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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Kimberly Diel, a University of Tennessee pharmacy student, recently filed a first amendment lawsuit against the school, alleging the university expelled her because she posted on her private, personal social accounts the school deemed too sexual. The pharmacy school complained that this was “unprofessional.” It is all too common that…
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Students educational records just became much less private, at least at state universities. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recently appealed a decision of the state supreme court all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The North Carolina ruling required UNC to release disciplinary records of…
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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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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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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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Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids employers from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and overlaps with Title IX (sex discrimination) and Title VI (race, color, religion or national origin). Forms of discrimination include creating a hostile work environment, disparate treatment, disparate…
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Colleges and universities often walk a fine line when it comes to free speech. Institutes of higher education promote themselves as places where students go to debate and refine ideas and opinions. Ideally, this creates an enriching experience for all involved. But many schools place limits on acceptable discourse in…
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Campus judiciaries and campus codes of conduct intervene as never before in the private life of students. Therefore, parents should take the time to review how a school’s policies dictate the handling of misconduct cases. Universities and colleges today operate very differently from how they were run a few decades…
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Before colleges or universities begin investigating a claim of sexual assault or other misconduct, they typically act to isolate the parties and, ideally, to protect them and the evidence during the investigation. These measures are usually called “interim measures.” Some schools call them “interim actions.” New regulations proposed by the…
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