Allen Law Blog

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 faculty are now taking place off campus, school administrators have…

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 the brink financially, and this is the kind of thing…

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, the issue of plagiarism and academic integrity has come to…

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 sits on its hands. However, holding a university responsible for…

The following is a post from Samantha K. Harris, Esq., and Michael Thad Allen, Esq. that originally appeared here on HigherEducationLaw.org 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…

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 student. What is Title IX? Title IX is a federal…

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 group named Engender, which fights for gender integration in on-campus…

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 represented by attorneys Michael Thad Allen of Allen Law LLC…

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 (FIRE) has obtained a transcript of the court proceeding, which…

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, issued Thursday, January 23, 2020, required the university to permit…