Cases & Developments

Memorandum Opinion and Order Granting in Part Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, the former Assistant Director at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, sued the university and 12 other defendants alleging Title VII discrimination, retaliation and other claims, after she was hired and terminated a month later after social media posts she made eight years prior describing her “‘hat[red]’ for Zionists” went viral. The court dismissed plaintiff’s claims against the university finding that plaintiff had failed to plausibly allege discrimination based on race, religion, or national origin and that her tort claims could not proceed due to procedural and substantive defects. While plaintiff argued the university had deviated from its probation policy in terminating her so swiftly, the court disagreed finding the policy “clearly afford[ed] the university the right to fire an employee for behavior that her department deem[ed] ‘unacceptable’.” The court also dismissed with prejudice plaintiff’s claims against the other defendants with the exception of her claims against Canary Mission. Because Canary Mission refused to appear in the case, and did not move to dismiss plaintiff’s claims, the court permitted plaintiff to consider whether to seek a default judgment against it.