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Abstract: 

The editors review recent court decisions and regulatory rulings directly affecting college and university administration, discipline, and safety. Cases include Jackson v. Lee College, in which two nursing students brought a §1983 suit charging that by changing its graduation requirements after the students had enrolled, Lee College had violated the students’ due process rights. In another important and widely followed case, the full NLRB reversed a decision by a regional director to accept jurisdiction in a petition filed by members of the Northwestern football team seeking recognition as a bargaining unit representing players as employees, which would deem the university as employers. A Pennsylvania court, in a Title IX claim brought by a student with Gender Identity Disorder who had been born female but had undergone testosterone injections and had taken legal steps to change all of his identity documents (passport, driver’s license, selective service registration) ruled that the University of Pittsburgh was not required to permit the student, or transgender students in general, to use men’s and women’s bathrooms. A Florida court found Broward College not liable in a personal injury suit brought by a student who sustained injuries after slipping in a wet elevator on campus. UCLA successfully defended a liability suit filed by a female student who had been seriously injured in an attack in a campus laboratory by another student who had exhibited signs of serious mental illness known to university staff and who had received treatment from university mental health services prior to the attack; the court ruled that providing mental health services does not in itself create liability if the student who received care subsequently injures others.

Keywords: Changing graduation requirements; in re Northwestern University and College Players Association (CAPA); transgender students; slip-and- fall liability; Tarasoff “failure to warn” duty

Affiliations:  1: Co-Editor; 2: Co-Editor.