The Supreme Court rejected Ohio State University’s request to throw out lawsuits from hundreds of people who say they were sexually abused by team doctor Richard Strauss.
(Bloomberg) — The Supreme Court rejected Ohio State University’s request to throw out lawsuits from hundreds of people who say they were sexually abused by team doctor Richard Strauss.
The justices Monday refused to review a lower court’s decision expanding the interpretation of the civil rights law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination at federally funded schools.
Ohio State University was seeking to overturn a 6th US Circuit of Appeals ruling that survivors can bring Title IX complaints within two years of discovering a university had “deliberate indifference” toward sexual harassment, rather than two years after the abuse occurred. The court also extended Title IX protections to people who were not students or employees of the college during the alleged sexual abuse incident.
The university argued that the 6th Circuit’s interpretation of Title IX would “effectively penalize schools for investigating decades-old misconduct.” Many of the victims’ allegations stem from incidents that happened 20 to 40 years ago, the university said.
There are some divisions among lower courts when victims are allowed to file Title IX claims. Some courts have said the clock runs out when a student or employee leaves the university, while others have said survivors can bring Title IX claims when they discover that school administrators knew about the abusive conduct but did not take action.
Ohio State University knew about complaints about Strauss as early as 1979, according to a report released in April 2018, but it took little action to address the complaints until 1996, when it fired Strauss. Strauss allegedly abused hundreds of students during his time at the school. He died by suicide in 2005.
Nearly two dozen colleges and universities as well as the Association of American Universities filed a brief in support of Ohio State University’s petition. They wrote that the potential implications for Title IX “is an issue of immense importance to institutions of higher education.”
The case is Ohio State University v. Snyder-Hill, 22-896.
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