Sexual abuse at colleges and universities: how claims work

Legal accuracy check

Chris Schroeder, Esq.

Florida Bar #520381 · D.C. Bar

First published October 5, 2026 · Last checked October 5, 2026

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How claims against a college or university work

This page covers colleges, universities and their medical schools and campus health services, public and private. Abuse by coaches and trainers, in college athletics and youth sport, is on our page about college and youth sports, and every institution type is listed on the institutions hub.

Title IX

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 bars discrimination on the basis of sex “under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance” (20 U.S.C. 1681(a)). The Supreme Court has treated sexual abuse and serious sexual harassment as discrimination under it, and has set a demanding test for money damages. In Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District, 524 U.S. 274 (June 22, 1998), the Court held that damages are unavailable unless “an official who at a minimum has authority to address the alleged discrimination and to institute corrective measures on the recipient’s behalf has actual knowledge” and fails to respond adequately, with a response amounting to deliberate indifference.

Assault by another student is covered too. Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629 (May 24, 1999) allows such a claim where the institution was “deliberately indifferent to sexual harassment, of which they have actual knowledge, that is so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it can be said to deprive the victims of access to the educational opportunities or benefits provided by the school.” So the questions in a campus case are practical ones. Who was told? Did that person have authority to act? What did the college do, and how quickly?

A lawsuit is separate from a college’s own Title IX complaint process, which runs under federal regulations. A federal court in Kentucky vacated the Department of Education’s 2024 Title IX rule in its entirety on January 9, 2025, and the Department said on January 31, 2025 that it would enforce the 2020 rule, according to the court’s February 25, 2026 order in Tennessee v. McMahon. A survivor can use the campus process, a lawsuit, a police report or any combination.

Negligence, and campus doctors

Negligent hiring, supervision and retention are state common-law claims. They ask whether the institution knew or should have known that an employee was a danger and failed to act, and that “should have known” standard is lower than Title IX’s actual-knowledge test. These claims matter most where the abuser was a physician at a student health service, an athletic department or a university hospital, because the patients may include students, employees and members of the public who have no claim under an education statute. Every college matter listed below involves a physician accused of abusing patients during examinations, in some cases over decades; two of the four were convicted. Our page on doctors and medical settings covers medical abuse outside universities.

Section 1983 at public universities

A state university is a government body. Its employees act under state authority, so 42 U.S.C. 1983 can reach them when they violate a student’s constitutional rights. Under Monell v. Department of Social Services (1978), a local government body is liable only for its own policy or custom, not simply because it employed the wrongdoer. Whether a particular university can be sued this way, or is treated as the state itself, depends on the state, and a lawyer should check it.

Who can be held responsible

The college or university is the usual defendant, often sued through its board of trustees or regents. Under Title IX it is the only one: the Supreme Court said in Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee (2009) that the statute “has consistently been interpreted as not authorizing suit against school officials, teachers, and other individuals.” State-law claims can name the person who committed the abuse, and Section 1983 claims can name public employees personally.

Where the abuse happened in a medical setting, an affiliated hospital can be a defendant alongside the university. The Columbia settlement described below was agreed by Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian together. In the Weill Cornell matter, the U.S. Attorney’s July 2026 agreement recites that staff reports from 2012 to 2014 and patient complaints in 2015 and 2018 reached the department chair, who “failed to appropriately investigate, document, internally escalate, and externally report these allegations.”

Many colleges also run programs for minors, from summer camps to research internships. Abuse of a child in one of those programs is covered by childhood abuse law and its longer deadlines; see camps and youth programs and child sexual abuse. For adults, our guide to adult sexual assault describes the claims that apply. A criminal case and a civil case can run at the same time; our guide to civil and criminal cases explains how they differ.

Federal law also requires colleges in federal student aid programs to publish an annual security report with campus crime statistics (20 U.S.C. 1092(f), the Clery Act). Those reports are public. The statute says expressly that it does not create a cause of action against a college or establish a standard of care, so it is a source of records, not a basis for a lawsuit.

Deadline issues for colleges and universities

Title IX borrows the state’s deadline. Title IX has no limitations period of its own, so courts use the state’s personal injury period. In Snyder-Hill v. Ohio State University, decided September 14, 2022, the Sixth Circuit said “Title IX thus borrows from Ohio’s two-year statute of limitations.” It also held that the claim “does not accrue until the plaintiff knows or has reason to know that the defendant institution injured them.” Knowing that you were abused is not the same as knowing what the university knew. The trial court had dismissed the first Ohio State suits as too late in September 2021; the appeals court reversed, and in 2023 the Supreme Court declined to review the case, which is a refusal to hear it, not a ruling on the merits.

Adult survivors and revival windows. Childhood revival laws do not reach abuse of an adult student. New York opened a window for adults. Its Adult Survivors Act, CPLR 214-j, revived claims “against any party” for sexual offenses against people 18 or older, even where a notice of claim had been missed, for one year starting six months after the law took effect. That window has closed. The Columbia claims described below were filed under it.

Public universities and notice of claim. A state-law claim against a public university can require written notice to the institution long before the ordinary deadline. In California, a personal injury claim against a public entity must be presented within six months (Gov. Code 911.2), although childhood sexual assault claims are exempt (Gov. Code 905(m)). Our page on public schools explains these notice rules in more detail, and the general deadlines are in our statute of limitations reference.

Lawsuits involving colleges and universities

The matters below each involve a physician employed by a university. Each line is an allegation unless it says a court or jury has ruled, and each status is as of the date given.

Ohio State University

The claims concern a former university team physician who died in 2005 and was never criminally charged. On June 3, 2026, Ohio State said that it and 279 of the 280 remaining survivors in the pending litigation had reached “settlements in principle in a total amount of $100 million,” and its Board of Trustees ratified the agreements, according to WOSU. The university had already settled with more than 300 others, WOSU reported, and its own timeline lists settlements of $800,000 with 8 survivors in February 2026 and $1.8 million with 13 in April 2026. The timeline contains no admission of wrongdoing. Whether the settlements have been finalized, and where the one remaining plaintiff’s case stands, is not confirmed as of October 5, 2026.

Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian

Robert Hadden, an obstetrician-gynecologist employed by Columbia University Medical Center, was convicted at a federal trial on January 24, 2023 and sentenced on July 25, 2023 to 20 years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. A New York court approved a $750 million settlement for 576 former patients in May 2025, which brought settlements over his abuse to more than $1 billion, Insurance Journal reported on May 7, 2025. Columbia’s own statement on the settlement is not in the record we reviewed.

Weill Cornell Medicine and the University of Michigan

Weill Cornell, Cornell University’s medical school, signed a voluntary compliance agreement with the U.S. Attorney on July 25 and 26, 2026, over Darius Paduch, a former urologist there who was convicted on federal charges in 2024 and sentenced to life in prison. In it, the school “acknowledges that the policies and programs that WCM had in place at the time of Paduch’s offenses to detect, prevent, and respond to sexual abuse of patients were not adequate.” Prosecutors declined criminal charges against the school. At Michigan, the claims concern a former university physician who worked there from 1966 to 2003, died in 2008 and was never charged. CNN reported on January 29, 2022 that the settlement was pending approval by the Board of Regents and the claimants, and that the university’s then-president had apologized for the physician’s “tragic misconduct.” These figures are totals reached in specific cases. They say nothing about what any other claim is worth.

Abuse by Larry Nassar, the former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics physician, is covered on our page about college and youth sports. The case tracker lists the matters we follow; a college missing from this page is not a sign that no claim exists.

Where to go next

Abuse at a private or religious high school is covered on our page about private and religious schools. Many campus survivors sue under initials; our guide to filing anonymously explains how. Reporting abuse covers the police and campus routes, trauma and healing covers support, and how to file a claim walks through a lawsuit. If you want a lawyer to look at your own dates, a free, confidential case review costs nothing and commits you to nothing.

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