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  • Date:

    Sloan-Brown v. Meharry Med. Coll. (M.D. Tenn. Mar. 26, 2024)

    Memorandum Opinion granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former lab coordinator at Meharry Medical College, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the College after she was terminated for alleged insubordination and unsatisfactory performance. The court granted summary judgment to the College on plaintiff’s Equal Pay Act claim after rejecting portions of two affidavits, finding affiants failed to articulate any basis for personal knowledge supporting their conclusory assertion that plaintiff and a male comparator with a different job description actually performed the same work. In denying summary judgment on her retaliation claims, the court found that although it was undisputed that her 2017 complaint with the EEOC lacked temporal proximity to her December 2019 termination, there was a material question as to whether plaintiff had made other complaints to College personnel after July 2019. Plaintiff abandoned her Title VII discrimination claim.   

    Topics:

    Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Faculty & Staff | Retaliation | Sex Discrimination | Sex Discrimination in Employment

  • Date:

    Farah v. W.Va. Univ. Bd. of Governors (N.D. W.Va. Mar. 26, 2024)

    Memorandum Opinion and Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendants’ Partial Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a tenured Associate Professor of Public Administration at West Virginia University who is Jewish and of Italian national origin, brought discrimination claims against the University related to his initial denial of tenure in 2017, denial of promotion to full professor in 2023, and several asserted irregularities in the administration of a research grant for which plaintiff was principal investigator. The court dismissed plaintiff’s claims related to the 2017 initial tenure denial and the alleged irregularities in the grant administration as time barred. Although he had not listed the claim in his EEOC charge and was eventually promoted to full professor, the court permitted plaintiff to proceed on his failure to promote claim, finding at this stage that he might have been harmed by not being promoted in February 2023 and that the claim was within the scope of what would follow from a reasonable administrative investigation into his allegations.   

    Topics:

    Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Religious Discrimination & Accommodation

  • Date:

    Locke v. N.C. State Univ. (E.D. N.C. Mar. 25, 2024)

    Order certifying interlocutory appeal. Plaintiff, a former soccer player at North Carolina State University, brought Title IX claims against the University, alleging that between 2015 and 2017 the team trainer, who was also the University’s director of sports medicine, abused him sexually, including by directing him to shower in front of him and by touching him inappropriately under the guise of performing a sports massage. A Title IX investigation found that in early 2016 the head soccer coach notified the senior associate athletic director that he suspected the trainer was engaged in sexual grooming of male student-athletes, at which point the trainer was moved to more administrative duties. The court dismissed plaintiff’s claim, holding that “an allegation of grooming behavior, without more, does not constitute actual notice of ‘an incident of sexual harassment’ as required to hold an educational institution liable under Title IX.” In certifying the question to the Fourth Circuit, the court noted that “the question of whether ‘grooming’ is sexual harassment for Title IX purposes is a question of first impression in this circuit.” 

    Topics:

    Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Employee Sexual Misconduct | Sex Discrimination | Student Athlete Issues | Students

  • Date:

    Adams v. The Vanderbilt Univ. (M.D. Tenn. Mar. 19, 2024)

    Memorandum Opinion granting Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiffs, the parents of a student at Vanderbilt University who died by suicide, brought negligence, disability discrimination, and contract claims against the University, after the student made suicide attempts in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 before his passing in Summer 2021, all in University dormitory rooms. In dismissing plaintiffs’ wrongful death claim, the court declined to find a “special relationship and resulting affirmative duty of care … where a university requires a student to live on campus, the student has reported suicidal thoughts to the university, and the student has previously attempted suicide,” noting that no Tennessee court has recognized such a duty and under an “Erie-guess” the Supreme Court of Tennessee was unlikely to do so. In dismissing their disability discrimination claims, the court noted the lack of allegation that the student had ever requested an accommodation. In dismissing their contract claim, the court found no factual allegations of an express contract or breach of an implied contract created by the student-university relationship.

    Topics:

    Campus Police, Safety, & Crisis Management | Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Distressed & Suicidal Students | Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration | Students | Tort Litigation

  • Date:

    Mundy v. Bd. of Regents for Univ. of Wis. Sys. (W.D. Wis. Mar. 19, 2024)

    Opinion and Order denying Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former graduate student in bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, twice sued the University after it became clear she would not successfully complete the requirements for a master’s degree. At the time, department officials proposed to move her from the “research track” to the “coursework track” and make exceptions to the coursework track requirements so that she could exit the program with a degree. Preferring the research track degree, plaintiff refused and sued for disability discrimination. After that action ended in summary judgment in favor of the University in January 2022, plaintiff demanded that the University immediately award her the coursework track degree with a graduation date of August 2020. When the department concluded she had not met the requirements for that degree, plaintiff sued again, this time alleging retaliation. In denying the University’s motion for summary judgment, the court held that although it was clear she had not satisfied the requirements for the degree, a reasonably jury could find that officials changed their stance of generosity toward plaintiff due to her first lawsuit.   

    Topics:

    Academic Performance and Misconduct | Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Retaliation | Students

  • Date:

    DOJ Letter to Univ. of Md. Balt. re: Title IX Investigation (Mar. 18, 2024)

    Letter from the Department of Justice to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County re: Title IX Investigation. The Letter details the findings of the Department’s investigation into allegations that the University responded inadequately to notice that the head coach of its Swimming and Diving Team subjected student-athletes to a hostile environment, unwanted touching, and other sexual harassment. The Letter also notes the University’s commitment through a comprehensive Settlement Agreement, which is subject to a state-mandated approval process, to enhance its Title IX Office, provide targeted training and support to student-athletes, and provide financial relief to certain student-athletes.   

    Topics:

    Athletics & Sports | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Employee Sexual Misconduct | Sex Discrimination

  • Date:

    Zapata v. Tex. Tech. Univ. (N.D. Tex. Mar. 11, 2024)

    Memorandum Opinion and Order granting Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a Fall 2021 graduate of the Ph.D. program in Chemical Engineering at Texas Tech University who is of Columbian national origin, brought discrimination, retaliation, and constitutional claims against the University and multiple officials, alleging that (1) his advisor yelled at him for speaking Spanish and required post-defense dissertation revisions delaying his graduation by two semesters; (2) officials enforced, but later waived, a two-publication requirement; (3) the Dean refused to make his girlfriend, who had joined the faculty, his hooding professor so he could propose marriage on stage; and (4) the University denied his post-graduation request for a non-thesis master’s degree. In dismissing his Title VI discrimination claim, the court found (1) that his factual assertions about actions officials took to move him toward graduation undercut his deliberate indifference claim, and (2) no assertion that a comparator who had already matriculated out requested and received a non-thesis master’s degree. In dismissing his Title VI retaliation claim, the court noted that by October 2021 when plaintiff filed his first grievance, he had satisfied all but the two-publication requirement, which the University then waived. It further found that plaintiff’s allegation that the Dean refused to let him propose marriage on stage was insufficient to allege a retaliatory University policy or deliberate indifference to retaliation. The court also found plaintiff’s equal protection and due process claims against individual officials barred by qualified immunity.   

    Topics:

    Academic Performance and Misconduct | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation | Students

  • Date:

    Doe v. St. Lawrence Univ. (N.D. N.Y. Mar. 14, 2024)

    Memorandum-Decision and Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a tenure-track assistant professor at St. Lawrence University, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the University, alleging that the director of another program, with whom she was assigned to design a community-based learning experience, drugged and raped her, that the University had received information through social media and from an investigator at another university that her alleged assailant had been accused of sexual misconduct at two prior jobs, and that when she reported the assault the University launched a “sham” investigation before eventually hiring outside counsel to investigate. In permitting her hostile work environment claim to proceed, the court found plaintiff’s assertions that the University permitted her alleged assailant to continue to work on campus for over two months before placing him on administrative leave and that it did not issue findings regarding her report were sufficient to allege an inadequate effort to remedy the harassment. The court permitted her to proceed in her pre-assault and post-assault deliberate indifference claims, finding sufficient allegations that the University responded inadequately to (1) specific knowledge of alleged prior misconduct, and (2) plaintiff’s own report, providing insufficient supportive measures and an inadequate investigation. The court dismissed the plaintiff’s retaliation claims, finding her assertion of a “sham” investigation was insufficient to allege an adverse action absent allegations that it had any impact upon her employment status.   

    Topics:

    Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Employee Sexual Misconduct | Sex Discrimination | Sex Discrimination in Employment

  • Date:

    McCarter v. The Univ. of N.C. at Chapel Hill (M.D. N.C. Mar. 15, 2024)

    Memorandum Opinion and Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a graduate of the Ph.D. program in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology and former post-doctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who is African American, brought discrimination, retaliation, and equal protection claims against the University and several former advisors, alleging that they delayed his progress and subsequently plagiarized his work. Of note, though the court granted summary judgment to the University on most of his claims, plaintiff also alleged (1) that his advisors imposed “last minute” requirements on a manuscript he was completing toward fulfillment of the curricular requirement, which they later waived, of submitting work for professional publication and (2) that after he resigned his fellowship, they falsely attributed work contained in his unpublished manuscript to another graduate student. The court granted summary judgment to the defendants regarding the alleged new requirements, citing insufficient evidence that the additional requirements were the result of race-based discrimination. It permitted him to proceed regarding the plagiarism allegation, however, finding that (1) plaintiff’s side-by-side comparison of his manuscript with another student’s dissertation was sufficient to raise a question of plagiarism and (2) evidence of previous allegations against the professors of publishing the work of another student of color without attribution was sufficient to raise a question of pretext.   

    Topics:

    Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Research | Research Misconduct

  • Date:

    Erikson v. Xavier Univ. (S.D. Ohio Mar. 18, 2024)

    Order denying Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former tenured Associate Professor of Art at Xavier University, brought (1) gender discrimination claims against the University after it terminated him for alleged sexual misconduct and (2) defamation claims against his complainant. The alleged assault took place at plaintiff’s off-campus home, the complainant was an alumna of the University who had no other connection with the University at the time, and she filed her complaint outside of the two-year statute of limitations in the University’s Harassment Code and Accountability Procedures (HCAP). In permitting his Title VII discrimination claim to proceed, the court found plaintiff had sufficiently alleged that members of his hearing panel (1) expressed moral disapproval of him as a male for having intercourse without a condom and (2) attributed an imbalance of power in the encounter based on plaintiff’s position at the University, as well as his societal status as a male. Turning to his Title IX claim, the court found plaintiff sufficiently alleged that the University erroneously terminated him under the HCAP for conduct beyond the policy’s scope and that the alleged comments about plaintiff’s status as a male were sufficient to connect procedural irregularities to potential gender bias. In permitting his defamation claim against the complainant to proceed, the court found plaintiff sufficiently alleged that her statements were made with actual malice to overcome a defense of qualified privilege.

    Topics:

    Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration | Sex Discrimination | Sex Discrimination in Employment | Tort Litigation

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