Cases & Developments - National Association of College and University Attorneys

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Latest Cases & Developments

Date:
11/10/2023
Kilborn v. Amiridis, et al. (N.D. Ill. Nov. 1, 2023)
Opinion and Order granting-in-part Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a tenured professor of law at the University of Illinois, brought multiple claims, including First Amendment retaliation and tort claims, against multiple officials after he was sanctioned for harassment and creating fear of retaliation in response to student criticisms of his use of derogatory slurs in his employment law final exam hypothetical. The court dismissed plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim for failure to allege speech on a matter of public concern, finding that (1) the use of epithets in the exam hypo added little to public discourse since “a student’s response to a written exam question remains limited to the professor grading the exam,” (2) conversations with individual students over email and Zoom about the hypo were nonpublic and reflected only his personal feeling of grievance over the controversy, and (3) transcripts of in-class discussions in which he used other language at issue in the investigation revealed that the language was used in discussions of topics unrelated to matters of public concern. The court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff’s state law claims, thus, terminating the federal case.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | First Amendment & Free Speech | Retaliation
Date:
11/7/2023
Thomas v. Auburn Univ. (M.D. Ala. Nov. 1, 2023)
Memorandum Opinion and Order granting Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former Director of Academic Support Services for student-athletes at Auburn University, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the University after he was terminated for waiting more than a year, in violation of NCAA compliance rules, to report that he suspected a student-athlete’s grade was changed inappropriately. After plaintiff received a “marginal” rating in his annual performance evaluation, he complained to a Human Resources generalist that he had been treated unfairly and filed an EEOC charge alleging discrimination and hostile work environment. He explained that he only reported his concern regarding the grade change after he began to suspect that his knowledge of it was related to what he perceived as hostile treatment. The court granted summary judgment to the University on his discrimination claim finding that his supervisors who did not believe the grade change was inappropriate were not adequate comparators and that he failed to present a convincing mosaic of circumstantial evidence of discrimination. Plaintiff’s retaliation claim also failed because he offered nothing to connect his termination to his EEOC charge or complaints he filed months earlier with HR.
Topics:
Athletics & Sports | Athletics Compliance & NCAA Rules | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation
Date:
11/7/2023
Terrell v. Ala. State Univ. (M.D. Ala. Oct. 30, 2023)
Memorandum Opinion and Order granting Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former Senior Associate Athletic Director of Internal Operations at Alabama State University, brought pay discrimination and retaliation claims against the University after a new Athletic Director eliminated her position in favor of a new Senior Associate Athletic Director/Chief of Staff role for which one of the AD’s former direct reports was hired. Plaintiff was also designated as the Senior Woman Administrator, though she did not receive the additional compensation the University had earmarked in its budget for the function. The court granted summary judgment to the University on her Equal Pay Act claim, finding that plaintiff failed to identify proper comparators, and her assertion that two male employees received the same salary for less work was insufficient to show that they were paid more for equal work. It granted summary judgment to the University on both her retaliation and Title IX discrimination claims, ruling that her challenges to the wisdom of the University’s proposed reorganization and budget process fell short of raising questions of pretext.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Retaliation | Sex Discrimination | Sex Discrimination in Employment
Date:
10/20/2023
Taylor Haynie v. Wash. Univ. Sch. of Med. Div. of Infectious Diseases, (E.D. Mo. Oct. 18, 2023)
Order granting summary judgment in favor of the University. Plaintiff, a former Research Nurse Coordinator in the Clinical Research Unit of the Washington University School of Medicine’s Division of Infectious diseases, who is an African American female, brought Title VII race discrimination and retaliation against the University after it eliminated her position. Plaintiff was hired for a grant-funded position, and her offer letter stated “your employment will be contingent upon continued receipt of these grant funds.” Plaintiff received poor ratings in her first two annual evaluations after she got into a verbal altercation with a colleague during which she raised her voice and a hand, five patients complained about her venipuncture skills and requested she not draw their blood in the future, and errors were found in untimely submitted patient charts. Between the unsatisfactory evaluations, plaintiff complained of race-based discrimination as she and two African American female colleagues were forced to share an office referred to as the “closet.” An investigation found no evidence of discrimination, and she was offered a new office. Plaintiff also challenged the performance evaluation score in the second evaluation, it was adjusted slightly upward. But after she confronted a co-worker and left the latter in tears, plaintiff was placed on a performance improvement plan (PIP), which she asserted was either retaliatory or discriminatory, claims an investigation determined were unfounded. Ultimately, she was furloughed along with 1,300 employees, and her position was eliminated due to cost cutting during the coronavirus pandemic. The court reasoned that plaintiff’s failure to meet the legitimate expectations of the University coupled with the fiscal impacts of the pandemic were legitimate non-discriminatory reasons to eliminate her position. The court found significant that the University gave plaintiff the opportunity to course correct, and thus dismissed her claim for race-based discrimination. Likewise, the court found a one-year gap between plaintiff’s first complaint and the elimination of her position did not establish sufficient causal nexus and dismissed her retaliation claim.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation
Date:
10/20/2023
Lewis v. Bd. of Supervisors of La. State Univ. (M.D. La. Oct. 17, 2023)
Order denying Plaintiff’s motion to reconsider the scope of a protective order regarding attorney-client privileged redactions in external investigations. Plaintiff, a Louisiana State University (LSU) Athletic Department employee, brought Title VII, Title IX, §1981, §1983, and RICO claims against the LSU Board of Supervisors and individual defendants based on conduct related to the conduct of former head football coach, Les Miles (Miles). In denying Plaintiff’s motion, the court reasoned that absent evidence of a prima facie case that defendants committed one of the three crimes alleged by plaintiff, the crime-fraud exception remained unavailable to pierce the veil of attorney-client privilege attendant to the redacted sections of a student complaint memo (Memo) detailing LSU’s review of allegations made by a student-employee against Miles, and outside counsel’s billing records. Specifically, the court ruled that outsourcing LSU’s investigatory obligations under Title IX to external counsel, did not convert an internal inquiry into allegations of Miles’ alleged conduct to an “official proceeding” pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §1512 (witness tampering). The court also found that under Louisiana state law (1) settling a student’s related civil claim was not public bribery, and (2) communication between counsel for LSU and Miles about the breadth of details in the Memo did not add up to factually false statements in public records, nor did the legal conclusion that Miles did not violate Title IX.
Topics:
Athletics & Sports | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | External Counsel | General Counsel | Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration | Retaliation | Sex Discrimination | Sex Discrimination in Employment
Date:
10/13/2023
Narayanan v. Midwestern State Univ. (5th Cir. Oct. 11, 2023)
Opinion partially vacating summary judgment in favor of the University and remanding. Plaintiff is a former tenured associate professor at Midwestern State University who is of Malaysian national origin. In 2018, after settling a national origin discrimination suit against the University, he did not receive a requested summer teaching assignment. Subsequently, he was diagnosed with cervical spondylotic myelopathy while presenting at a conference in Malaysia and was unable to return to the United States for several semesters. Leading up to his termination, the University’s Director of Disability Support Services engaged in an extensive interactive process with plaintiff, offering multiple accommodations, including additional leave, “unless such accommodation would have undue hardship on the functioning of the department or university.” When plaintiff again did not report to teach assigned classes, the University cancelled his employment contract and revoked his tenure. Plaintiff brought failure to accommodate, discrimination, and retaliation claims against the University. The Fifth Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the University on his failure to accommodate claim, finding his indefinite leave of absence request without a return date was an undue hardship. It vacated summary judgment and remanded on his Title VII discrimination and retaliation claims, finding that (1) lost income from summer teaching may qualify as an adverse employment action and (2) although that loss was not an ultimate employment decision, it was sufficient to dissuade a reasonable person from opposing unlawful discrimination.
Topics:
Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation
Date:
10/13/2023
Doe v. Rowan Univ. (D. N.J. Oct. 10, 2023)
Opinion denying Plaintiff’s Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order. Plaintiff, a former graduate student at Rowan University, brought Title IX discrimination and retaliation claims against the University and a former professor after she twice failed required qualifying exams and was dismissed from the program. Plaintiff had previously failed a first-year research project and her master’s thesis defense. While the appeal of her dismissal was pending, she filed a Title IX complaint with the University, alleging that the professor, who was also a grader for the qualifying exams, had made unwanted advances two years earlier. In denying plaintiff’s motion for a temporary restraining order, the court found that she was unlikely to succeed on her discrimination claim since the University had her exam blindly re-scored by two new graders after she filed her Title IX complaint. It ruled she was unlikely to succeed on her Title IX retaliation claim due to the weak nexus between her rejection of the alleged advances and the program’s acts of placing her on academic probation and seeking to dismiss her, which both took place more than a year later.
Topics:
Academic Performance and Misconduct | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Employee Sexual Misconduct | Retaliation | Sex Discrimination | Students
Date:
10/13/2023
Bennett v. Tarrant Cnty. Coll. Dist. (N.D. Tex. Oct. 10, 2023)
Memorandum Opinion and Order denying Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former Executive Vice President for Advancement with the Tarrant County College District (TCCD), brought a retaliation claim against TCCD after its then-Chancellor placed her on an executive development plan and declined to renew her contract following her decision to counsel a subordinate employee related to a workplace conflict. Plaintiff offered, but attempted to withdraw her resignation, and was subsequently placed on administrative leave after she filed an internal grievance against the Chancellor. Prior to her last day, she also filed discrimination and retaliation charges with the Texas Workforce Commission and the EEOC. In denying TCCD’s motion for summary judgment, the court found, first, a genuine issue of fact as to whether plaintiff could reasonably expect to be able to rescind her resignation, noting that multiple officials had assured her she had done nothing wrong and that an investigation of her grievance was ongoing. It further held that a delay of roughly a month in its notification to plaintiff that TCCD would not permit her to rescind her resignation, together with the support of other TCCD officials, was sufficient to raise an issue of fact as to whether TCCD’s reason for not reappointing plaintiff was pretextual.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Retaliation
Date:
10/13/2023
Aslani v. Bd. of Trs. of the Univ. of Ill. (N.D. Ill. Oct. 6, 2023)
Memorandum Opinion and Order granting Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former student at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, brought Title IX and retaliation claims against the University after it dismissed her for unprofessional conduct related to two clinical clerkships. She received a grade of “unsatisfactory” for the first following multiple complaints about her behavior. The second followed a self-designed “coursework letter” under the supervision of a mentor not affiliated with the University. At the clerkship’s end, the mentor declined to complete the registrar’s evaluation, citing that he had never seen the coursework letter and plaintiff was not present in his office during the time outlined in the letter. Plaintiff, who created an email account in the mentor’s name to submit the coursework letter, asserted that she had actually completed the clerkship months earlier, that the mentor had harassed her sexually, and that her mother had left a voice message at the time with the University’s Office of Access and Equity to that effect. In granting summary judgment to the University on plaintiff’s Title IX claim, the court found that the University did not have substantial control over either the alleged harasser or the location of harassment. In dismissing her retaliation claim, the court further found that multiple instances of “‘unprofessional conduct’ interrupted any causal nexus between [her mother’s voice message] and the adverse action” and that plaintiff had offered no other evidence suggesting pretext.
Topics:
Academic Performance and Misconduct | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Internships, Externships, & Clinical Work | Retaliation | Sex Discrimination | Students
Date:
10/13/2023
Martinez v. Univ. of Tex. at Austin (5th Cir. Oct. 5, 2023)
Opinion reversing summary judgment in favor of the University and remanding. In 2018, after Plaintiff, a tenured professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, emailed concerns about discrimination against Hispanic members of the department, the department chair appointed him to head a new “Equity Committee.” Plaintiff produced and circulated a report alleging inequality in salaries. Thereafter, along with other adverse events for which he did not exhaust his administrative remedies, the chair removed plaintiff from the Equity Committee and accused him of making anti-Semitic remarks and remarks disparaging female co-workers. The district court granted summary judgment to the University, finding that only plaintiff’s emails were protected activity and that since almost a year passed between them and the adverse actions he experienced, he was unable to establish causation. In reversing and remanding, the Fifth Circuit held that (1) creating the report was also a protect activity because it opposed alleged pay inequity and (2) when considered alongside the chair’s statements that she was going to disband the Equity Committee and her creation of subcommittees to dilute plaintiff’s responsibilities, the six months between the report and the alleged adverse actions was not so great as to preclude an inference of causation.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Retaliation

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