Cases & Developments - National Association of College and University Attorneys

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Latest Cases & Developments

Date:
2/17/2026
Young Americans for Freedom, et al. v. Department of Education (8th Cir. Feb. 17, 2026)
Plaintiffs’ Motion to Voluntarily Dismiss Appeal. Plaintiffs, the Young Americans for Freedom, sought an injunction prohibiting the Department of Education from utilizing race eligibility criteria to award grants for the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program. The district court denied the motion, finding that plaintiffs lacked standing because they failed to include the relevant higher education institutions, which control applicant selection, not the Department. Plaintiffs appealed the denial of their request for an injunction to the Eighth Circuit but before the court could render a decision, the parties agreed to drop the lawsuit. In requesting the court to dismiss the case, the motion highlights (1) the Department’s determination that the program’s race eligibility criteria is unconstitutional and (2) it’s commitment to rescinding the race criteria in an upcoming rulemaking.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Equal Protection | Financial Aid, Scholarships, & Student Loans | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Students
Date:
7/29/2025
U.S. Department of Justice Notice of Findings Regarding the University of California, Los Angeles (Jul. 29, 2025)
The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Civil Rights Division determined that the University of California, Los Angeles (the University) violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by failing to adequately address antisemitic harassment during and after a protest encampment on campus in spring 2024. The DOJ’s Notice of Violation outlined three key findings. First, the notice claimed that Jewish and Israeli students were subject to severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive harassment, including assaults, verbal abuse, and physical exclusion from campus spaces, on the basis of their race, religion, or national origin. Second, notice claimed that the University had actual notice of this hostile environment, having received at least eleven formal complaints and issued public statements acknowledging Jewish students’ fears and physical exclusion. Third, the notice claimed that the University responded with deliberate indifference, taking no meaningful action to eliminate the hostile environment for nearly a week, despite having both legal and policy authority to dismantle the encampment earlier. The DOJ concluded that the University’s free speech concerns were misplaced because the conduct in question included physical assaults, intimidation, and denial of access, which are not protected by the First Amendment. DOJ officials condemned the inaction and warned that legal action will follow if the University does not enter into a voluntary resolution agreement by August 5, 2025.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Enforcement of Non-Discrimination Laws | Equal Protection | External Counsel | First Amendment & Free Speech | General Counsel | Race and National Origin Discrimination
Date:
3/18/2025
Statement of Interest Supporting Equal Access to Educational Opportunities and Facilities for Jewish UCLA Students (Mar. 18, 2025)
The U.S. Justice Department (the Department) filed a statement of interest in the Central District of California as part of the ongoing litigation of Frankel v. Regents of the University of California (C.D. Cal. Aug. 13, 2024) to advance the appropriate interpretation of federal laws that prohibit colleges and universities from discriminating against students because of their religion or national origin. The statement of interest is part of the nationwide efforts to combat antisemitism from the Federal Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Equal Protection | First Amendment & Free Speech | Religious Discrimination & Accommodation | Student Speech & Campus Unrest | Students
Date:
1/24/2025
Young Americans for Freedom v. U.S. Department of Education (E.D.N.D. Dec. 31, 2024)
Order denying Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiffs, two organizations, the Young America’s Foundation and Young Americans for Freedom, along with two individual students sought an injunction (1) prohibiting the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) “from enforcing or otherwise implementing the racial and ethnic classifications in [the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program (the Program)]” and (2) requiring the Department to notify universities participating in the Program that they cannot impose or rely on racial and ethnic classifications. Plaintiffs allege the Department’s underrepresented race criteria for the Program is unlawful under the Equal Protection Clause and such racial eligibility requirement “is a harm to [their] personal dignity.” While individual Plaintiffs both wished to apply to the Program, they ultimately chose not to because of their race (white) and lack of low-income or first-generation college student status. In finding that plaintiffs lack standing, the Court determined that plaintiffs’ alleged injury for “the denial of equal treatment” in the application and admission process will not be redressed by any injunction against the Department because the higher education institutions are also part of the administration of the Program. The Department awards institutions five-year grants to administer the Program on their campuses, and once funding is distributed, it is up to the institutions – not the Department – to select applicants. Because “there is nothing in the record that indicates the Department has any control over the grants once allocated to the institutions” and since institutions would not be bound by the Court’s order, the Court denied Plaintiffs’ motion for Preliminary Injunction and dismissed the case without prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Equal Protection | Financial Aid, Scholarships, & Student Loans | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Students
Date:
1/17/2025
Department of Education Releases: Protecting Civil Rights: Highlights of Activities, Office for Civil Rights 2021-25 (Jan. 16, 2025)
The U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released a record of OCR’s enforcement records during the Biden-Harris Administration titled “Protecting Civil Rights: Highlights of Activities, Office for Civil Rights 2021-25.” The record details OCR’s accomplishments in the past four years, specifying achievements in the highest number of resolutions in OCR’s history; 114 resolved complaints; publication of Civil Rights Data; and publication of 64 policy resources, comprising what OCR describes as the most productive four years in its history.
Topics:
Accreditation, Authorizations, & Higher Education Act | Constitutional Issues | Equal Protection | Higher Education Act (HEA)
Date:
10/25/2024
Saavedra v. Lehigh Carbon Cmty. Coll. (E.D. Pa. Oct. 23, 2024)
Opinion denying Defendant’s Amended Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former student at Lehigh Carbon Community College who identifies as a person with Autism, brought disability discrimination, equal protection, retaliation, and denial of due process claims against the College. Plaintiff alleged the College denied his accommodations, including extended time on exams and reduced distraction environment, and also “intimidat[ed]” him into forgoing a right to a hearing following a charge of an academic integrity violation. Although he received accommodations during the spring semester, plaintiff alleged that the College failed to implement corresponding accommodations for the summer term, which prompted him to have his mother scribe his summer course midterm exam scratchwork for him after he became fatigued while taking the test. Afterwards, plaintiff was charged with an academic integrity violation, for which he sought a hearing and retained counsel but claims that he was “threatened” when the dean of the college stated “most of the cases like yours ending in a hearing will finish with bad outcomes, and there is no need to go through the whole process,” which prompted plaintiff to forfeit the hearing and permit the violation to stand. The court permitted the disability discrimination claim to proceed, finding that plaintiff’s allegation that the College refused to implement any accommodation “in it of itself” sufficed to state a claim, and that the College’s defense targeted the academic dishonesty violation but failed to take into account plaintiff’s claim that the institution had knowledge that his rights were “substantially likely to be violated” in light of plaintiff’s prior accommodations, and requests for similar accommodations for the summer semester. The court also allowed the retaliation claim to move forward, finding the dean’s alleged statement to plaintiff was an adverse action sufficient to deter a person from exercising their rights, when considering plaintiff’s Autism and the vulnerability the disability exposed him to. Finally, the court found that the College’s motion did not address plaintiff’s equal protection claim and rejected the defense that the charge of academic dishonesty did not give rise to a claim for substantive due process absent either suspension or expulsion.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Equal Protection
Date:
3/1/2024
Niman v. Mont. Univ. Sys. (D. Mont. Feb. 23, 2024)
Opinion and Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiffs, current and former students in professional degree programs at the University of Montana who were classified as nonresidents for tuition and fees at the time of their enrollment, brought due process and equal protection challenges to several features of the University’s residency policy, alleging that they were unconstitutionally denied reclassification to in-state residency status. The court permitted plaintiffs to proceed, first, on their facial challenge to a provision that denies reclassification to professional degree students who cannot show that they were residents for at least 12 consecutive months for a purpose other than postsecondary education prior to their first semester of the professional degree program. Next, the court permitted plaintiffs to proceed in their as applied, but not their facial challenge to the policy’s general but rebuttable presumption that students enrolled in at least half of a full-time credit load cannot establish residency on the grounds that the policy provides students in professional degree programs fewer bases for rebutting that presumption. Finally, the court also permitted plaintiffs to proceed on their challenges to the policy’s requirement that a student wait 12 months before seeking reclassification and demonstrate less than 50% dependence on out-of-state sources of income and financial support, as well as on their claim that the policy requires them to pay tuition at rates disproportionate to the funding provided by Montana taxpayers.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Due Process | Equal Protection
Date:
2/23/2024
Children’s Health Def. Inc. v. Rutgers, The State Univ. of N.J. (3rd Cir. Feb. 15, 2024)
Opinion affirming dismissal. Appellants, thirteen students at Rutgers University during Spring 2021, brought statutory and constitutional challenges to the University’s announced COVID-19 vaccine policy requiring that unvaccinated students either take all their classes online or mask and test weekly. In affirming dismissal, the Third Circuit held that the policy was not preempted by the federal Emergency Use Authorization Act because it preserved the students’ right to refuse the vaccine. Turning to their substantive due process claim, the court found no fundamental right to refuse a vaccination and held that the policy was rationally related to the University’s interest in maintaining a healthy student body. It similarly held that their equal protection claim failed because the University had a rational basis for treating vaccinated and unvaccinated students differently.
Topics:
Campus Police, Safety, & Crisis Management | Constitutional Issues | Coronavirus | Due Process | Equal Protection
Date:
2/2/2024
Denton v. Bd. of Governors for the State Univ. Sys. of Fla. (N.D. Fla. Jan. 24, 2024)
Order granting Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiffs, students at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU), on behalf of themselves and a putative class of “all Black students at FAMU at any time during the 2021/2022 school year through the date of class certification,” brought Title VI and the Equal Protection claims against the University and the State of Florida, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief only, alleging both intentional discrimination and a failure to dismantle patterns of discrimination dating to Florida’s system of de jure segregation before Brown v. Board of Education. In granting defendants’ motion to dismiss, though the court noted differences in funding and graduation and retention rates, it held that plaintiffs’ alleged facts were insufficient to show that disparate State funding, including land-grant funding, and overlap or duplication of program offerings between FAMU and Florida’s other state universities were traceable to de jure segregation or intentional discrimination.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Equal Protection | Race and National Origin Discrimination
Date:
8/4/2023
Wallace v. Owens (C.D. Ill. July 31, 2023)
Opinion granting Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former sworn law enforcement officer at the University of Illinois Springfield, brought Equal Protection claims against her former supervisors after she was terminated because of actions she took during a traffic stop. The court dismissed her claims (1) as barred by sovereign immunity and (2) because her allegation that she “was disciplined more harshly than male co-workers who engaged in comparable violations of policy” was insufficient to “meet the low threshold required of a plaintiff who alleges a Fourteenth Amendment gender discrimination claim.”
Topics:
Campus Police, Safety, & Crisis Management | Constitutional Issues | Employee Discipline & Due Process | Equal Protection | Faculty & Staff

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