Are there legal barriers to academic departments in the US choosing to act themselves in cases of sexual harassment or related incidents? My understanding of Title IX is that it is a federal law that requires, among other organizations, universities, to ensure that women are not denied equal opportunities. In order to ensure compliance with this law, universities create their own policies that they believe tackle relevant misconduct like sexual harassment, stalking, and other related behaviors. However the Title IX office of a university does not attempt to tackle behaviors that fall outside of ensuring compliance with the federal law. Usually, faculty and staff are required to report or consult with the Title IX office if they become aware of misconduct. However, there is also a belief I have encountered that legally, academic personnel must then "back off" and completely withdraw from any conversations, actions, or other matters that relate to the issue and allow the Title IX office alone to handle it. Is there any form of legal concern for an academic department, or faculty/staff, acting on this information further? For example, can a department chair enact sanctions on a perpetrator? Can faculty confront the perpetrator and demand their behavior cease? Can it even be discussed without legal ramifications? Note that I am not asking about university policies on this kind of further action, but what the law and legal concerns would be. I will ask a similar question about policies on Academia Stack Exchange.
There is no (statutory/regulatory) legal basis at all for claiming that a department, chair, faculty member or other individuals must "back off" in the face of a Title IX claim. However, the chair and department could face civil liability for violating the rights of the accused (depending on what the action taken was). This assume that there is no university rule mandating "backing off" – violating university rules may have consequences. The possibility of civil consequences arises if the university (via the department or the chair) violates their contract with the accused, by penalizing the person contrary to the terms of the contract (look for the grievance clause). However, academic units are usually set up in such a way that "the department" can't do anything, but the chair can, perhaps following a vote of the faculty. The faculty could denounce the accused, but as long as they didn't cross the line to defamation they can express themselves as they see fit. The chair, on the other hand, probably has the power to actually punish the accused, and would need to back off somewhat. For example, the faculty might wish to impose a substantive sanction, but they almost certainly don't have the power to do so, whereas the chair probably does. So the chair needs to check that his actions, as The administrative officer in the department acting as the agent of the university, do not constitute breach of contract w.r.t. the accused.
There is no generally applicable law that that effect in the United States, although, of course, there are laws in fifty different states, plus the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, that I have not comprehensively reviewed, and particular school districts might have policies of their own. Such a picture would probably be considered an &quot;educational record&quot; for purposes of a federal law known as the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (the definition is set forth below), so sharing this collected picture outside the school might pose an issue in some circumstances as a violation of federal educational privacy laws. But merely collecting images during class and using them for internal purposes of the school would not violate these laws. Also, there is no private cause of action (right to sue) under FERPA and, in 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Gonzaga University v. John Doe that students and parents may not sue for damages under 42 USC § 1983 to enforce provisions of FERPA. As an FAQ on the subject explains: Q. What penalties apply to the misuse or improper disclosure of confidential information? A. The penalty for noncompliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) can be withdrawal of U.S. Department of Education funds from the institution or agency that has violated the law. This applies to schools, school districts, and state education agencies. The Family Policy Compliance Office of the U.S. Department of Education, charged with reviewing and investigating complaints, seeks to promote voluntary compliance with the law. A third party who improperly discloses personally identifiable information from student records can be prohibited from receiving access to records at the education agency or institution for at least 5 years. State laws on privacy may also apply penalties. . . . Q. What are the consequences of a third party’s misuse of education records? A. School officials must inform third parties receiving information, as allowed under FERPA, of the requirements concerning redisclosure of information. If a third party is found to have improperly redisclosed personally identifiable information from education records, the school may not allow that third party access to information for at least 5 years. If the school releases these records to third-parties as a matter of policy, without parental consent, at most, parents might either seek prospective injunctive relief barring the school from engaging in that conduct in the future in a declaration that the policy violates FERPA, or make a complaint to the U.S. Department of Education. An educational records are defined for purposes of FERPA (paraphrasing) as follows: FERPA Defines an Education Record Education records include a range of information about a student that is maintained in schools in any recorded way, such as handwriting, print, computer media, video or audio tape, film, microfilm, and microfiche. Examples are: Date and place of birth, parent(s) and/or guardian addresses, and where parents can be contacted in emergencies; Grades, test scores, courses taken, academic specializations and activities, and official letters regarding a student's status in school; Special education records; Disciplinary records; Medical and health records that the school creates or collects and maintains; Documentation of attendance, schools attended, courses taken, awards conferred, and degrees earned; Personal information such as a student's identification code, social security number, picture, or other information that would make it easy to identify or locate a student. Personal notes made by teachers and other school officials that are not shared with others are not considered education records. Additionally, law enforcement records created and maintained by a school or district's law enforcement unit are not education records. Part of the education record, known as directory information, includes personal information about a student that can be made public according to a school system's student records policy. Directory information may include a student's name, address, and telephone number, and other information typically found in school yearbooks or athletic programs. Other examples are names and pictures of participants in various extracurricular activities or recipients of awards, pictures of students, and height and weight of athletes. Each year schools must give parents public notice of the types of information designated as directory information. By a specified time after parents are notified of their review rights, parents may ask to remove all or part of the information on their child that they do not wish to be available to the public without their consent. U.S. school districts, in carrying out this FERPA mandate, typically request parental consent to share images of children attending a school with third parties as part of their usual annual enrollment paperwork for children attending the school. And, almost all but a a handful of parents usually consent in this context as a matter of course. The only other fairly widely recognized state common law or statutory right that is closely on point is the right of publicity - i.e. the right to receive fair market value compensation for commercial use of a person's image, for example, in connection with an advertisement. Even this right isn't uniformly available in every U.S. jurisdiction and would not limit non-commercial use of a child's photo by the school. Also, whether the school was public or private would matter. Public schools are eligible to claim governmental immunity to many kinds of claims that could arise in tort from an alleged privacy violation, but have more governmental rules and regulations to comply with than a private school (if it receives no federal funds, it doesn't even have to follow FERPA). There is not a widely recognized common law or statutory right apart from FERPA to not have your image (or your children's images) shared publicly without their consent in the United States (although sometimes a special situation may apply in the case of a particular child, if, for example, the child is in a witness protection program, or is the subject to a protective order imposed due to threats from a parent's ex-spouse, for example). Also, a private school could almost always make a of waiver legal publicity rights (if they exist at all) in its enrollment materials mandatory for all students. But, because attendance at a public school is mandatory (or more correctly, mandatory as a matter of last resort if the student can't arrange adequate private schooling or home schooling), a public school has less freedom to require parents of students to waive any legal rights that they do have as a condition of participating in mandatory school activities. European Union laws and regulations regarding data privacy would not apply to this fact pattern if the students and school are all located in the United States, despite a global internet medium of international commerce that is used to facilitate this domestic educational activity.
The question is not properly framed in terms of the law: the relevant question isn't in terms of achieving orgasm or not, it is in terms of consent. Is it rape to continue having sex, when one party withdraws consent? In North Carolina, following State v. Way (rather sparse on details), consent explicitly cannot be withdrawn. In Illinois, on the other hand, under 720 ILCS 5/11-1.70(c) A person who initially consents to sexual penetration or sexual conduct is not deemed to have consented to any sexual penetration or sexual conduct that occurs after he or she withdraws consent during the course of that sexual penetration or sexual conduct. In South Dakota, it is not clear. In State v. Jones, 521 N.W.2d 662, there was a proposed jury instruction stating An act of sexual intercourse does not constitute rape, where the female initially consents to the act, but after penetration, withdraws her consent, and the male, without interruption of penetration, continues the act against the will of the female and by means of force. The proposed authority for such an instruction was the California case People v. Vela, 172 Cal. App. 3d 237, where it was conclude that continued intercourse after consent is withdrawn is not rape. But the South Dakota court rejected that ruling and instruction, and the defendant was convicted. But: the court also found that the victim submitted, and didn't consent – in other words, South Dakota has not definitively answered the question. The California finding was ultimately overturned by the California Supreme Court in re John Z, finding that A woman has an absolute right to say “no” to an act of sexual intercourse. After intercourse has commenced, she has the absolute right to call a halt and say “no more,” and if she is compelled to continue, a forcible rape is committed. The general answer in the US that it is legally undecided: it is definitely decided in California and Illinois that intercourse past the withdrawal of consent is rape, and in North Carolina that it is not. This article cites other case law, but on average, it has has not been clearly determined if continuing intercourse after withdrawal of consent constitutes rape.
The legal answer is that it depends on where in the world you are. In the US, &quot;sexual harassment&quot; is legally subsumed under laws against illegal discrimination, which can exist at the federal level and the state level. You cannot discriminate on the basis of race for employment, housing, public accomodations and so on. You cannot discriminate on the basis of sex in employment. However, you are not employing anyone, so that law does not apply to you. In general, being a customer or potential customer, or a person in possession of a phone, is not a federally-regulated activity. The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects your right to expression, regardless of whether they may be found to be offensive. It is legal in the US to be rude.
Most employment in the US is "at will". That means that the employer or the employee can terminate the relationship without notice for any reason or for no reason. There are certain statutory protections that limit this, however, such as federal protections against discrimination on the basis of a protected characteristic. Arizona may have other protections. So the first thing you need to do (or your lawyer needs to do) is determine whether your employment was at will. If so, then it doesn't much matter if the reasons they gave you were lies, unless you can show that their actions constituted illegal discrimination. (If they lied about you to someone else, though, you might be able to go after them for libel or slander.) If your employment was not at will, then you may be able to challenge the reasons for the firing if the firing violated the conditions under which your employment could be terminated. Even if your employment was at will, your firing might fall under one of the exceptions listed in the Wikipedia article: public policy, implied contract, or good faith/fair dealing (although the article gives conflicting information about whether Arizona has an implied contract exception; the text says that it does not, but the map shows that it does). To analyze the facts of your case in connection with Arizona employment law, you really need to talk to a lawyer with a practice in Arizona employment law. The lawyer will want to review your contract or other written agreement, if there is one.
Is there a cause of action for &quot;Outrageous conduct&quot; that does not depend on the vulnerability to the emotional distress of an individual but might be properly applied to a public official (acting in official capacity) due to the effects on society as a whole? No. There is no such cause of action. A public official acting in the official's official capacity is immune from civil liability in tort for intentional acts that do not violate a clearly established constitutional right. There are some narrow exceptions to this general rule. For example, certain employment discrimination lawsuits are allowed. Similarly, for example, embezzlement of private funds held in a fiduciary capacity by a public official in charge of conducting foreclosures would be actionable in many states. But there are no exceptions that are in any way a fit to the fact pattern described. Furthermore, at least in federal courts, there can't be such a cause of action. An action that has an effect on society as a whole is, by definition, an act which no one has standing to sue regarding. Standing to sue, which is a subject matter jurisdictional requirement in federal court, requires a particularized injury to a legally protected interest of an individual that is distinct from the injury caused to the general public, or taxpayers generally, or citizens generally. State law, in principle, can give standing to someone who does not have standing under this federal constitutional law standard in state court, but most states make only the most narrow exceptions to the principle. For example, some states give someone standing to sue for violation of state constitutional budget and tax rules that apply to legislation generally. Often standing exceptions and exceptions from the federal court case and controversy requirement (which is also a matter of subject matter jurisdiction in federal court) are waived at the same time.
As a adult of sound mind, you are responsible for your actions. Background checks for job applications are common place to determine suitability. The employers have the right (and responsibility) to choose what is in their best interest. If through your previous and present actions, they come to the conclusion that you will become a liability to their interests, they will determine that you are not suitable for the position. Not being suitable for a position is not a discrimination, but a determination of fact. Rights and responsibilities go hand in hand. The same is true for the employers. They too have the obligation to act in their own that of their other employees that of their clients interests. In cases where a judge comes to a conclusion that the rights of others are being impeaded, they will most likely decide for that party. It is unlikely that a judge will assume that an individual is the center of the universe and that everyone else must revolve around that individual.
In the US, prohibitions against sex discrimination in employment do not include an exception when males are the targets of a discriminatory practice, whatever the underslying rationale may be. The specific language of 42 USC 2000e-2 is It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer— (1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin Although sex discrimination lawsuits are infrequent when the victim is male, extending a beneficial condition of employment to females only would be as illegal as extending a beneficial condition of employment to whites only.