Wichita State VP Claims Retaliation for Investigating Campus Rape

Earlier this month the federal district court in Kansas ruled on Wichita State University's motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Wade Robinson, its former Vice President for Campus Life and University Relations. Robinson had sued the university after he was fired, alleging that the university took this and other adverse action against him in retaliation for his efforts to investigate incidents of rape reported to his office, including a rape allegedly committed by a member of the university's basketball team.

The court denied the university's motion to dismiss most of Robinson's suit and concluded that his complaint satisfactorily alleges the elements of a retaliation claim under Title IX. The element disputed in this case is the requirement that a retaliation plaintiff allege that he engaged in conduct protected by the statute. Generally such protected conduct may include advocating internally for Title IX compliance. However, when Title IX compliance is part of one's job duties, efforts to internal secure compliance do not count as protected conduct. Yet, Robinson's complaint included allegations that his Title IX advocacy had gone beyond the scope of his job as the court explained:

Had the Complaint in this case merely alleged that plaintiff warned WSU that it could face liability for failing to investigate alleged sexual assaults, the court might enter judgment against plaintiff on Count I. ... But here, the Complaint alleges substantially more than that. It alleges that plaintiff started two investigations and filed a complaint. The Complaint thus sufficiently alleges that plaintiff crossed the line from being an employee merely performing his job as Title IX compliance overseer and actively assisted others in asserting Title IX rights.... These allegations preclude the court from applying the manager rule to plaintiff’s claim and thus preclude judgment on the pleadings. 

The court also denied the university president's motion to dismiss Robinson's due process claim against him (though it did dismiss some state law claims).  That means the retaliation and due process claims will proceed to the discovery phase of litigation and, barring settlement or summary judgment, eventually to trial.  Yet regardless of what happens to this case moving forward, administrators working on Title IX issues will find this preliminary ruling helpful and reassuring on the question of what constitutes protected conduct as a matter of law. 

Robinson v. Wichita State Univ., 2018 WL 836294 (D. Kan. Feb. 13, 2018).