A former student who was expelled from a Georgia university for environmental activism without a hearing has received a $900,000 settlement after eight years.
Tag: due process
Private college sent you to the dungeon? The Constitution won't help. Contract law might.
A federal judge says Colgate University can be liable for falsely imprisoning a student awaiting a disciplinary hearing but can't be sued for violating his constitutional rights, because private businesses aren't subject to the Constitution.
Court: Legal challenge to campus police raid can't proceed in secret
If you want to pursue a misconduct claim against campus police, be prepared to do it in public, a federal district judge ruled last week.
Spotlight shines on colleges' regulation of student-athletes social media posts
In a new law journal article, Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, makes a case for why universities shouldn’t regulate student-athletes’ social media accounts and online speech.“What makes social media novel and empowering — that it is an immediate, unfiltered way to ‘speak’ with thousands of people — is also what makes it frightening to campus regulators,” LoMonte writes.
At a public institution, the First Amendment protects students' ability to express themselves free from government sanction, and the Due Process Clause protects against the removal of public benefits in an arbitrary way or without adequate notice.
Administrators ask court to dismiss expelled nursing student's lawsuit
Central Lakes College employees named in a former nursing student’s lawsuit have asked the court to dismiss some of the claims in a lawsuit that challenges the student’s expulsion over Facebook posts.
Former Georgia college president found personally liable for violating student’s due process rights
A former Valdosta State University student whose due process rights were violated in his 2007 expulsion has won $50,000 in compensatory damages, according to a judgment filed Monday. A federal jury ruled in favor of Hayden Barnes on Friday, after several years of legal battle.The university’s former president, Ronald Zaccari, who expelled Barnes, was found “personally liable” for the damages, according to court records.
Judge rules Valdosta State student handbook a binding contract; university appeals
A former Georgia college student’s lawsuit against the administrator who expelled him without a hearing can continue following a state court decision last week that student handbooks can represent contracts between students and their schools.