Right before Christmas 2022, the First Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a case by a student at Stonehill College, a small school of less than 2,500 students in Easton, Massachusetts who had sued after being expelled by a Title IX campus court. The First Circuit reversed the decision of the…
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I. The Tyranny of the Campus HR Department At Allen Harris, we are seeing an increasing trend that attacks faculty rights on campus. Colleges and universities are ceding supervision of faculty to their human resource departments. It is a growing trend that students and colleagues routinely weaponize petty grievances to…
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A disturbing new survey released late last month, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates for the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale, found that college students were surprisingly willing to say that violence might be an appropriate reaction to “hateful” views. Worse, responses to one of the questions suggest that…
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As college students prepare for Halloween parties, college administrators send out predictable warnings about the importance of not offending anyone with a Halloween costume. Whitman College, for example, cautions against anything that might “trivialize human suffering or oppression” – like a prisoner costume. The University of Nebraska and the University…
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A Massachusetts family recently scored a huge win for students against the Governor’s Academy (formerly known as the Governor Dummer Academy), a private New England high school, for breach of contract and violation of Title IX. Lawsuits against private high schools are notoriously difficult. Private high schools can expel students…
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Last Friday saw a huge legal development in the area of First Amendment law and its application to social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which is the federal appeals court covering Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, issued its long-awaited…
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On Monday, Allen Harris submitted a comment on the Department of Education’s proposed new Title IX regulations. The proposed regulations would undo many of the changes that went into effect in 2020 when the Department of Education issued Title IX regulations that protect due process and free speech protections for…
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Allen Harris is thrilled to announce that Robert L. Shibley, Esq., has joined our firm. Prior to joining Allen Harris, Robert was the Executive Director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), where he advocated for the free speech and due process rights of students and faculty members…
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As high school graduates head to campuses around the country for their first year of college, they need to be aware not only of the excitement that lies ahead but also of the risks. The fall semester of freshman year is a time when many allegations of sexual assault occur.…
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June 23, 2022 President Joe Biden's administration released a proposal Thursday that would provide stronger protections against sex and gender discrimination on college campuses, as well as for anyone who claims they were the victim of sexual assault on campus. The changes seek to overhaul a federal rule known as…
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May 19, 2022 Princeton University’s president has recommended that the school’s board of trustees fire a tenured classics professor, concluding he didn’t cooperate fully in a sexual-misconduct investigation, according to a copy of his letter to the board’s chair reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The recommended dismissal is being…
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May 20, 2022 In July 2020, as social justice protests roiled the nation, Joshua Katz, a Princeton classics professor, wrote in a small influential journal that some faculty proposals to combat racism at Princeton would foment “civil war on campus,” and denounced a student group, the Black Justice League, as…
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May 19, 2022 In a recent New York Times article, Samantha Harris, of Allen Harris Law and one of Dr. Negy’s lawyers, called the arbitrator’s finding “a victory for the rule of law, and a reminder that due process matters.” An arbitrator found that the University of Central Florida failed…
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Decision allows case to proceed against the Frederick Gunn School for expelling student who cursed at his football coach after benching and berating him during final game LITCHFIELD, Conn., February 16, 2022 --- In a ruling exposing the lack of due process at one of the country’s elite private schools,…
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Recently, an Allen Harris case was again recognized in the New York Times in a Jan. 25, 2022 opinion piece by John McWhorter. The case involves University of North Texas music theory professor Timothy Jackson. In July 2020, he became the victim of backlash and calls to step down for…
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Professor Timothy Jackson of the University of North Texas (UNT), who was wrongfully accused of being a racist for defending music theorist Heinrich Schenker, recently won a preliminary battle in the courts, as District Judge Amos L. Mazzant decisively rejected UNT’s request for a summary dismissal of Jackson’s defamation lawsuit…
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Colleges and universities offer a wide array of courses, many of them touching on controversial issues such as racism and sexism. Professors who teach these courses necessarily have to teach material that can be challenging and often painful to read. Until recently, this was generally considered a necessary part of…
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