BOSTON COLLEGE Ruling Highlights Lack of Rights at Private Universities
Last week, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed a lower court’s decision to preliminarily enjoin Boston College from suspending a student found responsible for sexual misconduct. In its decision, the panel took the district court to task for, in its view, using a public university due process decision to expand the scope of Massachusetts contract law. The ruling was an unusually harsh rebuke of the district court and a clear illustration of why the courts are often an imperfect vehicle for students seeking relief from unfair campus disciplinary proceedings, particularly at private universities.
…This underscores the need for prospective students and their families to familiarize themselves with a private college’s policies and procedures before deciding to attend. Too often, people don’t read these policies until they find themselves entangled in a campus judicial system, at which point it is often too late. While an increasing number of courts have intervened in cases where a private university has failed to follow its own policies or has enforced its policies in a discriminatory manner, the fact remains that private university policies are not subject to the same degree of judicial scrutiny as those at public universities. Perhaps if private universities with unfair disciplinary policies began to see applications—or donations— drop as a result of those policies, they would take notice.
thefire.org- S. Harris
blog.simplejustice.us/the-first-circuits-shifting-view-of-fairness/– S.Greenfield
