Cases & Developments - National Association of College and University Attorneys

FILTERS

Latest Cases & Developments

Date:
2/9/2024
Davis v. Delta Coll. (E.D. Mich. Feb. 2, 2024)
Order granting Defendants’ Motions for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former tenured professor of English at Delta College who is African American, brought discrimination and retaliation claims against the College and its former president after the then-president cited low student evaluations in denying her application for promotion to full professor. Two years later, the new president re-evaluated plaintiff’s application and granted the promotion with retroactive back pay. Plaintiff subsequently resigned from the College to pursue a career in social work. In granting summary judgment to the defendants on her discrimination claim, the court held that plaintiff failed to show disparate treatment since her comparators all received higher student evaluations than she did. Her retaliation claim failed because her promotion denial occurred more than a year after she had delivered a unionization petition to the president.
Topics:
Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Retaliation
Date:
2/9/2024
Doe v. Sacks (S.D. N.Y. Feb. 2, 2024)
Opinion and Order granting Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiff, a graduate of New York University, brought Title IX, tort, and contract claims against the University and two officials alleging they responded inadequately when he reported that accusations he had committed sexual misconduct appeared on a Google spreadsheet, known as the “Blacklist,” that was maintained by an anonymous group of NYU students. The University issued a statement encouraging students to use University reporting mechanisms rather than the anonymous spreadsheet and offering support options for those impacted. In dismissing both his deliberate indifference and hostile education environment claims, the court found that (1) plaintiff failed to plead that the University exercised substantial control over the anonymous students and (2) the University’s alleged lack of response was not clearly unreasonable given that he did not allege that it knew who posted the allegations, whether they were true or false, or how to remove the spreadsheet. The court also noted that had the University attempted to discipline the students involved it “could find itself in the precarious position of disciplining students for online speech on non-university accounts.” The court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over plaintiff’s state-law claims.
Topics:
Students | Title IX & Student Sexual Misconduct
Date:
2/9/2024
Fields v. Bd. of Trs. of Ga. Military Coll. (M.D. Ga. Jan. 31, 2024)
Order granting-in-part and denying-in-part Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. Plaintiff, a former assistant professor of natural sciences at the Georgia Military College Augusta campus who was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, kidney failure, and anemia and who took immune-suppressing treatments, brought disability discrimination claims against the College after it denied his request to teach remotely and terminated his employment in January 2021. Plaintiff also taught as an adjunct in the College’s Global Online Learning College (GOLC) until 2016 when the Augusta campus director decided that faculty there could no longer teach for GOLC, preferring that they be available to assist students on the Augusta campus. In permitting his Rehabilitation Act claim to proceed, the court held that a reasonable jury could conclude that plaintiff’s request to be reassigned to GOLC was a reasonable accommodation. It also found that since the College never informed Plaintiff that he needed to return to work and because officials offered multiple reasons for his termination, there was a dispute of material fact as to why he was terminated.
Topics:
Disability Discrimination | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity
Date:
2/9/2024
Ellis v. Pa. State Univ. (Ct. Common Pleas, Philadelphia Cnty. Jan. 30, 2024)
Jury verdict finding the University not negligent. Plaintiff, the Estate of Natasha E. Ellis, brought negligence claims against Penn State University and multiple individuals after Ellis and a friend, neither of whom were University students, consumed alcohol at a party at a student apartment community serving the University’s Abington campus, left on the friend’s motorcycle, and were involved in an accident that resulted in Ellis’s death. Plaintiff asserted that the University or its agents knew or should have known that the friend was too intoxicated to operate the motorcycle safely. While the jury found the University was not negligent, it determined that both the friend who operated the motorcycle and the host of the party at which the alcohol was consumed acted negligently and thus, awarded plaintiff $6,381,812.00 in damages against those two parties.
Topics:
Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration | Tort Litigation
Date:
2/9/2024
In re: Trs. of Dartmouth Coll. (N.L.R.B. Region No. 1 Feb. 5, 2024)
Decision and Direction of Election from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Region 1 Director re: the Dartmouth College men’s varsity basketball team. Service Employees International Union, Local 560, which represents some College employees, petitioned the NLRB to represent “a bargaining unit comprised of the approximately fifteen students enrolled at Dartmouth who comprise the men’s varsity basketball team.” The Regional Director found that “because Dartmouth has the right to control the work performed by the men’s varsity basketball team, and because the players perform that work in exchange for compensation, the petitioned for basketball players are employees within the meaning of the [National Labor Relations] Act,” and directed that the NLRB will conduct an election on whether they wish to be represented by the petitioner for collective bargaining purposes.
Topics:
Collective Bargaining | Faculty & Staff | Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) & Categorization of Employees | Student Athlete Issues | Students
Date:
2/9/2024
NACUBO On Your Side (Feb. 5, 2024)
Summary from the National Association of College & University Business Officers on legislative and regulatory actions that occurred from January 30-February 5, 2024. This summary highlights NACUBO’s coverage of the legislative landscape relating to higher education reform in the run-up to the presidential election; ED’s announcement of a delay in sharing FAFSA information and the efforts of higher education associations to provide resources to help institutions manage the challenges this brings; ED’s submission of the new Title IX rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) for review; the decision of the Supreme Court not to review a lower court’s denial of a preliminary injunction in the challenge brought by Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. to the admissions policies at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; and recent research by the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) on the state of endowments at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Topics:
Accreditation, Authorizations, & Higher Education Act
Date:
2/9/2024
ACE Letter to NIST re: the Bayh-Dole Framework (Feb. 1, 2024)
Letter from the American Council on Education (ACE) and five other higher education associations to the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) regarding its Draft Guidance for the Exercise of March-In Rights. In commenting on NIST’s proposed framework for government agencies considering exercising march-in rights under the Bayh-Dole Act, the letter expresses concern that the proposed guidance would introduce considerations beyond the original statutory framework, create uncertainty and ambiguity around criterial for march-in consideration, and disincentivize private sector partnerships. It expressed particular concern that permitting the use of “reasonable pricing” in petitions for march-in might “embolden corporate entities to file petitions in bad faith or to undercut competitors in commercialization efforts.” The letter recommends that the administration rescind the framework.
Topics:
Technology | Technology Transfer
Date:
2/2/2024
Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. The United States Mil. Acad. at W. Point (U.S. Feb. 2, 2024)
Order denying Plaintiff’s Emergency Application for Injunction Pending Appeal. Plaintiff, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., brought a Fifth Amendment claim against the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Department of Defense, and multiple officials, alleging that the use of racial classifications in West Point’s admissions process cannot satisfy strict scrutiny as considered and applied in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College. The district court denied a preliminary injunction. In denying the application, the Supreme Court noted, “[t]he record before this Court is underdeveloped, and this order should not be construed as expressing any view on the merits of the constitutional question.”
Topics:
Admissions | Discrimination, Accommodation, & Diversity | Race and National Origin Discrimination | Students
Date:
2/2/2024
Roe v. St. John’s Univ. (2nd Cir. Jan. 31, 2024)
Opinion affirming dismissal. Plaintiff, a former student at St. John’s University, brought erroneous outcome, selective enforcement, and hostile educational environment claims against the University after he was suspended for engaging in non-consensual sexual contact with an intoxicated student and then expelled for sexually assaulting another student while on suspension. Plaintiff also brought a defamation claim against his first complainant, alleging that she posted an anonymous tweet about him under the hashtag “#SurvivingSJU.” In affirming dismissal of his erroneous outcome claim related to the first complainant, the Second Circuit held that though he had plausibly alleged the conduct panel erred in accepting his admission of engaging in the contact but not crediting his assertion that the complainant had initiated it, he had not plausibly alleged that this error was attributable to sex bias. Turning to his second erroneous outcome claim, the court found that though he had plausibly alleged that the #SurvivingSJU “tweet storm” placed public pressure on the University, he had not sufficiently identified a procedural irregularity in the University’s response to the second allegation against him. His selective enforcement claim failed because he had not plausibly alleged that he and his complainants were similarly situated. His hostile environment claim failed because his assertion of one defamatory tweet was not enough to allege a severe or pervasive hostile environment.
Topics:
Students | Title IX & Student Sexual Misconduct
Date:
2/2/2024
Students for Justice in Palestine at the Univ. of Fla. v. Rodrigues (N.D. Fla. Jan. 31, 2024)
Order denying Motion for Preliminary Injunction. Plaintiff, Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Florida, brought First Amendment claims against the Chancellor of the University of Florida System, the System’s Board of Governors, and the President of the University after the System Chancellor sent a memorandum to university presidents linking the group to the National SJP organization, which the memo asserted provided material support to foreign terrorist organizations, and directing that Florida chapters be deactivated. Despite public statements to the contrary by the Governor, plaintiff has not been deactivated. In denying the motion for preliminary injunction, the court held plaintiff had not demonstrated a substantial likelihood of establishing injury-in-fact. The court noted, first, that the University Board of Trustees (BOT), rather than the System’s Board of Governors, has the power to deactivate and that the BOT had taken no such action “following advice from outside counsel suggesting that deactivation would risk opening the BOT members to personal liability.” The court further found no evidence in the record of self-censorship or other objectively chilled speech, despite assertions of anxious feelings among plaintiff’s members. In a separate Order, the court similarly denied the motion for preliminary injunction in a parallel case brought by Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of South Florida.
Topics:
Constitutional Issues | First Amendment & Free Speech | Student Organizations | Students

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.