Due process claims under 42 USC § 1983; Sovereign immunity; Procedural due process; A state actor’s defamatory statements; “Stigma plus” test; Substantive due process; The “shocks-the-conscience” test; “Federal confidentiality” rule

The court held that plaintiff-Pichiorri’s due process claims against defendant-Ohio State Board of Trustees were barred by sovereign immunity and that her due process claims against defendants-Ohio State officials in their official capacities failed on the merits. As to the procedural due process claim, her “complaint did not plausibly assert a ‘liberty’ interest under” the stigma-plus test. And she could not “pursue a ‘defamation’ claim under the guise of substantive due process.” Pichiorri published several articles while working as a research scientist at Ohio State. Years later, “a university committee found that she had committed research misconduct in some” instances, and it informed her employer and the relevant publications. She sued under § 1983, alleging among other things federal due process claims. The district court dismissed the complaint, ruling that “sovereign immunity shielded some of the university defendants from this suit and that” her other due process claims failed on the merits. On appeal, the court first held that sovereign immunity barred all claims against the Board of Trustees and all state claims against the officials in their official capacities. As to her procedural due process claims against Ohio State officials, the court explained that “people do not have a liberty interest in their ‘reputation’ alone[.]” Applying the stigma-plus test, it noted that she was unable to allege that the officials “defamed her ‘in the course of’ firing her from the university” given that she had already left her employment there. And she did not identify any “change in ‘a right or status previously recognized by state law’ apart from the reputational harm.” As to her substantive due process claims, her “failure to identify a liberty interest even worthy of procedural protection goes a long way toward showing that the challenged conduct ‘does not shock the conscience’ under substantive due process.” The court also found that her “theory would constitutionalize the common law of defamation.” Finally, the uncodified “federal confidentiality rule” could not save her claim. Case law has confined it to situations where “the government’s disclosure of ‘personal information could lead to bodily harm’ or when the disclosed information contains ‘sexual, personal, and humiliating’ details.” Affirmed.