I thought I'd pass along portions of the friend-of-the-court brief that three other law professors and I (four of the very few academics who have written on the law of pseudonymous litigation) put together in support of a certiorari petition in Doe v. Trustees of Indiana Univ. This Part explains how badly split lower court decisions are. (Recall that one of the main reasons the Court steps in to resolve lower court cases is to resolve inconsistencies that would lead to different results in similar cases throughout the country.)
[A.] This Court has not given lower courts guidance
This Court has never decided when pseudonymity should be allowed. When parties have requested this Court's permission to file a writ of certiorari pseudonymously, this Court has granted or denied that request without explanation. See, e.g., Doe v. Mich. Att'y Grievance Comm'n, 519 U.S. 946 (1996) (denying); Foe v. Cuomo, 498 U.S. 892 (1990) (granting). This Court has sometimes reviewed pseudonymous cases (Roe v. Wade is a famous example), but in doing so it has never discussed in any detail when pseudonymity should be allowed.
