Cases & Developments

Order affirming the District Court’s Dismissal of Plaintiff’s Lawsuit. Plaintiff, an unpaid mentor who was removed from the Texas Tech University (“TTU”) Innovation Hub, filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) alleging discrimination, harassment, and retaliation based on sex. After receiving a Right to Sue Letter from the EEOC, plaintiff sued TTU and two university employees under Title VII, Title IX, and state law. Focusing first on plaintiff’s Title VII claims, the court found that plaintiff’s Title VII claims were untimely because she was not an “employee” for Title VII purposes while serving as a mentor for the TTU Innovation Hub. The court also concluded that plaintiff’s Title VII retaliation claim failed because “retaliatory conduct that occurred in January 2022, or later, [was] too attenuated from her last employment in 2017.” Turning to plaintiff’s Title IX claims, the court affirmed the district court’s findings that plaintiff’s pre-2019 Title IX claims were untimely because her “2017 graduation from TTU and the 2019 dissolution of her first company that had ties with TTU [were] sufficient intervening actions….” Additionally, plaintiff did not allege a plausible Title IX claim for relief because she failed to establish sufficient facts to satisfy the two-prong test: “(1) a person authorized to address the harassment had actual notice of the behavior; and (2) even with this notice, the program’s response to the harassment amounted to ‘deliberate indifference.’” At no point did plaintiff allege facts to show that “the dean was a person who could address the harassment.” Finally, the court affirmed the district court’s holding related to plaintiff’s state law claims and also noted that it properly denied her request to amend her complaint. 

Order granting summary judgment in favor of Western Governors University (“WGU”). Plaintiff, a White veteran, who suffers from service-connected disabilities, brings Title VI race discrimination, Americans with Disabilities (“ADA”) Act claims, and related state law claims against WGU. Shortly after beginning his studies, Plaintiff suffered a heart attack, which prompted him to request accommodations from his “mentor,” including taking courses with more reading requirements than his active courses, taking a larger semester courseload than the maximum limit, obtaining syllabi from courses for which he was not enrolled, and extending the semester by one month, some of which were granted. He neither responded to nor took any action on communications from the Student Accessibility Services office, which provided official accommodations forms to begin the formal process outlined in WGU’s policy for securing disability accommodations. Plaintiff experienced additional medical and mental health challenges before filing litigation. In granting the motion for summary judgment on the ADA claims, the Court found no evidence that WGU engaged in disparate treatment of Plaintiff because of his disability and further found that WGU did not fail to provide reasonable accommodations. In ruling for WGU on the Title VI claim, the court reasoned that Plaintiff’s conclusory claim that he was harmed by general “‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (“DEI”) activities, [which] created … a hostile educational environment” through a “‘subculture’ of treating students differently-based on race,” was unsupported by facts since he did not otherwise allege that he was treated differently because of his race and failed to adduce “evidence that [he] was so harassed by any person, by DEI activities or materials, or by anti-White messages that he could not access educational benefits like any other student.” Finally, the court exercised supplemental jurisdiction to grant summary judgment in favor of WGU on Plaintiff’s related state law claims.