Legal

Higher education in the courtroom.

Key topics in this category:

Recent posts

3 NYU Researchers Are Accused of Secretly Sharing Information With China

Three medical researchers at New York University have been charged with commercial bribery for allegedly trading information about their magnetic-resonance-imaging research for payments from a Chinese company, according to The Wall Street Journal and a news release by federal prosecutors.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan said in the news release that two of the researchers, Yudong Zhu and Xing Yang, were arrested on Sunday. The third, Ye Li, was believed to have flown to China before charges could be brought. All three were charged with one count of commercial bribery. Mr. Zhu, an associate professor of radiology, was also charged with falsifying records in connection with a National Institutes of Health grant that financed the research. The three were accused of concealing ties to a Chinese medical-imaging company and a research institute sponsored by the Chinese government.

A spokesman for NYU’s Langone Medical Center said the institution was “deeply disappointed” by the researchers’ alleged misconduct. He said the university became aware of possible irregularities in the research, and notified prosecutors after conducting its own investigation. He said the three researchers had been suspended and added that the university was continuing to cooperate with the investigation.

Lawyers for Mr. Zhu and Mr. Yang did not respond to the newspaper’s requests for comment.

Filed under: Legal, Research, New York University

Judge Says Sorority Should Reinstate 8 Who Sued the Group and Its Leader

A judge in a District of Columbia court has ruled that eight women who are suing the nation’s oldest black sorority and one of its former leaders were improperly suspended from the group, Alpha Kappa Alpha, should be reinstated, the Associated Press reports.

The litigation started in 2009, when the eight plaintiffs sued Alpha Kappa Alpha and its president at the time, Barbara A. McKinzie. The eight women were suspended from the sorority shortly afterward. They accused the organization’s leadership of improperly approving expenditures and accused Ms. McKinzie of appropriating sorority funds for her own use, including $900,000 for a wax statue of herself.

In a 61-page opinion issued on Tuesday, the judge said the members had failed to offer evidence that sorority leaders made improper financial decisions. The judge also recommended that the parties reach a settlement to end the lawsuit.

Filed under: Legal

Supreme Court Sides With Monsanto in Seed-Patent Case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday sided unanimously with the Monsanto Company in affirming that an Indiana farmer had violated the agribusiness giant’s patents by planting successive generations of the company’s genetically modified soybean seeds without paying the company a fee, according to The New York Times.

A federal judge in Indiana had ordered the farmer to pay Monsanto more than $84,000, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld that ruling, in 2011. Advocates for academic researchers urged the Supreme Court to reverse the decision, saying it would harm scientists’ ability to perform independent research on crops.

Some research universities and higher-education groups filed a brief, however, warning that if the Supreme Court overturned the patent-infringement ruling, companies would have fewer incentives to license self-replicating technologies from universities.

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court, stressed that the justices intended their decision to be narrow, addressing the specific case before them “rather than every one involving a self-replicating product.” The ruling made no mention of the objections of those who argued that Monsanto’s policies hampered academic research.

Filed under: Legal, Research

CUNY Adopts New Policy in Settlement of Pregnant Student’s Bias Claim

The City University of New York has agreed to settle a pregnancy-discrimination complaint filed on behalf of a woman who was forced to drop a course after its professor told her she would not be allowed to make up tests or assignments resulting from any pregnancy-related absences, including labor and delivery, the National Women’s Law Center announced on Wednesday.

The center had filed the claim on behalf of Stephanie Stewart, a student at the university’s Borough of Manhattan Community College. It alleged violations of her rights under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the federal law that bars sex discrimination at institutions that receive federal funds. Title IX prohibits colleges from penalizing pregnant students for medically necessary absences, the law center said, yet a dean and other administrators declined to intervene on Ms. Stewart’s behalf and recommended instead that she drop the course.

In the settlement, CUNY agreed to adopt a new policy dealing with the rights of pregnant and parenting students and to conduct training to ensure that faculty members understand their obligations. The university also agreed to reinstate a scholarship Ms. Stewart lost after dropping the course and to reimburse her for other costs.

According to the Associated Press, a university spokesman called Ms. Stewart’s experience an isolated incident but said the university would renew efforts to communicate its longstanding nondiscrimination policies to the faculty and staff.

Filed under: Legal, Students, Title IX

Former Researcher at UC-Irvine Faces Felony Charges of Conflict of Interest

A computer engineer who stepped down in January from the University of California at Irvine faculty has been charged with six felony counts in connection with his alleged receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Japanese company that financed his research, according to the Voice of OC, a nonprofit investigative news agency focusing on Orange County, Calif.

The researcher, Tatsuya Suda, an Irvine faculty member for 25 years, also has been charged with perjury for his alleged attempts to hide the payments, which amounted to $325,000 to $700,000. According to local prosecutors, Mr. Suda double-billed the university for travel expenses that had already been covered by the Japanese company, KDDI Inc. If convicted of the conflict of interest, Mr. Suda could face up to eight years in prison, the news service reported.

Mr. Suda pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, the news service said, and his lawyer did not respond to an interview request.

Following an internal investigation by the university that began in 2009, Mr. Suda paid restitution of $145,000, but Irvine is seeking nearly $200,000 more, prosecutors told the Voice of OC.

Court records indicate that Mr. Suda acknowledged double-billing the National Science Foundation, where he served in the late 1990s, while on leave from Irvine, as director of a computer-networking division.

Filed under: Legal, Research

Appeals Court Rejects Trump U.’s Claims Against a Student Who Sued

A federal appeals court on Wednesday breathed new life into a lawsuit filed by a former student who alleges that Donald Trump’s university engages in deceptive business practices, according to a report by the Associated Press.

The student, Tarla Makaeff of San Diego, filed the lawsuit in 2010, alleging that Trump University had failed to deliver on a promised education that cost her almost $35,000. She also complained to the Better Business Bureau and in online chat rooms. The institution filed a countersuit, alleging that Ms. Makaeff’s claims were defamatory and seeking dismissal of her lawsuit.

A lower court refused Ms. Makaeff’s request to have the defamation suit dismissed, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously overturned that decision on Wednesday. The appellate court’s opinion says that Trump University is a “public figure” and therefore, in order to prevail on the defamation claim, it must show that the former student’s accusations were purposely malicious.

A lawyer for Trump University said the institution would request that a larger panel of the Ninth Circuit reconsider the issue.

Filed under: Legal

Report Criticizes the Citadel’s Investigation of Abuse Complaint

An internal investigation at the Citadel that examined how the South Carolina military college handled a sexual-abuse complaint was “inadequate” but did not represent a coverup to keep the information secret. That was the central finding of an independent review released by the institution on Friday, according to The Post and Courier, a South Carolina newspaper.

The college’s investigation stemmed from a 2007 allegation that accused a former cadet of sexually abusing boys while he served as a counselor at the Citadel’s summer camp. The incidents of abuse reportedly took place five years earlier, in 2002. The former cadet, a Citadel graduate, is now serving a 50-year prison term after pleading guilty last summer to charges that he had molested boys in Charleston, S.C., the newspaper reported. The college has previously said that it regretted not doing more about the incidents, which prompted lawsuits against the institution.

A lawyer who served as a liaison between the college’s Board of Visitors and the review team said he believed college leaders would report to the authorities about similar accusations if they happened today, according to the newspaper. But he and others said the college’s response was complicated because the complaint came five years after the alleged incidents occurred.

A summary of the review’s findings called the college’s inquiry a “well-intentioned but inadequate investigation conducted by a single administrative member, operating in a vacuum of policy or procedure,” with the administration relying on incomplete reports that it believed to be adequate at the time.

In a written statement, the college pledged to improve its procedures as a result of the review, and added that its community ”remains troubled that one of its alumni betrayed the principles for which the college stands.”

Filed under: Legal, The Citadel

Researcher in Wisconsin Is Charged With Stealing Cancer Data for China

Prosecutors have charged a researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin with stealing a possible cancer-fighting compound and research data for the benefit of a Chinese university, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Huajun Zhao, who worked as an associate researcher at the college, faces a single count of economic espionage. Prosecutors said he had stolen bottles of a cancer-research compound called C-25 and the data that led to its development, which he wanted to bring back to China. He was suspended from the college in February.

The researcher’s lawyer told the newspaper that the case was a “complex” one that involved “a talented professional accused of a serious crime.” The president of the college said it was cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the case.

Filed under: Global, Legal, Medical College of Wisconsin

11 in Michigan Are Charged With Student-Aid Fraud

Federal prosecutors have charged 11 people in Michigan for their alleged involvement in student-aid fraud rings that cheated the government of more than $1-million, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The case entails four distinct crime rings that federal officials said exploited distance-education programs to obtain aid money from 2006 to 2010. One ringleader is accused of recruiting more than 40 people to apply for aid, even though many of them had not obtained a high-school diploma and were ineligible to receive the money, according to the newspaper.

Last fall, prosecutors charged more than a dozen people in California in similar schemes, as the U.S. Department of Education has increasingly sought to stamp out such fraud in distance-education programs.

Filed under: Government, Legal

Report Chronicles Administrative Lapses at Roxbury Community College

Roxbury Community College, in Massachusetts, on Wednesday released a report that chronicles years of lax oversight by current and former administrators that led the college to violate federal campus-safety laws, according to The Boston Globe.

The report, based on an inquiry led by Wayne A. Budd, a former federal prosecutor, drew on dozens of interviews and more than 100,000 documents. Broadly, it identifies “serious deficiencies” that left the college “ill equipped” to handle criminal incidents. Administrators lacked knowledge of their obligations under federal campus-safety laws, the report says, and those weaknesses played a significant role in the college’s failure to respond properly to allegations that college employees had engaged in sexual misconduct.

Several administrators mentioned in the report are no longer employed by the college, including its former president, Terrence A. Gomes, who stepped down last summer amid investigations into the alleged administrative lapses. A memorandum from the college’s Board of Trustees announcing the report’s release said an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education was continuing. The state’s governor, Deval L. Patrick, replaced most of the college’s board last summer, and the new board has pledged to undertake reforms in response to the report’s findings, the newspaper said.

Filed under: Governance, Legal, Community Colleges, Roxbury Community College