Howard University has defeated a lawsuit by a former graduate student who claimed she was wrongfully denied readmission twice to the doctoral program in history.
U.S. District Judge Amy Jackson dismissed the suit by Vanessa Holloway, who started in the program in 2005 and was last enrolled in 2010, when she earned no credits in two dissertation courses. Her GPA had been 3.75.
Holloway was unable to secure a faculty adviser when she applied to return in 2014, the decision said, a circumstance the suit attributed to her criticism of her former advisor who “bad-mouthed me” and was “being spiteful towards me.”
Howard’s 2014 denial letter cited her credentials and its 2015 denial letter cited a “lack of progress and possible plagiarism.” The decision noted that she didn’t deny the plagiarism allegation.
The suit accused Howard of a Title IX violation, defamation and emotional distress. It requested award of her doctorate and $300,000 in damages.
In her ruling, Jackson said there were no factual allegations connecting Howard’s denial of readmission to Holloway’s gender as required for a valid Title IX claim.
Similarly, the judge found the suit “devoid of any facts to support a defamation claim,” saying that the rejection letter’s mention of plagiarism can’t be defamatory because Holloway doesn’t assert that it’s false.
