Cases & Developments - National Association of College and University Attorneys

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Date:
12/15/2023
Khlafa v. Or. Health & Sci. Univ. (D. Or. Dec. 12, 2023)
Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former information specialist at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), proceeding pro se, brought age and other discrimination claims against OHSU after he signed a Separation Agreement, which included a broad Mutual Release of All Claims, ending his employment the following day. The court permitted plaintiff to proceed in his age discrimination claim because the Separation Agreement did not provide plaintiff with a 21-day period to consider the agreement or a 7-day period to revoke after execution as required for a knowing and voluntary release under the ADEA as amended by the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA). It granted summary judgment to OHSU on his other discrimination claims because he provided no evidence to support his claim that he signed the Separation Agreement under duress, noting, in particular, that he was represented by counsel at the time.
Topics:
Age Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Employment Separation, RIFs, ERIPs & Retrenchment | Faculty & Staff
Date:
12/15/2023
Edrich v. Dall. Coll. (N.D. Tex. Dec. 12, 2023)
Memorandum Opinion and Order granting Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former Executive Director of Human Resources at Brookhaven College, which was consolidated into Dallas College along with several other separately accredited colleges, brought discrimination and contract claims against Dallas College after she was reassigned to a new role during a transitional phase and then not hired for any of the new positions in the final phase of the consolidation. In granting summary judgment to the College on her contract claims, the court held that plaintiff’s assertion that she had been demoted when the College reassigned her failed because her month-to-month employment contract referred to her only as an administrator and she continued to receive the same salary after her the reassignment. In granting summary judgment to the College on her race and age discrimination claims, the court found that plaintiff failed to point to any evidence showing that the College’s assertion that it sought to hire the most qualified candidates was pretextual.
Topics:
Age Discrimination | Contracts | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination
Date:
12/8/2023
Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer (U.S. Dec. 5, 2023)
Opinion vacating as moot and remanding to the First Circuit with instructions to dismiss. Respondent, a self-described “tester,” sued Acheson Hotels and hundreds of other hotels because they did not provide information about accessibility of their rooms on their websites as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. To resolve a circuit split, the Supreme Court granted certiorari on the question, “Does a self-appointed Americans with Disabilities Act ‘tester’ have Article III standing to challenge a place of public accommodation’s failure to provide disability accessibility information on its website, even if she lacks any intention of visiting that place of public accommodation?” The Court dismissed the case as moot after respondent voluntarily dismissed her pending suits with prejudice following her lawyer’s suspension from the practice of law for lying in fee petitions and during settlement negotiations.
Topics:
Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity
Date:
12/8/2023
Skoorka v. Kean Univ. (D. N.J. Dec. 4, 2023) (unpub.)
Opinion and Order denying Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former professor at Kean University, brought retaliation claims against the University after it shifted him from a teaching role to a nonteaching assignment in order to give him more time to complete evaluations he had not completed and to permit him to focus on his research and scholarship. In denying the University’s motion for summary judgment, the court held that (1) the shift from a teaching to a nonteaching role may constitute an adverse employment action and (2) plaintiff’s testimony that he was told his reassignment was because he failed to attend required professional development sessions was sufficient to raise a material question of fact as to causation.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation | Sex Discrimination | Sex Discrimination in Employment
Date:
12/8/2023
McKinley v. Princeton Univ. (D. N.J. Dec. 1, 2023) (unpub.)
Memorandum Opinion granting Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former employee of Princeton University who had been granted a religious exemption to the University’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the University after it denied her request for a religious exemption to its masking, testing, and contract tracing policies and terminated her shortly thereafter. In dismissing her amended complaint, the court found that plaintiff failed to identify a religious belief preventing her from complying with the policy. It found that her assertion that “her body is a temple, that she decries and does all that she can to abolish any and all abuse against life and Mankind, and that she decries the suppression of knowledge, wisdom, philosophy, or data which would help Mankind” stated a personal moral code and lacked information regarding religious belief or other formal and external signs of religion.
Topics:
Campus Police, Safety, & Crisis Management | Coronavirus | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Religious Discrimination & Accommodation | Retaliation
Date:
12/8/2023
Peyton v. Kuhn (W.D. Va. Dec. 1, 2023)
Memorandum Opinion denying Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former baseball player at Radford University, brought a First Amendment retaliation claim against the University’s baseball coach after the coach did not play him in any games during the 2020-2021 season and then cut him from the team causing him to lose his scholarship and subsequently to transfer from the University. Plaintiff alleged that these actions were in retaliation for complaints he, his parents, and a group of student-athletes made about the coach’s treatment of plaintiff and other players. In denying the defendant’s motion to dismiss, the court found that cutting plaintiff from the team was an adverse action and that the temporal proximity between the complaints and plaintiff’s removal from the team was sufficient to plead a causal relationship.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | First Amendment & Free Speech | Retaliation | Student Athlete Issues | Students
Date:
12/8/2023
The Univ. of Hous. v. Kingsbury (Tex. App. Nov. 30, 2023)
Memorandum Opinion reversing and dismissing. Plaintiff, an unsuccessful candidate for a tenure-track position in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Houston who described herself as Canadian and of “Northern European extraction,” brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the University after it hired a white, Italian male instead. During her on-campus interview, a member of the search committee questioned her ability “as a white person” to understand the topic of her lecture presentation, which prompted another member of the search committee to initiate a complaint with the University’s Office of Equal Opportunity. In dismissing plaintiff’s national-origin discrimination claim, the Court of Appeals of Texas held that she was unable to raise a question as to whether the scores assigned to the successful candidate were pretextual. In dismissing her retaliation claim, it found she was unable to show denial of proper consideration of her application because (1) the committee member who had questioned her was reprimanded and (2) the University had also calculated her interview scores without those of the questioning committee member.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation
Date:
12/8/2023
U.S. Dep.’t of Justice Regulatory Agenda for Spring 2023—Web Accessibility (Dec. 6, 2023)
U.S. Department of Justice Uniform Regulatory Agenda for Fall 2023. The filing indicates that the Department’s Civil Rights Division plans to issue a final action on Accessibility of Web Information and Services of State and Local Government Entities in April 2024.
Topics:
Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Technology | Technology Accessibility
Date:
12/1/2023
Tolley v. Mercer Univ. (11th Cir. Nov. 29, 2023)
Opinion affirming summary judgment in favor of the University. Plaintiff, an unsuccessful candidate for a tenure-track position in the School of Theology at Mercer University who is white, brought a discrimination claim against the University alleging that notes kept by members of the search committee showed a preference to hire a candidate who is African American in order to add to the diversity of the faculty. The University did not share demographic information about the candidates with the search committee, and plaintiff was not offered an interview. In affirming summary judgment in favor of the University, the Eleventh Circuit held that although his evidence showed that the “hiring process was infected with an invidious focus on the race of the candidates,” plaintiff’s claim failed because he was unable to demonstrate that the decisionmakers knew his race. In particular, the court found that testimony from a faculty member that he “probably” mentioned to a member of the search committee that plaintiff was his cousin’s niece’s husband was insufficient to defeat testimony from members of the committee that they were unaware of plaintiff’s race when he was dropped from consideration.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination
Date:
12/1/2023
Scruggs v. Grand Canyon Univ. (D. Ariz. Nov. 21, 2023)
Order granting Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former nursing student at Grand Canyon University who suffers from a weakened immune system and other complications as a result of childhood cancer treatments, brought discrimination, contract, and unfair trade practices claims against the University after she was dismissed from the program when she failed a required course for not submitting forms to extend her excused absences when complications from a strep infection further delayed her return to school. Her disability discrimination claim failed because plaintiff had not notified the University of her underlying weakened immunity or other complications. The court also rejected plaintiff’s contention that the medical documentation policy was confusing, noting that she was familiar with the University’s absence policy and used it to her benefit in the past. Her breach of contract claim related to the University’s nondiscrimination policy failed because her alleged injuries were redressable under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act. Her unfair trade practices claim failed because she provided no evidence that the University had represented to her that her nursing credits would be transferable to another nursing program.
Topics:
Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity

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