Discrimination and Sexual Harassment

On August 20, 2023, the AAUP and Nevada Faculty Alliance (NFA) filed a joint amicus brief in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in support of Dr. Alice Wieland, a former assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, who was denied tenure largely based on the tenure committee’s assessment of student evaluations of her teaching. Dr. Wieland filed a lawsuit against the university, alleging that her tenure denial violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s prohibition on sex-based discrimination. The AAUP and NFA’s joint amicus brief argues that courts...

The Supreme Court recently held in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina that the race-conscious admissions policies employed by Harvard and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The decision runs contrary to over forty years of precedent and the arguments and cautions presented by the AAUP in an amicus brief filed jointly with thirty-nine other higher education associations.

On February 14, 2022, the AAUP joined an amicus brief challenging the federal government’s discriminatory targeting and surveillance of Asian American and Asian immigrant scientists and researchers—especially those of Chinese descent. The brief, authored by Asian Americans Advancing Justice-AAJC and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus and joined by seventy other organizations, provides important context about the FBI and other federal agencies’ history of engaging in racially motivated investigations and prosecutions of Asian American scientists and academics and describes the...

On March 15, 2021, in a case in which the AAUP filed an amicus brief, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Jennifer Freyd, finding that she had alleged sufficient facts to proceed with a suit against the University of Oregon for pay discrimination based on significant pay disparities with male faculty members. The lower court had dismissed the suit based, in part, on findings that Freyd and her male colleagues did not perform equal work, and that any disparate impact on women was justified. The AAUP’s amicus brief provides an overview of gender-based wage discrimination in...

On June 15, 2020, in a case in which the AAUP joined an amicus brief, the Supreme Court ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination based on race, sex, religion, or national origin (“Title VII”) protects gay and transgender workers. The court held that because sexual orientation and gender identity cannot be explained as traits that someone has without referring to the sex of the person, discriminating based on those traits constituted discrimination “because of sex,” which is prohibited by Title VII. Thus, in affirming that Title VII’s broad...

On March 22, 2019, the Fifth Circuit issued a decision finding that professor Teresa Buchanan’s termination for her classroom use of profanity and discussion of sex did not violate her First Amendment right to freedom of speech. While the court acknowledged that certain classroom speech is protected by the First Amendment, the court held that Buchanan’s speech was not protected as it did not serve an academic purpose.

Petitioner Vicky Crawford reported that her manager made sexually explicit remarks and gestures towards her; she was later terminated. At issue was whether Title VII protections against retaliation extended to an employee who spoke out about discrimination not on her own initiative, but in answering questions during an employer's internal investigation.

The petitioners alleged an inadequate response by an elementary school to student-on-student sexual harassment, raising both Section 1983 and Title IX claims. The United States Supreme Court determined whether a student who brings a lawsuit for sexual harassment under Title IX can also bring a constitutional claim for denial of equal protection under the federal statute 42 U.S.C. § 1983

Consolidating three cases, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed whether the "sovereign immunity" clause of the Eleventh Amendment prohibits public employees, including faculty members, from suing public institutions, including colleges and universities, under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) for damages .