had legitimate pedagogical and disciplinary reasons for their response to alleged bullying).
A false accusation of sexual assault is simply not, by its nature, harassment based on sex, even though the underlying conduct alleged is obviously sexual in nature. See Eilenfeldt v. United C.U.S.D. # 304 Bd. of Educ., 84 F.Supp.3d 834, 839, 842 (C.D. Ill. 2015) (finding that allegations that a male student was called “a rapist, pedophile, and child molester” were insufficient to state a claim that the student was harassed because of his gender); Nungesser v. Columbia Univ., 169 F.Supp.3d 353, 365 (S.D.N.Y. 2016) (rejecting the assertion that calling someone a rapist is inherently gendered); Doe v. Univ. of Mass.-Amherst, No. 14-cv-30143, 2015 WL 4306521, at *9 (D. Mass. July 14, 2015) (dismissing complaint where plaintiff failed to give any examples of conduct that targeted him based on gender rather than his status as a student accused of sexual assault). Indeed, “[p]ersons of any gender may be perpetrators, or victims, of sexual assault.”
As several courts have recently held, a false accusation of sexual assault is not, without more, harassment based on sex, notwithstanding the sexual content of the accusation. Eilenfeldt v. United C.U.S.D. # 304 Bd. of Educ., 84 F.Supp.3d 834, 839, 842 (C.D. Ill. 2015) (allegations that a male student was called "a rapist, pedophile, and child molester" were insufficient to state a claim that the student was harassed because of his gender); Nungesser v. Columbia Univ., 169 F.Supp.3d 353, 365 (S.D.N.Y. 2016) (rejecting the assertion that calling someone a rapist is inherently gendered); Doe v. Univ. of Massachusetts-Amherst, 2015 WL 4306521, at *9 (D. Mass. July 14, 2015) (dismissing complaint where plaintiff failed to give any examples of conduct that targeted him based on gender rather than his status as a student accused of sexual assault). When someone levels an accusation that another person, male or female, committed sexual assault, the accuser is not making the accusation because the alleged perpetrator is one gender or the other.