The University of Michigan recently secured a significant victory in a Title IX case that split judges on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. In an 8-6 en banc decision, the court overruled the decision of a three-judge panel and found that the university had responded adequately to an alleged…
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Federal judge William Young of the Federal District Court for Massachusetts indicated he may strike down part of the rule implemented by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos regarding how schools are required to respond to sexual misconduct allegations under Title IX. The regulations implemented August 14, 2020 require universities to allow…
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The new Title IX rules instituted on August 14, 2020 guarantee more due process rights to both the accused and to accusers. Still, colleges and universities that fought the new regulations tooth and nail, wish to keep applying their old rules as long as they can. Recently, the United States…
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The United States Supreme Court will hear a case pitting a pair of Georgia Gwinnett College students against campus administrators. At issue is whether it is legal to confine free speech on public campuses to so-called “free speech” zones. These zones are often minuscule and clearly meant to send the…
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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died September 18, 2020 at the age of 87, was famous for her staunch feminist support of Title IX rights—including the due process rights that protect the accused and alleged victims alike. The justice, fondly known in pop culture as “Notorious RBG,” has…
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Published on nationalreview.com For years, universities have denied basic procedural protections to students accused of sexual misconduct. Despite the seriousness of such allegations, schools routinely condemn students as responsible without so much as a hearing or the opportunity to confront their accusers. This was supposed to change when the Department of…
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Read the decision: Order to Disclose Campus Advisor Records The US District Court for the Northern District of New York has just ordered Syracuse University to hand over the records of a campus “advisor” who gave procedural advice to the complainant in its Title IX proceedings after the judge found…
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Featured on Quillette I’m an attorney representing a professor at the University of Central Florida who is being subjected by the university to what can only be called an inquisition after expressing opinions on Twitter that led to widespread calls for his firing. UCF is a public institution—an instrument of…
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The topic of free speech is one of the most contentious issues in liberal societies.Many people know that free speech is enshrined in the First Amendment but there's still a lot about it that many still misunderstand so let's read on. The widespread protests surrounding issues of systemic racism have…
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Featured on National Review A “pall of orthodoxy” has descended over an increasing number of American institutions. The stifling of dissent and the pressuring of people to conform to ideological dogmas that began in universities has spread to the media and even to the corporate world. While official government censorship…
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By Jonathan B. Orleans and Michael Thad Allen The first formal changes to Title IX’s implementing regulations in 45 years are here, and they are significant. The federal statute, which prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs receiving federal financial assistance, had its earliest impacts on intercollegiate athletics. But since the…
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With widespread protests around the nation in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, free speech of and on campus is once again at the forefront. Even though almost all schools are now closed, and almost all speech and the actions of students and…
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Featured on Quilette.com Universities today bombard students with two contradictory messages about sex, effectively encouraging them to carry a dildo in their pocket, while lugging a fainting couch behind them. On the one hand, universities have returned to a quasi-Victorian concern with the unique fragility and vulnerability of college women…
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The nation’s colleges and universities were already struggling financially even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Now, with a sudden shift to online schooling and students no longer on campus, a difficult situation has become dire. According to Christina Paxson, President of Brown University, “A lot of [colleges] were teetering on…
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Private School’s Prerogative | Connecticut Law Tribune The Gunnery Incorporated ("The Gunnery") breached its contract with a student plaintiff by arbitrarily and capriciously expelling him without following its own rules set forth in its Disciplinary System, alleges a lawsuit filed on March 11, 2020, which was responded to by the defense…
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An increasing number of universities have been offering online classes in recent years, but now due to the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual classrooms are the only classrooms. This has become the sudden necessary reality for every university in the country. With entire student bodies now taking classes and completing tests remotely,…
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Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination.Courts have consistently found that student-on-student sexual harassment is sex-based discrimination and that the university can be held responsible for it if the university remains “deliberately indifferent.” This means paying students damages if they are victimized on campus, but the University…
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Samantha Harris is a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. For more than 15 years, she has advised students, faculty, administrators, and attorneys on issues of free speech and due process on campus. She lectures regularly about students' rights at campuses and conferences around the country and…
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Education secretary Betsy DeVos has been in the news again—this time, calling for strengthening Title IX enforcement in K-12 schools as a response to increasing sexual misconduct and harassment allegations in elementary through high schools. DeVos’ office is particularly concerned about claims in which a teacher harassed or assaulted a…
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In February 2019, three female Yale students, Anna McNeil ’20, Ry Walker ’20 and Ellie Singer ’21, filed a lawsuit against Yale University, arguing that fraternities should be required to admit women and nonbinary students under Title IX as well as the Fair Housing Act. In May 2019, an on-campus…
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Last week, the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York shot down Syracuse University’s attempt to dismiss the Complaint of “John Doe,” who sued the university for unfairly expelling him in 2017. This is a major victory for Allen Law LLC’s client, John Doe, who is…
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The University of Connecticut expelled a male student for an allegedly nonconsensual sexual encounter with a female student. But now a judge has issued a temporary restraining order to halt the student's removal, on the grounds that the university's investigation was wildly unfair. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education…
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As reported in the Hartford Courant on Saturday, Attorney Michael Thad Allen of Allen Law LLC successfully argued in the District Court for the United States District of Connecticut that the University of Connecticut denied his client, identified only as John Doe, his constitutional rights to due process. The decision,…
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HARTFORD, CONN. (AP) — A federal judge has issued a temporary order requiring the University of Connecticut to reinstate a male student who had been banned from campus for two years amid a sexual misconduct investigation. The student, referred to in court documents as John Doe, said in a lawsuit…
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Case featured in Hartford Courant A federal court has delivered an early legal win to a UConn student whose claim that he was unfairly suspended for an alleged sexual assault could put the school’s system for investigating and punishing sexual misconduct on trial. U.S. District Judge Michael Shea issued a…
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Case featured on Reason Magazine From Doe v. Univ. of Connecticut, decided Thursday by Judge Michael P. Shea (D. Conn.): This case challenges the fairness of disciplinary proceedings brought against Plaintiff John Doe by the University of Connecticut ("UCONN") for alleged sexual assault, culminating in the Plaintiff's two-year suspension from the…
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A federal court in Connecticut handed the University of Connecticut a stinging rebuke yesterday, holding that the university likely violated an accused student’s due process rights when it ignored exculpatory evidence and prevented him from questioning witnesses in his sexual misconduct case. This is the second time in a week…
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How broadly does the First Amendment’s free speech clause apply to students? This is a question that American courts have been interpreting for quite some time. Social media has made it more complicated. The First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech without government interference—with certain limits that are designed…
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