What Is an Institution's Title IX Responsibility When Assailant's Victim Attends Another School?

Two items on my radar this week both address the question of an institution's legal obligations under Title IX to discipline one of its own students for sexual misconduct directed at a student of another university.

First, a recent decision of the First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a former Providence College student's case against Brown University, in which she challenged the sufficiency of Brown's response to her report of having been sexually assaulted by three Brown football players. Title IX requires plaintiffs who assert a claim for money damages on the deliberate indifference theory to prove “substantial interference with her access to educational opportunities or benefits.” The plaintiff argued that she satisfied this requirement because she withdrew from Providence College as a result of the sexual assault and Brown's allegedly insufficient response. But, the appellate court concluded that the fact she was not a student at Brown disqualified her from satisfying this requirement. The court read the Supreme Court's prior Title IX caselaw to require that the plaintiff must suffer sex discrimination "while participating, or at least attempting to participate, in the funding recipient's education program or activity." This nexus is "logical" according to the court because the "'discrimination' that Title IX prohibits is not the acts of sexual assault or sexual harassment in and of themselves, but rather the differential treatment by a funding recipient of persons of a particular sex who are taking part or trying to take part in its educational program or activity but are suffering acts of sexual harassment or assault that undermine their educational experience."  Doe v. Brown Univ., 2018 WL 3454469 (1st Cir. July 18, 2018)

It is not surprising that a court would limit a university's liability to a student seeking to impose liability for money damages. Title IX's status as a Spending Clause statute means that a university's primary compliance obligation is owed to the government, in exchange for federal funding. Students who are harmed as a result of an institution's Title IX violations are considered third-party beneficiaries of this arrangement. According to the Supreme Court, universities aren't necessarily on notice of the fact that taking government money makes them liable for damages to third parties, so it has limited such liability to situations in which the university intended the harm (or its deemed equivalent, deliberate indifference). For this reason, there are tougher liability standards in court cases than in situations where the government is enforcing Title IX.  In this spirit, I can understand why a court would not want to make a university financially liable for any sexual misconduct committed by its student anywhere in the world that happens to affect the victim's education. But, just because a university isn't liable financially to another university's student, doesn't mean that the government can't impose that requirement as part of its enforcement authority. 

And maybe, the government is considering doing just that?  According to this story in Inside Higher Education, OCR is investigating a case about a student from University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, who was sexually assaulted, off campus, by a student from University of Alabama-Birmingham. The victim filed a complaint with the assailant's institution, which found that the assailant had twice had nonconsensual sex with the victim. But when the assailant appealed, his two-year suspension was reduced to one year. When the victim appealed that decision, UAB reversed the original decision in its entirety, on grounds that it lacked jurisdiction to punish a student for off-campus misconduct that did not create adverse affects or a hostile environment for someone on campus.The fact that OCR is investigating this matter suggests that it thinks its at least plausible that the victim's complaint adequately alleges a Title IX violation by UAB. If that is indeed how OCR resolves the matter, universities might have a Title IX responsibility to adequately discipline their own students for sexual harassment and sexual misconduct against other students -- though its failure to do so could only be addressed by government enforcement rather than in the courts (at least in jurisdictions that follow the First Circuit's approach).

Two other points that are worth mentioning about these kinds of cases: there is little doubt that a university *could,* if it wanted to, have a code of conduct that prohibits its students from engaging in misconduct off campus that results in harm to other people who are not students of the university. The cases in this post are addressing whether a university *must* take jurisdiction over the subset of misconduct that falls under Title IX, sexual harassment and sexual assault.  The second point that's clear is that the victim's student's university has a Title IX obligation to respond to the threat of sexual misconduct that is posed to its own student, even if the source of that threat is another university's student. However, a university does not have power to discipline another university's student, so often the best it can do is bar the offending student from campus (which is apparently what UTC did).   

Competition over ethics implies Saban

I wrote last week about the new SEC policy preventing the transfer of student athletes with serious misconduct issues to SEC schools. Though it passed with ease among SEC administrators, it is not without controversy.

One person raising some objections is Alabama football coach, Nick Saban. Saban is worried about the competitive advantage other conferences will receive because they do not have such policies. So athletes, again athletes who have been found responsible for sexual assault and domestic violence by their former schools, will get turned down because of their record of, again sexual assault and domestic violence, and then attend non-SEC schools. Remember, Saban is the recipient of such a player--Jonathan Taylor. Taylor was under investigation at Georgia for domestic violence when he transferred to Saban's squad. He has now been kicked off that team because of being arrested again for domestic violence.

Let's be clear--these are arrests. Public record arrests. We are not even talking about sketchy (Title IX violating) internal investigations within athletic departments. We are not even dealing with, in this situation, student conduct hearings and the privacy issues attached to those. The lack of compliance with Title IX regarding policies and procedures, as I said the other day, is part of the reason the SEC policy is only one step in addressing the problem of student athletes who commit sexual and domestic violence. But it's a step Saban does not want to make because he believes it might harm the SEC and its ability to compete with the other power five conferences.

In short, he is saying f&^* ethics and the safety of (mostly) women on campus--we need to win. He is upset that the SEC is hindering the way he operates his program, but framing it as just looking out for the best interest of the conference.

He is not the only concerned SEC coach. Also notable is that the coach who lost Taylor to Alabama, Georgia's Mark Richt, was also a little concerned about the new rule. He was slightly more tactful and used a paradigm of second chances rather than the "but what if we aren't as good without the rapist on our team" argument.

Why is this policy being passed now when campus sexual assault has always been a problem? Well because the general public is starting to realize that it's an epidemic. And while sports fans might  allow some questionable practices that result in perks to student-athletes and wins for our favorite teams, the ability to get away with rape and violence is not one of those, and it is increasingly difficult to ignore the issue.

If Nick Saban took a little more time to think about this he could have both gotten his concerns addressed (without looking like a privileged, ignorant jerk) and been a hero (well for reasons other than football). Because what he could have said was this: This rule exemplifies the ways in which the SEC is a leader both on and off the field and is addressing a serious issue facing college and university communities. But we should not be the only ones. I urge the other conferences and the NCAA to implement similar policies regarding transfer athletes so that we can guarantee the safety of our student body and maintain the integrity of our athletic programs.

But that's not what he said.

Title IX Invoked in Early Efforts to Protect Rights of Female Athletes at Alabama, Berkeley

A couple of Title IX stories about women's college athletics caught my eye this week. Here is a brief roundup.

First, a former women's basketball player at the University of Alabama is using Title IX to challenge the athletic department's allegedly discriminatory manner of allocating scholarships as well as a "fairly broad and comprehensive pattern of bullying, harassment, retaliatory conduct and institutional hazing," according to the attorney representing Daisha Simmons. The details of these allegation are not entirely clear, but the alleged retaliation and harassment are argued to have crystallized in the athletic department's attempt to block Simmons's request to the NCAA for a waiver that would have allowed her to play immediately upon transferring to another institution. It appears from this article that the player's lawyer has filed a complaint with the university, as it is noted that the complaint triggers an internal investigation by the university.  However, if the matter is not resolved internally the player's attorney says the matter would likely "wind up in federal court."

Second, some members of the women's field hockey team at the University of California - Berkeley are considering whether to file a Title IX lawsuit against the institution to challenge its failure to provide them with a field the 2015-16 season. The Bears are already playing without a home facility this season while their field is under construction, and recently found out that the displacement would last into next season as well. As a result of their displacement, the team has to travel to other facilities -- the closest of which are an hour away -- for both competitions and daily practice. All that time spent commuting time cuts into the players' available time to take classes and engage in other aspects of student life. If the players pursue Title IX litigation, I predict that central issue will be whether Berkeley treats other men's teams differently when they are displaced for field construction, such as by doing a better job to minimize the length of displacement and finding better temporary facilities for games and practices. If the players don't have an argument along these lines, however, it is possible that a court would see this situation as one that is unfortunate but that does not constitute sex discrimination.

Cheer Coach's Lawsuit Survives Motion to Dismiss

We blogged last year about Debbie Greenwell's lawsuit against the University of Alabama.  Greenwell had been the university's highly successful cheerleading coach until she was terminated from her position for reasons that she alleges are retaliatory for efforts to advocate for equal treatment for her student athletes -- a violation of Title IX.  Among other claims, she also alleges that she was paid less than male coaches with comparable credentials and job duties, in violation of the federal Equal Pay Act.  The federal district court recently denied the University of Alabama's motion to dismiss the retaliation and equal pay claims after determining that Greenwell's complaint stated plausible claims for violations of the respective laws.  Plaintiffs do not face a high evidentiary burden to survive a motion to dismiss, so the court did not need to analyze the facts of Greenwell's allegations in much detail.  However, if the university next files a motion for summary judgment, the court will have to determine whether there is evidence in the record to support Greenwell's case, namely, whether her salary was demonstrably lower than that of an appropriate male comparitor (for the equal pay claim) and whether there some evidence of a causal nexus between her advocacy for students and the university's decision to terminate her from the head coach position.  As I noted in the earlier blog post about this case, the fact that several years passed in between will make this harder to prove.

Decision: Greenwell v. Trustees of the University of Alabama, 2012 WL 3637768 (N.D. Ala. Aug. 22, 2012). 

Cheerleading Coach Files Title IX Lawsuit Against University of Alabama

Debbie Greenwell was the head cheerleading coach at the University of Alabama for more than 24 years, until, she alleges, she was terminated from her position in a dramatic fashion in response to her advocacy for equal treatment for her student-athletes. She has recently filed a lawsuit in federal court, challenging the university's conduct as discrimination and retaliation in violation of the Equal Pay Act and Title IX.

Though Greenwell's team was not a varsity sport, it was part of the athletic department. Greenwell was hired by and answered to the athletic director. She ran very lucrative cheerleading camps that made cheerleading the second most-profitable athletic department enterprise, after football. In 2008, her cheerleading camp netted $400,000 -- money that all went in to the athletic department general fund. Greenwell brought other perks and prestige to Alabama athletics as well, yet, she argues, the athletic department exploited her by refusing to pay her commensurately to other coaches. Apparently, the University justified paying Greenwell less than other coaches on the grounds that cheerleading program was not an NCAA sport with varsity competition. But Greenwell argues -- validly, in my opinion -- that for purposes of determining pay equity, what matters is that her responsibilities of running camps and the cheerleading squad required effort equal if not greater to that of other coaches. Additionally, U of A held Greenwell out as one of their "coaches" when it suited them, to associate the institution with her prestige.

However, Greenwell's complaint is light on a couple of details that will determine the validity of charges against the university. In particular, there are no details about how Greenwell's salaries actually compared to those of male coaches. Also, it's not clear exactly on what basis Greenwell alleges the required nexus between the issue of her salary disparity and the fact of her termination. The complaint states that she advocated for a higher salary once in 2003, and that another time in 2006, she and students complained about the inequitable lack of academic and other support for cheerleaders compared to other student athletes. Typically, retaliation cases succeed when the plaintiff engaged in protected conduct much closer in time to the employer's retaliatory conduct (Greenwell was terminated in 2009). We'll have to wait and see whether such additional factual allegations are forthcoming, or whether their omission is enough to warrant dismissal of her case.