When we began publishing Case in Point over sixteen years ago, we wrote largely to an audience from Auburn University and from the perspective as internal auditors in higher education and risk. As CIP grew to include numerous internal audit departments in higher education, we wrote about risks auditors might want to consider auditing. As time passed our audience—and our focus—has broadened dramatically to include universities across the United States, a few international institutions, multiple corporate firms working in higher education, federal agencies that interact with higher education, and virtually every role within the educational environment. We believe that CIP has become a publication that can give anyone a sense of the current risks in higher education regardless of their role.

Likewise, my own role at Auburn University has broadened dramatically since CIP began. I now oversee four divisions as the Vice President for Institutional Compliance & Security. With the start of a new academic year, I asked my key leaders (who I’d argue are among the best in higher education) to share their one piece of advice for a successful 2024-2025 academic year.

From Robert Gottesman, Associate Vice President for Audit, Compliance & Privacy:
''My advice for the new academic year is to prioritize communication and build strong relationships to foster a culture of compliance. Leaders should engage with their teams to communicate the importance of adhering to university policies, completing mandatory training, and submitting required conflict of interest/commitment disclosures. While email and virtual meetings can be effective, face-to-face communication remains the most impactful way to connect with faculty, staff, and administrators and convey the significance of compliance. By focusing on relationship building, you can create a more collaborative and supportive environment that encourages everyone to prioritize compliance.''

From Aria Allen, Assistant Vice President for Equal Opportunity Compliance:
''As we are starting a new academic year, some colleges and universities are in new territory with the 2024 Final Rule on Title IX regulations. Over the summer, we closely monitored litigation brought by 26 States and interest groups that challenged the Final Rule. In this era of patchwork regulations, where some of us are operating under the 2024 Final Rule and others are not, it’s essential to educate your community—students, faculty, and employees—on what these changes (or lack of changes) mean for your campus. Annual training for all employees, and ideally for students too, on their rights and responsibilities under Title IX, is the best way to help protect your community and to stay in compliance.''

From Dr. Clarence Stewart, Assistant Vice President for Campus Security & Compliance:
''Building a solid sense of community is one of our best defenses against potential threats. Get to know your peers, support one another, and cultivate an atmosphere of respect and trust. When we look out for each other, we create a safer campus for all.''

From Traci McGill, Director of Internal Audit:
''Put risk and controls at the front and center. We live in a world where risks are changing at an incredible pace; let these developments be a strong reminder that we should continually reassess risks and the controls in place to mitigate risks.''

This is good advice from some very talented people with important roles at Auburn University. Traci makes an important point on the rapid pace of change and emerging risks. You can get a solid overview of the current risks by reviewing the stories from the past month below.

M. Kevin Robinson, CIA, CFE
Vice President
Institutional Compliance & Security
Office of Audit, Compliance & Privacy
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Information Security & Technology Events

Aug 26: AI: Matt Trainum recalls a recent conversation with a college leader that captured what's been a staggering crescendo of investments in AI hiring. The private institution that the leader runs is "well-heeled," "well-funded," and enjoys "an amazing reputation" with a Top 20 U.S. News ranking, says Trainum, vice president for networks and strategic partnerships at the Council of Independent Colleges. But even then, "He said, ‘There is no way we can keep up with the top five institutions. ... We are being left in the dust.'" Competition for talent is common in higher ed. So is the reflex to bulk up the faculty in response to technological advances (look at, say, nanotechnology and genome science at the turn of the century). But the sense of urgency, and the scale of recent hiring initiatives in artificial intelligence, is noticeably amplified, more than a dozen college provosts, vice presidents, directors, and deans told The Chronicle. (link)

Aug 16: Data Breach: On August 13, 2024, the University of Connecticut Health Center Finance Corporation ("UConn Health") filed a notice of data breach with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights after discovering suspicious activity in a UConn Health email account. In this notice, UConn Health explains that the incident resulted in an unauthorized party being able to access consumers' sensitive information, which includes their names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, financial account numbers, medical treatment & diagnosis information, prescriptions, and health insurance information. Upon completing its investigation, UConn Health began sending out data breach notification letters to all individuals whose information was affected by the recent data security incident. (link)

Aug 13: Data Breach: An Arizona tech school has informed Maine's attorney general in a recently filed report that nearly 209,000 individuals' data was potentially compromised in a hacking incident earlier in the year. The tech school is East Valley Institute of Technology (EVIT), and according to the filing, the data of the 209,000 individuals is of current and former students, parents, guardians, and faculty. As for what data was leaked, reports indicate the compromised data included personal, health, and financial information. The Register reports that nearly 50 types of personal information were stolen, such as student ID numbers, date of birth, race/ethnicity, grades, home phone numbers, email addresses, driver's license, health insurance information, medical information, allergy information, medical record number, passport numbers, prescription information and more. (link)

Aug 08: Ransomware: Nearly all of the personal and financial data of thousands of students and staff hijacked from New Jersey City University's computer network has been released on the dark web for anyone to access, cyber experts say. Apparently, school officials did not pay the approximately $700,000 ransom, in the form of cryptocurrency Bitcoin, the ransomware hackers demanded in exchange for more than one million copied files."Not sold data was uploaded. Data hunters, enjoy," says the designated leak site (DLS) belonging to Rhysida, the ransomware group that breached the Jersey City school's network in early June. Numerous screenshots of NJCU documents that reveal lists of names, social security numbers, and photos of an individual driver's license and social security card. (link)

Aug 01: Cyberattack: Computer systems at Northwest Arkansas Community College stayed offline a third day Thursday with school officials reassuring the staff, students and public they would say more when they know more. The college hired an external cybersecurity team to resolve the situation, according to Justin White, vice president of student affairs. The threat is an external entity not affiliated with the school in any way, White said Wednesday. Student and staff information is on the cloud and safe despite the cyber threat, he said. Because of the cyberattack, online students can't access the learning management system for their courses, White said. The college is looking at options for students to complete coursework in a timely manner and will be flexible and make accommodations, White said Wednesday. (link)

Fraud & Ethics Related Events

Aug 23: Research Fraud: You probably haven't heard of cardiologist Don Poldermans, but experts who study scientific misconduct believe that thousands of people may be dead because of him. Poldermans was a prolific medical researcher at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, where he analyzed the standards of care for cardiac surgery, publishing a series of definitive studies from 1999 until the early 2010s. One crucial question he studied: Should you give patients a beta blocker, which lowers blood pressure, before certain heart surgeries? Poldermans's research said yes. European medical guidelines (and to a lesser extent US guidelines) recommended it accordingly. The problem? Poldermans's data was reportedly fake. (link)

Aug 12: Ethics: In his 17-month stint as UF president, Ben Sasse more than tripled his office's spending, directing millions in university funds into secretive consulting contracts and high-paying positions for his GOP allies. Sasse ballooned spending under the president's office to $17.3 million in his first year in office -- up from $5.6 million in former UF President Kent Fuchs' last year, according to publicly available administrative budget data. A majority of the spending surge was driven by lucrative contracts with big-name consulting firms and high-salaried, remote positions for Sasse's former U.S. Senate staff and Republican officials. Sasse's consulting contracts have been kept largely under wraps, leaving the public in the dark about what the contracted firms did to earn their fees. The university also declined to clarify specific duties carried out by Sasse's ex-Senate staff, several of whom were salaried as presidential advisers. (link)

Aug 05: Theft: Nearly two weeks after a rare poster from the 1900s was stolen from the Macky Auditorium at the University of Colorado Boulder, two people have been arrested and the poster was recovered. A vintage Macky Auditorium performance poster went missing in the early morning hours of July 24. CU staff members said the poster was from a pianist's performance in the 1950s and it was reportedly ripped off the wall. The University of Colorado Boulder Police Department posted photos of the suspected thieves and asked the community for help identifying them. Police did not believe they were students at the university. (link)

Compliance/Regulatory & Legal Events

Aug 26: State Law: As freshmen thumbed through dorm posters and shopped for school supplies at the University of Alabama's student center during the first week of school, other spaces in the building were noticeably empty. References to "diversity" have been scrubbed from office name plates. All signage had been removed from the once-bustling Black Student Union office. The former Safe Zone Resource Center, formerly filled with books, Pride flags and portraits of LGBTQ trailblazers, is now just an ordinary conference room. The changes stem from a state law, signed by Gov. Kay Ivey in March, that stops state institutions and universities from using public funding for diversity, equity and inclusion offices, or for any DEI programming that advocates for a so-called "divisive concept." (link)

Aug 26: Title IX: The screaming started late at night. A neighbor looked outside her North Logan home in April 2023, expecting to possibly see college students playing in the snow. But in a statement to police, that witness described a much different scene: a woman crying and yelling "get off me" and "you're choking me," and a man on top of her, holding her down on the ground. Officers arrested the man, who was a Utah State University athlete, in a case that went on to have profound impact on the Logan campus. The university fired the head football coach and two other employees in July over how they responded, a wave of severe consequences that came as the school has tried to improve and distance itself from a history of failing to respond properly when male students assault women. (link)

Aug 25: Employee Conduct: A college football assistant coach resigned after being arrested in a human trafficking investigation in Tennessee. [An] Austin Peay State University football assistant coach resigned on Sunday, Aug. 18. His resignation came just two days after the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation launched an undercover operation aimed at addressing human trafficking in Montgomery County, Tennessee. Officers placed several decoy advertisements on websites known to be linked to prostitution and commercial sex, according to the TBI. [The coach] was one of six arrested after the investigation. He was charged with one count of trafficking for sexual servitude. (link)

Aug 22: Labor Complaint: The union representing the Dartmouth College men's basketball team has filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the Ivy League school for refusing to bargain with the players, who in March became the first U.S. college athletes to unionize. The Service Employees International Union Local 560, which represents other workers at Dartmouth, filed the complaint with the National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday. Members of the basketball team voted 13-2 to unionize on March 5 after NLRB Regional Director Laura Sacks ruled that the players were employees of the prestigious school in Hanover, New Hampshire. Later that month, Dartmouth declined to enter a collective bargaining agreement with the players. Dartmouth has asked the NLRB for a full board review of Sacks' decision and plans to appeal the unfair labor practice charge. (link)

Aug 21: Due Process Lawsuit: A new school year is set to start at University of California campuses over the next few weeks. However, the chaos that erupted in the spring at colleges across the state have not been forgotten. Pro-Palestinian protestors, Israel supporters and police earlier this year clashed over the ongoing war in Gaza. Now, five UC Irvine students who were indefinitely suspended because of the protests have filed a lawsuit against the university. "These suspensions were issued without any hearing, they were imposed immediately based on unsubstantiated and unspecified allegations," said Thomas Harvey, a civil rights attorney who represents the students. They claim the consequences for protesting violate the university's rules and their constitutional right to due process. (link)

Aug 21: Whistleblower Lawsuit: Former Bloomsburg University dean Jeffrey Krug has won a $3.9 million federal jury verdict over claims he faced retaliation and was fired for helping an administrative assistant file a sexual harassment report against the school's president. Krug, former dean of the Zeigler College of Business and a tenured faculty member, was improperly terminated in 2018, according to his suit. Krug sued Bloomsburg University -- now part of Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania -- school president Bashar Hanna, university senior vice president for academic affairs James Krause, and the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Krug claimed he was subjected to false rumors of infidelity, a retaliatory investigation, denials of business travel and expense reimbursement and, ultimately, termination. (link)

Aug 17: Title IX: The Supreme Court on Friday declined to let the Biden administration enforce portions of a new rule that includes protections from discrimination for transgender students under Title IX while legal proceedings continue. The high court left intact two separate orders from federal courts in Kentucky and Louisiana, which blocked the Department of Education from enforcing the entirety of the rule across 10 states. The Justice Department had asked the Supreme Court to put part of the decisions on hold, but it declined the requests. (link)

Aug 15: Lawsuit Settlement: Three graduate students who sued Harvard University in 2022 over its response to sexual harassment allegations against a prominent professor reached a settlement with the university this week, court records show. The students -- Margaret Czerwienski, Lilia Kilburn and Amulya Mandava -- filed a federal lawsuit against Harvard in February 2022, claiming that [a] professor used his power to "exploit aspiring scholars," and that the university failed to "protect students from sexual abuse." A court filing on Wednesday showed that the students and the university agreed to dismiss the case without costs, bringing an end to a matter that spurred student protests and prompted the university to investigate the claims (link)

Aug 19: NCAA Violations: Notre Dame suspended its men's swimming program Thursday for at least one year after an external review found members of the team violated NCAA rules by wagering among themselves on results of their competitions and failed to "treat one another with dignity and respect." "In order to ensure that this behavior ends and to rebuild a culture of dignity, respect, and exemplary conduct, we have decided to suspend the men's swimming program for at least one academic year," athletic director Pete Bevacqua said in a statement. According to a person with knowledge of the situation, members of the team had set up a makeshift, internal sportsbook where athletes could wager on the times posted by themselves or teammates at meets. Athletes were not found to have bet on opposing teams or on any other Notre Dame athletic events, the person said. (link)

Aug 07: State Law: The Office of the Indiana Attorney General this week argued a federal judge should dismiss a lawsuit led by university professors and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana challenging a state law requiring "intellectual diversity" in the classroom. The plaintiffs assert that Senate Enrolled Act 202 violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The measure was adopted by the General Assembly over concerns that conservative viewpoints were being stifled on campuses and signed into law by Gov. Eric Holcomb in March. As summarized in a June filing, 202 "requires that faculty members be denied tenure or promotion, and threatens them with discipline through and including termination, if they are deemed "unlikely" to "foster a culture of free inquiry, free expression, and intellectual diversity" within their institution, or if they are deemed to have failed to foster such cultures in the past." (link)

Aug 07: Lawsuit: Saint Augustine's University is facing more legal issues as of Wednesday afternoon. A company that claims it provided maintenance, janitorial services and lawn care alleges the university owes them more than $1 million dollars in unpaid fees. Management Professionals filed a lawsuit on Monday against St. Augustine's for breach of contract. The suit says that the university ceased fully paying its bills in August 2023, prompting the company to file a lien against the institution. The U.S. Department of Labor in May said that it would investigate the financial issues at Saint Augustine's University, citing the university's struggle to pay its employees. (link)

Aug 07: Employee Conduct: A professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham is charged with aggravated child abuse, according to court documents. Court documents state the crime took place within Jefferson County on or around July 1. It also alleges that the abuse took place on more than one occasion. Following the doctor's arrest, UAB issued the following statement: "We are aware of the arrest and can confirm that this individual has been placed on administrative leave. We take this matter extremely seriously. As employment matters are handled between the employee and the institution, we have no further comment at this time." The doctor's profile on UAB's website states he worked within the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine. (link)

Aug 07: NCAA Compliance: A Division I Committee on Infractions panel determined former Michigan head football coach Jim Harbaugh violated recruiting and inducement rules, engaged in unethical conduct, failed to promote an atmosphere of compliance and violated head coach responsibility obligations, resulting in a four-year show-cause order. Michigan and five individuals who currently or previously worked for its football program earlier reached agreement with NCAA enforcement staff on violations concerning recruiting and coaching activities by noncoaching staff members that occurred within the football program. The school also agreed that it failed to monitor the football program. (link)

Aug 02: Title VI: Drexel University will review the "shared ancestry" discrimination complaints it has fielded in recent years and work to improve how it handles them under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education announced Friday. The federal investigation began with a complaint about an October dormitory fire on the door of a suite where a Jewish student lived, but no sufficient evidence has surfaced indicating it was motivated by antisemitism or a hate crime, officials said. Federal officials concluded a hostile environment has been in place at Drexel for about a year and a half, including anti-Jewish graffiti, social media threats and the vandalism of Drexel's Center for Jewish life in April. (link)

Aug 01: Lawsuit: A Penn State trustee is suing the board for allegedly withholding information about how the university manages its $4.6 billion endowment, which provides financial stability for the institution and includes donations intended to benefit Penn State and its students. The lawsuit was filed days before the trustees' July meeting in Altoona and comes as Penn State plans steep budget cuts and pays some employees to leave. It is also the latest in a series of public grievances by board members about university operations. Barry Fenchak, an alumni-elected trustee, said that university leaders and fellow trustees have blocked him for years from reviewing data he requested, including details about what assets Penn State has and administrative fees charged to those holdings. (link)

Aug 01: Title IX: New federal protections for transgender students at U.S. schools and colleges took effect Thursday with muted impact because judges have temporarily blocked enforcement in 25 states and hundreds of individual colleges and schools across the country. The regulation also adds protections for pregnant students and students who are parents, and details how schools must respond to sexual misconduct complaints. For schools, the impact of the court challenges could be a combination of confusion and inertia in terms of compliance as the academic year begins. In a series of rulings, federal courts have declared that the rule cannot be enforced in most of the Republican states that sued while the litigation continues. The latest ruling came Wednesday when a federal appeals court blocked enforcement for now in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, overruling a judge who just a day earlier had said enforcement could start in those states. (link)

Aug 01: Lawsuit Settlement: The debate over if a conservative organization at Bakersfield College was engaging in free speech or hate speech that has consumed the school in recent years came to a head when the co-founder of the organization and former BC professor Matthew Garrett received a multi-million settlement from the Kern Community College District. Current KCCD board president John Corkins has been among those who has expressed concerns about the actions of the organization and also had to clarify a comment he made in respect to the controversy. Garrett received a settlement that will be more than $2.4 million over the next 20 years. Garrett will receive back wages and benefits of $154,000 since he was fired in April, 2023. He will also receive monthly payments that will total nearly $2.3 million over the next 20 years. Also as part of the settlement Garrett has voluntarily resigned. (link)

Campus Life & Safety Events

Aug 28: Campus Protests: Police arrested four pro-Palestinian protesters Wednesday at the University of Michigan after a group tried to disrupt a university event, a school official said. During a Festifall event being held Wednesday afternoon, some protesters who oppose Israel showed up at the Diag and started demonstrating. The group of about 50 protesters were asked to disperse, Colleen Mastony, assistant vice president for public affairs, told the Free Press. None of the four arrested were students, Mastony said. "For more than an hour, they were given multiple warnings that made clear they were blocking pedestrian traffic and violating university policy," she said in a statement. "Most eventually dispersed although some refused to leave and, as a result, four people were arrested. None of the people who were arrested were students. Three were unaffiliated with the university, and the fourth is a temporary employee." (link)

Aug 27: Campus Protests: About 25 masked demonstrators, many wearing head scarves and keffiyehs, blocked the entrances to Bridges Hall of Music Tuesday, disrupting Pomona College's convocation ceremony. The protest, which prevented spectators from attending the 11 a.m. event, was organized by Pomona Divest from Apartheid, a pro-Palestinian group comprised of Claremont Colleges students. The convocation ceremony began at 11 a.m. Demonstrators walked in a circle in front of the hall, and a television news helicopter hovered overhead. Minutes later, campus safety officers asked protesters to move from the entrances, remove their masks, and identify themselves with school ID. No one complied. (link)

Aug 27: Campus Protests: Students were braced for a stalemate. There was an Ultimate Frisbee team without money to compete, an airport shuttle whose cost to students almost doubled without a campus subsidy, and a ballroom dance team unable to rent rehearsal space. At the University of Michigan, many student activities are usually funded or subsidized by the Central Student Government, known as C.S.G., an elected undergraduate and graduate council that decides how to dole out roughly $1.3 million annually to about 400 groups. But last spring, pro-Palestinian activists, running under the Shut It Down party, won control over the student government. They immediately moved to withhold funding for all activities, until the university committed to divest from companies that profit from Israel's war in Gaza. (link)

Aug 26: Campus Protests: "Israel bombs, Cornell pays" and "Blood is on your hands" were spray painted in red along the front entrance of Day Hall -- Cornell's main administrative building. The front door glass was also smashed, and yellow caution tape was wrapped around the building's entrance on Monday morning as repair workers came to mend the damage. In a statement to The Sun, the activists behind the graffiti said, "We had to accept that the only way to make ourselves heard is by targeting the only thing the university administration truly cares about: property." The pro-Palestine activists targeted Day Hall on the first day of the fall semester, amid a historic strike from Cornell workers and following two semesters of extensive pro-Palestine demonstrations. (link)

Aug 26: Campus Speech: Nearly three-quarters of all college students (70 percent) say they feel at least somewhat comfortable speaking about controversial topics in class, though almost half (42 percent) say that's because their views align with those of their peers and professors, according to a new report from North Dakota State University. Published by the university's Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth, the report assesses student perceptions of intellectual diversity and campus freedom as well as their beliefs about human progress. "The results reinforce concerns about a lack of tolerance for different viewpoints on campus -- and confusion about capitalism and socialism," said John Bitzan, author of this year's report, the fourth annual edition. "Nonetheless, there have been some positive changes." (link)

Aug 19: Campus Climate: New College of Florida's dean of the library has been placed on administrative leave, a college spokesperson confirmed Monday. Her departure comes following increased attention to the college's libraries after hundreds of books could be seen overflowing from a dumpster behind the Jane Bancroft Cook Library Thursday afternoon. With the disposing of library books, New College also disposed of materials from the now-defunct Gender and Diversity Center -- a student-run and student-curated library of books on subjects such as the LGBTQ+ community, Black stories and women. These books lived across campus at the Hamilton Center, a student-life and dining building. New College of Florida spokesperson Nathan March said [the dean's] leave was "taken after discovering that the library did not follow all of the state administrative requirements while conducting the routine disposition of materials." (link)

Aug 19: Staff Strike: Cornell University workers are going on strike as college students begin moving in Monday. The United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2300, which represents more than 1,200 custodians, groundskeepers, cooks, food service workers, and other Cornell employees, voted Friday in favor of a strike that would begin Monday, Aug. 19. Monday is the beginning of move-in week for approximately 8,400 students arriving on campus, according to the Cornell Daily Sun. Striking workers said their real wages have declined while Cornell's endowment and tuition revenue have both increased. Over the past four years, the school's endowment increased 39% to nearly $10 billion and tuition went up 13% as workers' buying power fell 5%, according to the union. (link)

Aug 14: Campus Protests: The University of California in Los Angeles cannot allow pro-Palestinian protesters to block Jewish students from accessing campus buildings, classes and services, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi's order appears to be the first ruling against a U.S. university connected with the demonstrations protesting the Israel-Gaza conflict that erupted at hundreds of college campuses earlier this year. The decision to issue a preliminary injunction against the prestigious university, issued on Tuesday, came as part of a lawsuit filed in June by three Jewish students, who said pro-Palestinian protesters blocked them from campus based on their faith. "In the year 2024, in the United States of America, in the State of California, in the City of Los Angeles, Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith," Scarsi wrote, calling it "unimaginable" and "abhorrent." (link)

Aug 14: Shooting: Two 21-year-old men have been arrested and charged with brandishing a firearm in connection to a shooting that injured two other men and two women on Virginia State University's campus early Wednesday morning. At 12:36 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 14, officers with the Chesterfield County Police Department responded to the report of a shooting that occurred in a large group of people at 218 Boisseau Street, outside of Daniel Gymnasium on the university's campus. When officers arrived, they found two men and two women who were shot. All four people were taken to local hospitals for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. According to an investigation, none of the victims are currently students at the university. The suspects are not enrolled at VSU, according to police. (link)

Aug 12: Campus Protests: To many pro-Palestinian campus activists, it was a crushing coincidence of the calendar. Just as nationwide protests over the Israel-Hamas war were coming to a crescendo, the spring semester ended and the students cleared out. The sounds of bullhorns and chanting suddenly went silent. "It was definitely very jarring," says junior Marie Adele Grosso, a student organizer at Barnard College and Columbia University. "I wanted so badly to still be in New York. I wanted to be there organizing," she says, "just trying not to lose that momentum." Hundreds were arrested at the encampments, including Gross, who was taken in twice. Like many students, her criminal charges have since been dropped. And her school suspension was downgraded to probation. Now she's among scores of students around the nation using the summer to strategize and plan for what their activism might look like in the fall. (link)

Aug 08: Campus Climate: To be a college student in 2024 is to be surrounded by stressful events, ranging from personal matters--juggling work, family responsibilities and financial obligations--to unprecedented global phenomena, political turmoil and a constant stream of digital information. "We're living in an age of anxiety," says Melissa Saunders, assistant director of clinical services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS). "There are major life stressors going on all across the world--climate change, terrible wars, toxic political discourse--that students have no control over and are completely bombarded with all the time. That is an awful lot to handle at age 18, 19, 20." (link)

Aug 05: Free Speech: A federal court ruled Clovis Community College violated the free speech rights of a group of conservative students in 2022 and was ordered to pay $330,000 in damages and attorney fees, adopt new speech-protective policy, and train staff. The college removed student-group flyers because of conservative messages the school said were "inappropriate or offensive." The court banned Clovis Community College from enforcing any policy that discriminates against student groups based on viewpoints. Then-President Lori Bennett personally ordered the flyers removed. "If you need a reason, you can let them know that [we] agreed they aren't club announcements," Bennett wrote to Clovis staff. FIRE filed the lawsuit on Aug. 11, 2022, aiming to hold the college president and three other administrators responsible. Bennett retired from Clovis Community College the following January. (link)

Aug 01: Racial Issues: The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee temporarily suspended five pro-Palestinian student groups for a social media message the local Jewish community called intimidating and threatening. The student groups -- Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Student Association, Students for a Democratic Society, Young Democratic Socialists of America and Un-PAC -- formed a coalition this spring called UW-Milwaukee Popular University for Palestine. The coalition set up an encampment to demand UW-Milwaukee cut ties with Israeli companies. In an Instagram story posted mid-July, the coalition said any organization supportive of Israel is unwelcome at UWM. The story characterized Hillel Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Jewish Federation as "local extremist groups." (link)

Aug 01: Hazing: Two former Pennsylvania State University fraternity members involved in a 2017 fraternity hazing case in which student Tim Piazza died have entered guilty pleas, bringing closure to a case that has dragged on for more than seven years, Pennsylvania's attorney general announced Tuesday. [The former] president of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, and [the former] vice president and pledge master, have pleaded guilty to 14 counts of hazing and one count of reckless endangerment -- all misdemeanors, according to the office of Attorney General Michelle Henry. The case drew national attention as video surveillance from the fraternity house on the night Piazza was fatally injured was played in court, showing Piazza, who was from Hunterdon County, N.J., and others moving through a drinking obstacle course and chugging alcohol. (link)

Aug 01: Campus Protests: A federal judge Monday told UCLA and Jewish students who sued the university that they have one week to hash out a court-enforceable plan that would ensure equal access to campus for all if protests over the Israel-Hamas war or other disruptions erupt in the future. The directive, issued during a hearing in downtown Los Angeles, followed a lawsuit three Jewish students filed last month against UCLA alleging that an April pro-Palestinian encampment violated their civil rights by illegally blocking them and other Jews from parts of campus, including the site of the camp, Royce Quad. (link)

If you have any suggestions, questions or feedback, please e-mail Kevin Robinson at robinmk@auburn.edu or Robert Gottesman at gotterw@auburn.edu. We hope you find this information useful and would appreciate hearing your thoughts. Feel free to forward this email to your direct reports, colleagues, employees or others who might find it of value. Back issues of this newsletter are available on our web site.

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