Cases & Developments - National Association of College and University Attorneys

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Latest Cases & Developments

Date:
11/21/2025
Grossenbach v. Arizona Bd. of Regents (D. Ariz. Nov. 21, 2025)
Recommendation from Magistrate Judge to District Court Judge to Deny in Part Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former adjunct professor at the University of Arizona, sued the university for violations of Title VII, the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause, and an Arizona public records law, after it declined to renew his teaching contract, which he alleged was due to complaints the university received about his advocacy on behalf of SaveCFSD, an organization he founded to combat “radical gender ideology” in his local school district. The magistrate judge rejected the university’s argument that plaintiff had failed to “timely exhaust his administrative remedies,” finding instead that the filing window was tolled until he received documents in response to his public records request. The magistrate judge also found that plaintiff had successfully pled facts that would allow one to conclude the university took actions to prevent the plaintiff from discovering his claims by “slow-walking his public records request” and falsely telling him that his contract would not be renewed because the university was going to hire a full-time faculty member to teach [his] classes.” The magistrate judge further found that the Eleventh Amendment was not a barrier to plaintiff’s constitutional claims since he was seeking prospective relief in the form of a declaratory judgment and reinstatement to his position. Finally, the magistrate judge agreed with the university that plaintiff’s Arizona public records law claim should be dismissed because plaintiff had failed to comply with “notice of claim” requirements, while noting the plaintiff had voluntarily agreed to withdraw his claim.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Employment Separation, RIFs, ERIPs & Retrenchment | Faculty & Staff | First Amendment & Free Speech | Retaliation
Date:
11/4/2025
Pesta v. Cleveland State Univ. (6th Cir. Nov. 4, 2025)
Opinion Affirming Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff-Appellant, a former tenured professor at Cleveland State University, sued the university alleging violation of his First Amendment rights after he was investigated and terminated based on research-misconduct related to a controversial paper he co-authored. The trial court granted the university summary judgment, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed, finding that plaintiff was fired because of misconduct associated with his accessing restricted data from the NIH and not because of the content of his Global Ancestry paper. In reaching this conclusion, the court noted that university officials were “reasonably alarmed by [plaintiff’s] cavalier handling of sensitive genomic data, misleading representations to the NIH about the nature of his research, failure to observe basic conflict-of-interest reporting, and the impact that his actions had on [the university] as a research institution reliant on the NIH.”
Topics:
Academic Performance and Misconduct | Constitutional Issues | Employment Separation, RIFs, ERIPs & Retrenchment | Faculty & Staff | First Amendment & Free Speech | Research | Research Misconduct | Students
Date:
11/3/2025
Elagha v. Northwestern Univ. (N.D. Ill. Nov. 3, 2025)
Opinion Granting Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former student at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, brought Title VI harassment and discrimination claims against the university and three law school deans, following doxing from fellow students based on her participation in pro-Palestinian protests and the recission of a job offer. The court dismissed the law school deans from the suit, analogizing to Title IX caselaw which limits Title IX claims to the university as the grant recipient. On plaintiff’s Title VI harassment claim, the court held that while plaintiff had plausibly alleged a hostile environment which deprived her of the benefit of attending class, she had not shown that the university had been deliberately indifferent in its response. While acknowledging the standard was a “stringent” one, the court found plaintiff had failed to clear this bar, finding the university’s response was both “quick and reasonable,” where it excused her class absences, deferred her exams, and sent letters to her future employer and to the State Bar at her request. Finally, the court dismissed plaintiff’s intentional discrimination claim finding she had failed to provide “even a single example of a similarly situated student outside her protected class” that received the response she sought from the university.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | First Amendment & Free Speech | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Student Speech & Campus Unrest
Date:
11/3/2025
Univ. at Buffalo Young Americans for Freedom v. Univ. at Buffalo Student Ass’n, (2nd Cir. Nov. 3, 2025) (unpub)
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech
Date:
10/14/2025
Fellowship of Christian Univ. Students at the Univ. of Texas at Dallas, et al., v. Eltife, et al., (W.D. Tex. Oct. 14, 2025)
Order Granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiffs, several student organizations at the University of Texas Austin and Dallas campuses, sued the university claiming that its implementation of the Texas “Campus Protection Act” which requires public universities to adopt (1) an overnight expression ban; (2) an end-of-term invited speaker ban; (3) an end-of-term amplified sound ban; and (4) an end-of-term drum ban, violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. In granting plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction, the court held that plaintiffs had demonstrated they were likely to succeed on their First Amendment claims, finding that the Texas law was “content-based both on its face and by looking to the purpose and justification for the law.” Moreover, the court found the university had failed to demonstrate that its actions were narrowly tailored to meet a compelling governmental interest, writing “[t]he First Amendment does not have a bedtime of 10:00 p.m.” The court also found that because the Texas law likely violated the First Amendment, plaintiffs would suffer irreparable harm if denied a preliminary injunction. The court enjoined the university from enforcing the speech bans against the plaintiffs, against any expressive activities at the Austin or Dallas campuses, or at any other within the University of Texas System.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech | Student Speech & Campus Unrest | Students
Date:
10/10/2025
Doe v. Bd. of Regents of Univ. Sys. of Md. (D. Md. Oct. 10, 2025)
Memorandum Opinion Denying Request for Temporary Restraining Order. Plaintiff, a former student at the University of Maryland, sued the university for Title IX and due process violations after the university denied his request for changes to a campus Title IX disciplinary proceeding in which he was the respondent. Finding that plaintiff’s invocation of a deliberate indifference theory to challenge the conduct of a campus disciplinary proceeding “misplaced,” the court held that plaintiff was not likely to succeed on his Title IX claim since he had not alleged any fact suggesting he was sexually discriminated against or harassed, or that the university was deliberately indifferent in its response. On plaintiff’s due process claim, the court held that since none of the exceptions to the university’s sovereign immunity were applicable here, sovereign immunity precluded any chance of him succeeding on the merits. The court denied plaintiff’s request for a TRO, noting that in addition to failing to show a likelihood of success on either claim, plaintiff had also failed to demonstrate irreparable harm.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Due Process | Students | Title IX & Student Sexual Misconduct
Date:
9/30/2025
American Association of University Professors, et al., v. Marco Rubio, et al., (D. Mass. Sep. 30, 2025)
Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. Plaintiffs, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and several individual chapters and organizational plaintiffs, sued the federal government for violations of the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), arguing that the government’s actions against noncitizen students and faculty who participated in pro-Palestinian protests amounted to an “ideological-deportation policy” in violation of their rights. Following a two-week trial, the court issued a 161-page ruling, holding that that the administration’s actions were an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment and also arbitrary and capricious in violation of the APA. On plaintiff’s First Amendment claims, the court found that the government had “engaged in a mode of enforcement leading to detaining, deporting, and revoking noncitizens’ visas solely on the basis of political speech, and with the intent of chilling such speech and that of others similarly situated.” The court held that these actions were unconstitutional and noted “the effect of these targeted deportation[s] [] continues [] to chill freedom of speech to this day.” In considering relief for the plaintiffs, the court concluded that “it will not do simply to order the Public Officials to cease and desist in the future,” but also outlined a number of “concerns” and “constraints” that will govern the upcoming remedy hearing.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | First Amendment & Free Speech | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Religious Discrimination & Accommodation
Date:
9/25/2025
Presidential Memorandum Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence (Sep. 25, 2025)
The White House issued a Presidential Memorandum, “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” directing the creation of a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities and organizations that
foment political violence.” The Memorandum orders multiple federal agencies and their components to take specified actions, including:
- requiring the National Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) to investigate federal crimes relating to acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons for the purpose of political violence, terrorism, or conspiracy against rights, as well as “institutional
  and individual funders, and officers and employees of organizations, that are responsible for, sponsor, or otherwise aid and abet” the principal actors engaging in these acts;
- directing the Attorney General to issue specific guidance ensuring that domestic terrorism priorities include “politically motivated terrorist acts such as organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction
  of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder”; and
- instructing the Commissioner of the IRS “to take action to ensure that no tax-exempt entities are directly or indirectly financing political violence or domestic terrorism.
The White House also released a Fact Sheet, providing additional information on the Memorandum.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech
Date:
9/24/2025
Hook v. Rav, et al., (D.S.D. Sep. 24, 2025)
Opinion and Order Granting Plaintiff’s Motion for Temporary Restraining Order. Plaintiff, a tenured professor at the University of South Dakota, brought a First Amendment retaliation claim against the President of the Board of Regents and other individual defendants after he received notice of an intent to terminate his contract following his online comments about the death of Charlie Kirk. The court found that because plaintiff was at home, off work, and on his private Facebook page, he “spoke as a citizen and his speech was on a matter of public concern.” Additionally, the court found that “defendants [] failed to put on evidence that [plaintiff’s] speech had an adverse impact on the efficiency of the [university’s] operations.” In granting a temporary restraining order, the court held that plaintiff had a fair chance of prevailing on his claim, because “the change in his employment status would ‘chill a person of ordinary fitness’ from continuing to engage in First Amendment activity.” The court ordered the university to reinstate plaintiff’s position retroactive to the date he received the notice and required plaintiff’s position to remain in effect until the preliminary injunction hearing.
Topics:
Academic Freedom & Employee Speech | Constitutional Issues | Faculty & Staff | First Amendment & Free Speech | Social Media
Date:
9/22/2025
Campos v. Ariz. Bd. of Regents (D. Ariz. Sep. 22, 2025)
Opinion and Order Granting in Part Defendants’ Motion for Stay Pending Appeal. Plaintiffs, a group of former students at Arizona State University, brought (1) a federal First Amendment retaliation claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the university’s president, and (2) a state law free speech claim under A.R.S. § 151864 against both the university and its president, after plaintiffs’ arrest and suspension for participation in a pro-Palestinian campus protest. Following the court’s denial of the university’s motion to dismiss the state law claim on sovereign immunity grounds, the university appealed to the Ninth Circuit and requested a blanket stay of the matter pending the outcome. Analyzing the “competing interests” of the parties under Landis, the court granted defendant’s request for a stay of the state law claim, holding the university had demonstrated a clear case of hardship or inequity and further noting that “[i]f [the university] was subject to discovery on claims it should be immune from, it would be denied the benefit of its immunity.” However, the court denied the stay with respect to plaintiffs’ federal claim, reasoning, in part, that it would be unaffected by the outcome of the appeal. In allowing discovery and pretrial motions to proceed on plaintiffs’ federal claim, the court noted several factors that weighed in plaintiffs’ favor, including (1) the potential that plaintiffs’ claims could require significant discovery, which had yet to begin; (2) the risk that evidence may become more elusive with time; and (3) plaintiffs’ allegations that “they have been deprived of their First Amendment freedoms and continue to experience harm to their academic standing and future career prospects because of the ongoing suspension.”
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech | Student Organizations | Student Speech & Campus Unrest | Students

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