A judge in Washington has dismissed a lawsuit against the oldest African-American sorority in the country, Alpha Kappa Alpha, that sought the ouster of the group's president, Barbara McKinzie, according to the Washington Business Journal. The lawsuit, filed last year by several members of the sorority, accused Ms. McKinzie of appropriating the group's funds for her own use, including $900,000 for a wax statue of herself. But Judge Natalia Combs Greene, of the D.C. Superior Court, ruled that her court did not have jurisdiction over an organization with headquarters in Chicago. The judge also ruled that a bid for judicial intervention into the sorority's affairs was open to question when the plaintiffs' arguments were "based on speculative financial harm AKA and its officers purportedly caused plaintiffs individually." A lawyer for the plaintiffs said they were considering their next step...

A former journalism dean at the University of Georgia has been cleared of charges that he sexually harassed a co-worker five years ago, and his lawsuit against the university has been settled, according to a court order issued last month and posted on Monday by The Red and Black, a student newspaper. The allegations and a subsequent university investigation led the dean, John Soloski, to step down from his post, but he sued the university, saying among other things that it had not followed due process in his case. A federal judge ruled last year that the university had abused its discretion in investigating the incident and that Mr. Soloski's behavior had not created a hostile environment for the co-worker. Mr. Soloski remains on the faculty.

Hocking College, a two-year institution in Ohio, has been riveted for more than a week by bathroom graffiti that threatened the lives of black students on February 2 -- today. The threat, which prompted the FBI to investigate and the college to beef up security and offer a reward for information about the graffitist, is being marked today on the campus with a celebration of diversity, dubbed "We Are One Hocking," that will include a walk, a vigil, and the dedication of a monument to peace. And according to The Athens Messenger, last weekend the college's president and his wife moved into the dormitory where the threat was found, as a sign of solidarity with students. The president, Ron Erickson, and his wife, Nancy, were accompanied by their dog.

A study published last September found that medical ghostwriting has been a common practice for years. A new study published today suggests one reason why the practice persists. According to a survey described in this week's PLoS Medicine, many of the top medical schools in the United States have no clear public policies prohibiting medical ghostwriting, in which academic researchers sign their names to articles that were actually written by people paid by drug and other companies. Only 13 of the top 50 medical schools have such policies, the survey found. The survey was conducted by Jeffrey R. Lacasse, of Arizona State University's School of Social Work, and Jonathan Leo, of Lincoln Memorial University's DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine.

"Defiance," a statue of a female African-American slave, is back at Chicago State University, according to the Chicago Tribune. The missing sculpture had turned up in the office of a state lawmaker, Rep. Monique Davis, who initially refused to return it. Late last week, however, she agreed to do so, and on Friday it found a new home in the university's library.

A blog at the Web site of Foreign Policy magazine relays a statement from the rector of the University of Quisqueya, a private institution in Port-au-Prince, about how it fared in the earthquake two weeks ago. According to the rector, Jacky Lumarque, all buildings at Quisqueya were destroyed, like other Haitian universities, and the dead include five students, a lecturer, an engineer, and two gardeners. About 20 survivors were pulled from the rubble. Mr. Lumarque reports that university efforts are now devoted to providing food, water, and basic health care to people who have set up camps, known as colonias, in surrounding neighborhoods. Foreign aid, he writes, is "abundant but poorly coordinated."

California's public colleges and universities are struggling to meet statewide challenges of access and affordability because they lack an effective coordinating body, according to a report from the state Legislative Analyst's Office released today. The report says the lack of central coordination in California has contributed to restricted enrollment, duplicative programs, and problems for students transferring from two-year to four-year colleges. The report also says the distinct roles for California's three public-college systems, as envisioned in the 1960 Master Plan, have become muddied.

Lynn University officials are now presuming that students and faculty members missing since a devastating earthquake rocked Haiti on January 12 are dead, according to Jason Hughes, a spokesman for the Florida university. Those believed to have been killed in the collapse of the Hotel Montana include four students -- Stephanie Crispinelli, Brittany Gengel, Christine Gianacaci, and Courtney Hayes -- and two faculty members -- Patrick Hartwick, dean of the Ross College of Education, and Richard Bruno, assistant professor in the College of Liberal Education -- who were in Haiti on a service-learning trip. Lynn's president, Kevin M. Ross, said today that the university stood with the families of the dead in seeking the return home of their remains.

Fourth-year students in the physical-therapy program at Tel Aviv University are protesting after a multiple-choice question on a psychiatry examination asked them to define homosexuality and then considered as the correct answer "a defect in sexual preference," according to Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper. In a statement, the university said "a question of this sort will no longer appear on the lecturer's exams, as people might be hurt by this question."

Eastfield College, a campus of the Dallas County Community College District, has backed down from its policy barring students in a noncredit ceramics class from crafting certain types of artworks. According to The Dallas Morning News, the college retreated under threat of a lawsuit from the Liberty Legal Institute, a religious-freedom group that took the side of a 69-year-old student who wanted to make crosses in the class. The college initially supported the class's instructor, who had banned crosses and other stock art in order to encourage students to be creative.