Legal issues

On Sept. 4, 2008, Andrei Borisov was in his Ann Arbor office, waiting for a meeting in which he planned to give his bosses at the University of Michigan documents supporting accusations he had made about a colleague's alleged academic misconduct, among other things. But before the morning was over, Borisov had been forced to sign a resignation letter, arrested for trespassing (in his own office) and for disturbing the peace, and taken from the campus in handcuffs by public safety officers whose presence at the meeting had been arranged, in advance, by his superiors.

Freshmen who entered Ohio State University at Mansfield in the fall of 2006 are about to graduate. A legal battle set off by the selection of a book for them all to read their first semester only came to a close on Monday -- when a federal judge rejected a former librarian's lawsuit against the university.

A Michigan community college that this year banned all child sex offenders from enrolling will now meet with all students who are felons or whose name appears on the state’s sex offender registry to determine if their enrollment should be revoked or their admission denied.

WASHINGTON -- The situation outlined by Miles J. Postema, vice president and general counsel of Ferris State University, sounded like a lawsuit waiting to happen:

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Supreme Court's decision Monday settled a key question about the anti-bias rules of public colleges and universities. Under the ruling, public colleges and universities may limit recognition to student groups that abide by anti-bias rules -- even when the groups are religious and they object on religious grounds to some of the rules.

WASHINGTON -- In the aftermath of the 2004 murder of a University of North Carolina at Wilmington student by a classmate with a history of violence against women, the deceased student's family came to see the decision-making of the university’s admissions office as one of the major factors leading to her death.

In the years since the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a private right to action for retaliatory discrimination under Title IX in 2005, numerous athletics officials have brought cases against their institutions, arguing that they were either let go or mistreated because they raised concerns about gender equity on behalf of students or coaches.

SAN FRANCISCO – Colleges do a relatively good job of preventing cashiers and low-level employees from stealing, but they’re largely inept when it comes to monitoring mid- and upper-level managers who are the most likely to perpetrate significant fraud at an institution, an expert on such crimes said at the National Association of College and University Business Officers annual meeting here Sunday.

A federal judge's ruling last week that a Connecticut university cannot use competitive cheerleading to meet its federal Title IX requirements has only indirect immediate implications for the other 10 or so colleges that now sponsor cheerleading as a varsity sport, since none of them include the teams in their calculations to meet gender equity standards.

Let's say a student group wants to invite Sarah Palin to campus, or Bill Ayers for that matter. Can a public university say that approval is contingent on the student group paying all extra security costs associated with such a visit?