Insights & News

Title IX provides simply that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance…” 20 U.S.C. §1681. This means that Title IX, with all of its requirements related to athletics and regulations about sexual harassment, does not apply to schools that do not receive any form of federal financial assistance. But what does “federal financial assistance” mean? Certainly, when a university receives direct federal assistance through acceptance of Title IV funds (federal […]

By: Shawn Flynn The attorney-client privilege protects the confidentiality of communications between lawyers and their clients. Under this privilege, along with the corresponding ethical rule requiring a lawyer to maintain the confidences of their clients, attorneys may not divulge the secrets of their clients, nor may others force them to do so by any legal means, except if the privilege is waived. The purpose of this expansive privilege is to ensure that clients may openly share information with their lawyers to ensure that the lawyer is not hampered in representing the client and their interests as fully and completely as […]

Defamation. It means something different to everyone, usually involving high profile celebrities, but what is defamation? Put simply; defamation is a false statement that harms a person or their reputation. Defamation is a tort, a type of civil injury recognized in American law.   Defamation law allows someone injured by a false statement to hold the speaker (or writer) accountable for their words by recovering money damages. While the legal elements of defamation vary slightly state by state, in general, a person can recover in defamation if they show by greater weight of the evidence, meaning any amount above a 50% […]

 By: Ben North It is now common knowledge that on June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action in college admissions, insofar as it held that race preferencing for the purposes of increasing “diversity” violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Right Act. Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 143 S. Ct. 2141 (2023). The Court ruled that colleges and universities could not sufficiently justify preferencing certain races over others, by any interest in increasing the “diversity” of the student body or by remedying generalized […]