Cases & Developments - National Association of College and University Attorneys

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Latest Cases & Developments

Date:
8/4/2023
Puccinelli v. S. Conn. State Univ. (D. Conn. July 28, 2023)
Ruling and Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Plaintiff’s Motion to Amend. Plaintiff, a former student in the Special Education Teacher Certification program at Southern Connecticut State University who suffers from PTSD and anxiety, brought disparate treatment, failure to accommodate, and retaliation claims against the University and constitutional claims against multiple officials after she was removed from her student teaching assignment and dropped from the program. The court permitted plaintiff to proceed in her disparate treatment claim, finding she had sufficiently alleged that she was held to a higher standard than her peers in her student teaching assignment as a result of her anxiety. The court also permitted plaintiff to proceed in her due process claims under §1983, finding that she had sufficiently alleged that her dismissal was disciplinary, rather than academic, that it resulted when she raised concerns that a child at her placement was not receiving appropriate support, and that officials did not adequately explain the evidence against her in the process that resulted in her expulsion. Her failure to accommodate claim, however, was dismissed as conclusory, and her retaliation claim failed because the only adverse action she pleaded with specific facts was reversed before it took effect.
Topics:
Academic Performance and Misconduct | Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Retaliation | Students
Date:
8/4/2023
Massey v. Va. Polytechnic Inst. & Commonwealth of Va. (4th Cir. July 31, 2023)
Opinion vacating and remanding dismissal. Plaintiff, a former employee of Virginia Tech who had taken medical leave in April 2019 to recover from surgery, sued the University after it eliminated his position in October 2019 for financial reasons. He originally filed suit in Virginia state court under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. He took a voluntary nonsuit of that action and filed a federal action in January 2021. The district court granted the University’s motion to dismiss on the grounds that the claim was barred under the one-year statute of limitations from the Virginia Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act. The Fourth Circuit reversed, holding that under Virginia law a nonsuit tolls the statute of limitations even when, as here, sovereign immunity bars the claims in state court and that it was sufficient that the state court had potential jurisdiction even though it lacked active subject matter jurisdiction.
Topics:
Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration | Retaliation
Date:
8/4/2023
Sherman v. Itawamba Cmty. Coll. (N.D. Miss. Aug. 1, 2023)
Memorandum Opinion denying Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former residence hall director and manufacturing extension partnership coordinator at Itawamba Community College, brought retaliation, malicious interference with employment, and whistleblower claims against the College and multiple officials after she was placed on a performance improvement plan (PIP) and then terminated. Plaintiff alleged that her PIP and termination were a result of her report to college officials and the State Auditor of regulatory noncompliance and other violations in the College’s Workforce Training Program. In permitting plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim to proceed, the court found that her reports of wrongdoing to the State were sufficiently outside of her ordinary job duties to demonstrate that she spoke as a citizen. The court also permitted her malicious interference and whistleblower claims to proceed, holding that she had presented sufficient evidence to raise questions of material fact as to whether her termination resulted from her report to the State Auditor.
Topics:
Compliance & Risk Management | Compliance Programs, Policies & Procedures | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Retaliation
Date:
8/4/2023
A.C. v. Metro. Sch. Dist. of Martinsville (7th Cir. Aug. 1, 2023)
Opinion affirming preliminary injunctions. Plaintiffs, in consolidated cases, are three transgender boys in Indiana who received preliminary injunctions at the district court level permitting them access to the boys’ bathrooms and locker rooms in their middle or high schools. The school districts appealed. In affirming the injunctions, the Seventh Circuit declined to “jump from one side of the circuit split to the other, particularly in light of the intervening guidance in Bostock.” It affirmed on plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on their Title IX and equal protection claims, noting that the district courts had found (1) the schools’ asserted interest in protecting the privacy of other students was conjectural and (2) a lack of evidence that other students might masquerade as transgender to take advantage of the gender-affirming facility access policies.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Gender Identity & Sexual Orientation Discrimination
Date:
7/28/2023
Oross v. Kutztown Univ. (E.D. Pa. July 25, 2023)
Memorandum granting-in-part and denying-in-part Plaintiff’s and Defendants’ Motions for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a tenured associate professor at Kutztown University who had recently undergone a heart transplant, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the University and multiple officials after they denied his request to teach remotely for Fall 2021. The court granted summary judgment to plaintiff on his intentional discrimination and failure to accommodate claims. In this, it rejected the University’s assertion that plaintiff’s request to teach remotely was a fundamental alteration and an undue burden, noting that the University regularly offered at least some courses online and had successfully offered all of its courses online during the COVID-19 closure. Citing deposition testimony suggesting that the University adopted its stance that rescheduling in-person courses for online delivery would pose an undue hardship only after receiving several individual requests, the court also found that this policy was more likely than not pretextual. Turning to plaintiff’s retaliation claims, the court found a triable issue of fact as to the denial of requests made after he began to publicize his complaints, but it awarded summary judgment to the University as to his requests made prior to this protected activity. The court also ordered a trial on damages in plaintiff’s discrimination and failure to accommodate claims.
Topics:
Campus Police, Safety, & Crisis Management | Coronavirus | Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Retaliation
Date:
7/28/2023
Goulet v. The Univ. of Miss. (N.D. Miss. July 24, 2023)
Memorandum Opinion granting Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a tenured full professor in the Biology Department at the University of Mississippi, brought discrimination and Equal Pay Act claims against the University alleging that other faculty members were given “higher raises for less merit.” In granting summary judgment to the University, the court held that plaintiff failed to identify a proper comparator within her department, noting that (1) plaintiff has the highest salary of any member of her department other than the department chair, (2) plaintiff had received a merit raise every year in which merit raises were available in the department, (3) three comparators who received a higher percentage merit raise than plaintiff were still paid less overall, and (4) four now-retired comparators within plaintiff’s department who were paid more had more years of service than plaintiff.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Sex Discrimination | Sex Discrimination in Employment
Date:
7/28/2023
Bahl v. N.Y. Coll. of Osteopathic Med. of N.Y. Inst. of Tech. (E.D. N.Y. July 21, 2023)
Opinion and Order denying Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former student in the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine program at the New York Institute of Technology who had been diagnosed with ADHD and generalized anxiety disorder and who had already once failed a required competency exam administered by the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners (NBOME), brought a failure to accommodate claim against the Institute after it declined his request for a six-month leave of absence. Plaintiff had already taken a 180-day leave that was standard for students who had failed the NBOME exam. The Institute proposed instead a three-month leave contingent upon NBOME approving his testing accommodations and his test results being available by the start of the next semester. In permitting plaintiff to proceed, the court found that a jury could find that the Institute’s counter-proposal was not plainly reasonable and that granting the additional time would not be an undue hardship or substantial modification of the Institute’s program.
Topics:
Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity
Date:
7/28/2023
Doe v. Horne (D. Ariz. July 20, 2023)
Order granting Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiffs, two transgender girls attending middle schools in Arizona, sought a preliminary injunction to prevent implementation of Arizona’s Save Women’s Sports Act, which would preclude them from playing on girls’ sports teams. In granting the injunction, the court, after extensive findings of fact, held that plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their equal protection claim, finding that the categorical ban on transgender girls playing in girls’ sports is not substantially related to the asserted interests in ensuring equal opportunities for girls to play sports or in preventing safety risks. The court similarly held that plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their Title IX claim, finding that the Act discriminates on the basis of sex and “deprives [p]laintiffs of the benefits of sports programs and activities that their non-transgender classmates enjoy.”
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Gender Identity & Sexual Orientation Discrimination
Date:
7/28/2023
Ruizhu Dai v. Le, et al. (W.D. La. July 20, 2023)
Memorandum Ruling granting Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former graduate student and graduate assistant at Louisiana Tech University, brought constitutional and contract claims against multiple University officials after she received negative feedback on a public presentation and a low grade in a related class, was terminated from her assistantship, and resigned from the program when she was unable to form a dissertation committee. After the presentation, plaintiff emailed her professors taking issue with their critique of her research methodology. She also unsuccessfully appealed both her grade and the termination of her assistantship. In granting summary judgment to the defendants, the court held that plaintiff’s First Amendment claims failed because her email addressed neither the public nor a matter of public concern. Her due process claim failed because the continuation of her assistantship was contingent upon satisfactory performance and because she was afforded sufficient process upon its termination. Finally, her contract claim failed (1) because her contract was between her and the University, rather than the individual officials, and (2) because her assistantship letter provided that unsatisfactory performance could result in termination.
Topics:
Academic Performance and Misconduct | Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | First Amendment & Free Speech | Retaliation | Students
Date:
7/28/2023
Fizulich v. Killings (N.D. N.Y. July 20, 2023)
Memorandum-Decision and Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former student-athlete at the State University of New York at Albany who is white, brought tort claims against the University’s basketball coach, who is African American, and discrimination and contract claims against the University in the wake of an incident in which he alleges the coach assaulted him in the locker room during an away game. Plaintiff alleges that the University disciplined and planned to terminate the coach, but later reversed the termination decision following community pressure, which plaintiff alleged resulted in his constructive termination from the team. The court permitted plaintiff’s Title VI discrimination claim to proceed, finding his factual allegations sufficient to support a plausible inference of discrimination. The court, however, held that plaintiff’s contract claim, which asserted that the University did not offer him the protective measures provided for in its Violence Policy, was barred by sovereign immunity.
Topics:
Contracts | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Student Athlete Issues | Students

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