Appeals Court: Title IX Liability Extends to Nonstudent Guests

JEREMY DREY/MEDIANEWS GROUP/READING EAGLE VIA GETTY IMAGES

By Elizabeth Redden

Federal appeals court rules Millersville University can be held liable under Title IX in a case involving the murder of a student by a nonstudent in a campus dorm.


Millersville University in Pennsylvania was given prior notice that it could be held liable under Title IX “for its deliberate indifference to known sexual harassment perpetrated by a non-student guest,” a federal appeals court ruled last week.

The ruling revives a lawsuit filed by the parents of Karlie Hall, a student murdered in her dorm room in 2015 by her boyfriend, who did not attend the university.

In ruling in the Halls’ favor, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed the holding of the district court, which had ruled the university lacked notice that it could have been held liable under Title IX, the statute that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded educational institutions, for violence perpetrated by a nonstudent guest.

 

Read more here: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/01/18/ruling-finds-title-ix-liability-actions-nonstudents