Cases & Developments - National Association of College and University Attorneys

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Date:
1/5/2024
Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. The United States Mil. Acad. at W. Point (S.D. N.Y. Jan. 3, 2024)
Opinion and Order denying Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiff, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., brought a Fifth Amendment claim against the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Department of Defense, and multiple officials, alleging that the use of racial classifications in West Point’s admissions process cannot satisfy strict scrutiny as considered and applied in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College. In denying a preliminary injunction, the court declined plaintiff’s suggestion that no interest asserted by defendants could be constitutional under Harvard, finding that the “patchwork of information” plaintiff assembled was insufficient to warrant injunctive relief and instead created questions of fact regarding the military’s assertion that consideration of race “(1) fosters cohesion and lethality; (2) aids in recruitment of top talent; (3) increases retention; and (4) bolsters the Army’s legitimacy in the eyes of the nation and the world.” The court likewise held plaintiff had not shown that the alleged harm resulting from the admissions program is a constitutional deprivation. Finally, in finding that plaintiff had not shown that the balance of equities tips in its favor or that preliminary injunction is in the public interest, the court noted that an injunction would disrupt two admissions cycles and possibly require West Point to withdraw offered appointments.
Topics:
Admissions | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Students
Date:
1/5/2024
Perkins v. New Eng. Coll. (D. Vt. Jan. 3, 2024)
Opinion and Order granting Defendants’ Motion to Stay. Plaintiff, a former Chancellor of New England College who was also a member of its Board of Trustees, brought sex discrimination and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims against the College and its President after it terminated her employment the day after her Employment Agreement expired and removed her from its Board prior the end of her three-year term. Defendants moved to stay and to compel arbitration pursuant to the Employment Agreement. In granting the stay and compelling arbitration on plaintiff’s discrimination and IIED claims, the court held that even though her termination took place after the Employment Agreement’s expiration, the facts giving rise to her claims occurred within its duration. Turning to her claims related to her removal from the Board, the court held that although her Board appointment was not governed by the Employment Agreement “the interests of economy for both the Court and the parties will be served by a complete stay.”
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Governance | Governing Boards & Administrators | Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration | Sex Discrimination | Sex Discrimination in Employment
Date:
1/5/2024
Warman v. Mount St. Joseph Univ. (S.D. Ohio Jan. 3, 2024)
Order granting-in-part Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former nursing student at Mount St. Joseph University who had been diagnosed with multiple disabilities, including depression, anxiety, and brain tumors, brought various civil rights and Fourth Amendment claims under §1983 and disability discrimination claims against the University and multiple officials after he was denied a religious exemption to the University’s COVID-19 vaccination policy. Plaintiff also alleged that campus police had questioned him about his decision not to receive a vaccine. In dismissing plaintiff’s civil rights claims, the court found that the University officials who established the vaccination policy were private persons and employees of a private entity who neither acted in a public function nor exercised state coercive power. It ruled that plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment claim against the campus police officer failed, finding that no seizure took place because a reasonable person in the circumstances alleged would have believed they were free to leave, and that the officers were, accordingly, entitled to qualified immunity. In dismissing his disability discrimination claim, the court noted that though he had submitted medical documentation indicating “a medical need to avoid taking COVID vaccines,” he had not alleged what condition gave rise to this need. The court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over state law claims.
Topics:
Campus Police, Safety, & Crisis Management | Constitutional Issues | Coronavirus | Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Fourth Amendment & Search and Seizure
Date:
1/5/2024
Grisgorescu v. Bd. of Trs. of San Mateo Cnty. Cmty. Coll. Dist. (N.D. Cal. Jan. 2, 2024)
Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former lab technician and adjunct professor at the College of San Mateo, brought First Amendment retaliation claims against the San Mateo Community College District and its Vice Chancellor for Human Resources (VCHR), who also served as legal counsel for the College, alleging that they harassed and ultimately terminated her in retaliation for her participation in community organizing and litigation opposing the College’s plan to replace a garden with a parking lot. Although plaintiff was ultimately terminated for abusing sick time to teach at another institution, an earlier termination decision based on her mischaracterization of her academic qualifications was reversed on appeal. Plaintiff also asserted that decisions not to permit her to participate in a mentorship program or to substitute for full-time professors were retaliatory harassment. The court granted summary judgment in favor of the VCHR with respect to plaintiff’s ultimate termination, finding that the Board of Trustees, as a state agency, functioned in a sufficiently judicial capacity in her termination appeal hearing to bar her retaliation claim under both claim and issue preclusion. It permitted her claims to proceed, however, with respect to the first termination process and alleged harassment, finding (1) sufficient temporal proximity to the VCHR’s representation of the College and the District in plaintiff’s prior litigation, and (2) his opposition to her protected activity by virtue of that representation.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | First Amendment & Free Speech | Retaliation
Date:
1/5/2024
Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. The United States Naval Acad. (D. Md. Dec. 20, 2023)
Memorandum Opinion denying Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiff, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., brought a Fifth Amendment challenge against the United States Naval Academy and multiple officials, alleging that the Naval Academy’s race conscious admissions practices cannot survive strict scrutiny. In denying a preliminary injunction, the court held that the Naval Academy is due more deference than a public or private university, citing the explicit caveat for military academies in the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College. Noting the objectives served by the military’s determination that “a diverse officer corps is critical to cohesion and lethality, to recruitment, to retention, and to the military’s legitimacy in the eyes of the nation and the world” differ from the interest in educational benefits approved in Grutter and rejected in Harvard, the court was unprepared to conclude that the Naval Academy’s use of race was incoherent, that Grutter’s purported 25-year time limit applied, or that the Naval Academy presumed stereotypically that there is “an inherent benefit in race qua race.” The court was also unpersuaded as this stage that the Naval Academy used race or ethnicity as a negative or that it had not sufficiently considered race-neutral alternatives. Given this, the court further found that plaintiff had not established the likelihood of irreparable harm or that the balance of equities or the public interest favored an injunction.
Topics:
Admissions | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Students
Date:
12/29/2023
Cetin v. Kan. City Cmty. Coll. (D. Kan. Dec. 18, 2023)
Memorandum and Order denying Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, an English as a second language instructor at Kansas City Community College who suffers from multiple conditions that leave her immunocompromised and at increased risk of respiratory infections, brought a failure to accommodate claim against the College after it denied her request to work from home, despite her assertion that she received excellent evaluations and achieved the same student outcomes teaching remotely as prior to the pandemic. The College required plaintiff to be present on campus during Fall 2021 and to attend in-person events, though it permitted her to teach her classes by video conference while isolated in her office. In permitting plaintiff’s claim to proceed, the court found that plaintiff had plausibly pled she had requested a reasonable accommodation.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity
Date:
12/29/2023
Vlaming v. W. Point Sch. Bd. (Va. Dec. 14, 2023)
Opinion reversing dismissal of plaintiff’s claims and remanding for further proceedings. Plaintiff, a former French teacher at West Point High School, brought First Amendment, statutory, and contract claims against the West Point School Board after it terminated him when he referred to a transgender male student by the student’s preferred name but avoided use of masculine third-person pronouns with respect to the student. In reversing dismissal and remanding for further proceedings on his First Amendment compelled speech claim, the Supreme Court of Virginia held that because he had not insisted on referring to the student by feminine pronouns the school’s concern for orderly administration played “no role as a counterbalance to a teacher’s right not to be compelled to give a verbal salute to an ideological view that violates his conscious and has nothing to do with the specific curricular topic being taught.” Because it held that he had sufficiently alleged a First Amendment violation, the court also permitted plaintiff’s contract and statutory claims to proceed, noting that his contract was not terminable at will and statute protected him from termination without just cause.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | First Amendment & Free Speech | Gender Identity & Sexual Orientation Discrimination
Date:
12/15/2023
Rasheed v. Mt. San Antonio Coll. (9th Cir. Dec. 12, 2023)
Memorandum affirming summary judgment in favor of the College. Plaintiff, a former student at Mount San Antonio College, brought Title IX retaliation claims after she was “expelled, in part, for continuing to accuse an administrator of ‘sexual assault’ after the College’s internal Title IX investigation found that the evidence indicated that the administrator had not engaged in the alleged conduct.” In affirming summary judgment in favor of the College, the Ninth Circuit held that continuing to make the accusations after the investigation was no longer protected activity because plaintiff “failed to produce any evidence indicating that she had a reasonable belief that the administrator had engaged in unlawful conduct.”
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Retaliation
Date:
12/15/2023
Mitchell v. Univ. of Pittsburgh (3rd Cir. Dec. 12, 2023)
Opinion affirming summary judgment in favor of the University. Plaintiff, a former campus police officer at the University of Pittsburgh, brought an age discrimination claim against the University after demoted him from senior sergeant and shift supervisor to patrolman. In affirming summary judgment in favor of the University, the Third Circuit held that plaintiff’s assertion that his supervisor provided him with a copy of the collective bargaining agreement and said he could “take advantage of retirement” was not direct evidence of age discrimination because the provision in the agreement on retirement had changed since plaintiff was last covered by it. It also held that plaintiff’s prima facie case of discrimination failed because his assertion of his personal understanding that he was replaced by a younger employee was insufficient to create a presumption of discrimination because it was insufficient to overcome the University’s evidence that the younger employee was only promoted to sergeant and did not otherwise take on his prior duties.
Topics:
Age Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity
Date:
12/15/2023
Dennison v. Ind. Univ. of Pa. (3rd Cir. Dec. 12, 2023)
Opinion affirming summary judgment in favor of the University. Plaintiff, a former Executive Director of Housing, Residential Living and Dining at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, brought discrimination and First Amendment retaliation claims against the University and University officials after she was first demoted to Director of Residence Life and then had her position eliminated with staff reductions at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Plaintiff alleged that she was terminated for unilaterally implementing a contactless checkout process when the University closed its residential facilities in March 2020. In affirming summary judgment in favor of the University on her First Amendment retaliation claim, the Third Circuit held that plaintiff’s speech defending her decision to implement the checkout process was not protected because it was pursuant to her duties as a University employee. Her sex discrimination claim failed because she should not show that the University’s decision in favor of flatter, streamlined organization in her demotion was pretextual and because her responsibilities were given to another woman. Her age discrimination claim similarly failed because she was unable to show that the University’s preference for efficiency or her supervisor’s ultimate loss of confidence in her leadership were pretextual.
Topics:
Age Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Employment Separation, RIFs, ERIPs & Retrenchment | Faculty & Staff | Retaliation | Sex Discrimination | Sex Discrimination in Employment

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