Cases & Developments - National Association of College and University Attorneys

FILTERS

Latest Cases & Developments

Date:
7/21/2023
Pesta v. Cleveland State Univ. (N.D. Ohio July 14, 2023)
Opinion & Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former Professor of Management at Cleveland State University, brought First Amendment retaliation claims against the University and six officials after he was terminated following a committee investigation into allegations that he had used NIH data unethically. Plaintiff alleged, however, that the investigation and termination were retaliation for his defense of the “hereditarian hypothesis” in an article entitled “Global Ancestry and Cognitive Ability.” In permitting plaintiff to proceed in his First Amendment retaliation claims, the court found, first, that in the absence of a developed record regarding the alleged misuse of NIH data plaintiff had plausibly alleged that his speech interest outweighed the University’s interest in promoting the efficiency of its public services. It further found that plaintiff’s assertion that prior to his termination the University had also removed links on its website to other controversial articles he had written was sufficient to allege causation. The court, however, dismissed plaintiff’s claims for monetary damages against the University and the individual defendants in their official capacities as barred by sovereign immunity.
Topics:
Academic Freedom & Employee Speech | Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Faculty & Staff | First Amendment & Free Speech | Retaliation
Date:
7/21/2023
Veikos v. Trs. Of the Univ. of Pa. (E.D. Pa. July 12, 2023)
Memorandum granting Defendant’s Motion for a New Trial or Remittitur. Plaintiff, a former tenure-track professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the University after it twice denied her application for tenure and promotion. The jury returned a mixed verdict, rejecting plaintiff’s discrimination claim and retaliation claim with respect to her first tenure denial, but finding she had demonstrated a retaliatory motive in her second tenure denial. The jury then awarded plaintiff $1 million in non-economic compensatory damages for emotional distress. In reviewing the University’s Motion for a New Trial or Remittitur, the court held that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury’s verdict as to liability. It found, however, that the emotional distress damages did not bear a rational relationship to the evidence presented at trial, noting that she had presented no evidence of physical manifestations of distress or a need for professional counseling. Accordingly, the court stated it would grant the University’s motion for a new trial unless plaintiff remits her emotional distress damages to $100,000.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Retaliation
Date:
7/21/2023
Corbett v. Tex. Tech. Univ. Health Scis. Ctr. (N.D. Tex. July 10, 2023)
Memorandum Opinion and Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former student in the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center’s Anesthesiology Residency Program, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the Center after she failed the American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA) Basic Exam four times and was dismissed from the program. Plaintiff’s discrimination claim failed because her repeated failures on the ABA Exam prevented her from showing she was qualified for the position and because she identified no comparator who had failed as many times and was treated differently. Her retaliation claim similarly failed because she presented no evidence to show that anything other than her failures on the ABA Exam were the cause of her dismissal. The court permitted her hostile work environment claim to proceed, however, holding that plaintiff’s testimony that the Program Director made comments that he did not want women in the program on “at least 10 to 15 occasions” was sufficient to present a triable question as to whether the comments affected the conditions of her employment.
Topics:
Academic Performance and Misconduct | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Retaliation | Sex Discrimination | Sex Discrimination in Employment | Students
Date:
7/21/2023
Shams v. Delta State Univ. (N.D. Miss. July 10, 2023)
Order denying Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former tenure-track assistant professor at Delta State University who is of Iranian national origin, brought discrimination, retaliation, and harassment claims against the University after (1) officials, citing poor student evaluations, allegedly pressured him to resign rather than accept a notice of nonrenewal and a terminal year and (2) his Department Chair, who is Turkish, replaced him with a new instructor who is also Turkish. In permitting his discrimination claim to proceed, the court found allegations of hostile treatment from the Department Chair, together with evidence that the Chair was using Instagram prior to plaintiff’s termination to encourage the eventual replacement to apply for the position, sufficient to raise triable questions for a jury. The court similarly found the temporal proximity between plaintiff’s discrimination complaints to HR and alleged efforts to hasten his departure sufficient to raise material questions as to retaliation. Finally, the court found evidence that the chair denied plaintiff teaching materials, treated him uncivilly in public settings, and placed him on a performance improvement plan sufficient to raise triable questions of hostile work environment.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation
Date:
7/21/2023
Beny v. Univ. of Mich. (E.D. Mich. July 7, 2023)
Opinion and Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a tenured professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School who is African American and has been a critic of what she perceived as inequitable practices, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the University and the Law School’s Dean after she was suspended from teaching and made ineligible for various benefits pursuant to a finding that she had abandoned her duties and retaliated against students. She alleged her advocacy made her a target for increased monitoring that culminated in an accusation of retaliation when she addressed anonymous complaints during a class session. She then emailed students that she could no longer teach the class and took medical leave, citing work-related psychological injury. Plaintiff’s discrimination and hostile work environment claims failed because the limited factual allegations that fell within the statutory period were insufficiently related to her race, sex, or family status. The court, however, permitted her to proceed on her Title VII retaliation claim against the University and her state-law retaliation claim against the Dean, finding she had sufficiently pled adverse employment actions in close temporal proximity to her complaints of discrimination and retaliation.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation | Sex Discrimination | Sex Discrimination in Employment
Date:
7/21/2023
Rogoff v. Long Island Univ. (N.Y. Sup. Ct. July 6, 2023)
Decision/Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a tenured professor of business and former dean of the Brooklyn School of Business at Long Island University, brought contract, age discrimination, and retaliation claims against the University after it declined to renew his administrative contract and reduced his salary to that of a full professor. The University also changed his status to adjunct faculty with loss of benefits after he presented a University Trustee with a “memo of concerns” critical of the University’s administration, though it later revoked the decision. The court awarded summary judgment to the University on plaintiff’s contract claim, holding that a contract provision referencing “other terms and conditions of employment … in accordance with University policy,” without more, was insufficient to support his expectation of a sabbatical year and salary of at least 75% of his prior administrative salary. It permitted him to proceed on his age discrimination and retaliation claims with respect to his demotion to adjunct status, finding conflicting pre-trial testimony and the temporal proximity between his “memo of concerns” and his demotion sufficient to raise triable issues of fact.
Topics:
Age Discrimination | Contracts | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Retaliation
Date:
7/21/2023
Bennett v. Tarrant Cnty. Coll. Dist. (N.D. Tex. July 5, 2023)
Memorandum Opinion and Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former Executive Vice President for Advancement with the Tarrant County College District (TCCD), brought retaliation and contract claims 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. The court permitted plaintiff’s Title VII retaliation claim to proceed, finding sufficient temporal proximity between her EEOC charge and TCCD’s refusal to permit her to withdraw her resignation. The court, however, dismissed her contract claims, holding that (1) that TCCD’s policies against discrimination and retaliation do not create a contractual right where Title VII is the exclusive remedy, (2) that its policies did not specifically and expressly limit its ability to terminate at-will employees, and (3) that plaintiff had not sufficiently pleaded a violation of TCCD’s “Freedom from Reprisals” policy because counseling her subordinate was not a “complaint” within the meaning of the policy.
Topics:
Contracts | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Retaliation
Date:
7/14/2023
Porter v. Bd. of Trs. of N.C. State Univ. (4th Cir. July 6, 2023)
Opinion affirming dismissal. Plaintiff, a tenured professor in the College of Education at North Carolina State University, brought First Amendment retaliation claims against the University, University officials, and multiple colleagues after he was removed from a student advising role in the program and assigned an additional course to teach due to his lack of collegiality in criticizing efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the School and the field. In affirming dismissal, the Fourth Circuit held that plaintiff’s comments to his colleagues about department operations were unprotected speech. Plaintiff had also written a personal blog post characterizing a professional association as “woke” that was mentioned during the keynote address at the association’s conference. Though the court assumed the post was protected speech, it nevertheless held that plaintiff failed to establish it as the but-for cause of his removal because the blog post lacked temporal proximity and he did not address his colleagues’ frustration that he had not proactively addressed student and faculty concerns about the controversy.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | First Amendment & Free Speech | Retaliation
Date:
7/14/2023
Baptiste v. The City Univ. of N.Y. (S.D. N.Y. June 29, 2023)
Opinion and Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a former Chief Diversity Officer and ADA/504 Coordinator at the City College of New York (CCNY), brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the College and its President, alleging that her termination was in response to her support for reasonable accommodations, including one in which an individual allegedly suffered a medical emergency as a result of race-based harassment. The court permitted her retaliation claims to proceed, finding she had sufficiently alleged that her termination followed the day after she had recommended granting one of the accommodation requests. The court dismissed her discrimination claim, however, finding the allegation conclusory.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation
Date:
7/14/2023
Jennings v. Frostburg State Univ. (D. Md. June 27, 2023)
Memorandum Opinion granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former assistant professor of biology at Frostburg State University who is non-ambulatory, brought disability discrimination, retaliation, and failure to accommodate claims against the University after his contract was not renewed. The court permitted plaintiff’s disability discrimination claim to proceed, finding material questions about the extent to which members of his department believed student course evaluations, upon which their nonrenewal recommendation was largely based, reflected biases. The court also permitted his retaliation claim to proceed, finding material questions as to whether the Provost had intended to reverse the department’s nonrenewal recommendation prior to a meeting with a department official knew of plaintiff’s requests for accommodations. The court, however, dismissed plaintiff’s failure to accommodate claim for failure to exhaust administrative remedies.
Topics:
Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Retaliation

NACUA Annual Conference

Join us in the Music City June 29 – July 2 to connect, learn, and lead alongside higher education attorneys shaping policy, practice, and impact nationwide together.