Private Schools
Private schools and universities often maintain that they do not have to conform to Constitutional due process guarantees in discipline and Title IX matters.
We are committed to pursuing fundamental fairness and securing due process for our clients in every case.
These are important arguments that we advance in our cases:
Where a school receives federal funding of any kind, their policies and procedures must be consistent with due process requirements.
In Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), the United States Supreme Court made plain that when any school seeks to discipline a student the school must adhere to the basic Constitutional mandate of giving the student notice and the right to be heard.
In California, the recent case of Doe v. Allee (2019) applied the notion of fundamental fairness and due process to Title IX investigations and proceedings at USC, a private university.
In the recent case of Doe v. University of the Sciences (2020), the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that a private school was required to offer due process not just because of federal funding but because both its contract and handbook, made a promise of fairness in their procedures.