Education

For more than half a century, Wiggin and Dana has proudly represented institutions of higher education in Connecticut and other states. Our Education Practice Group understands the unique challenges facing higher education institutions, including increased competition, changing legal and regulatory requirements, student unrest, faculty concerns, diversity challenges, complex labor and employment concerns, new technologies, and threats to data security.

What Distinguishes Us

Our education lawyers have experience handling matters that are unique to higher education – including Title IX, FERPA, faculty tenure, student disciplinary matters, admissions and financial aid issues, and various USDE and state regulatory requirements. We are also a full-service law firm, and our lawyers who have expertise in other areas routinely work with higher education clients. The legal advice they provide is therefore tempered by their understanding of how colleges and universities are governed and how their culture and constituencies affect decision-making.

In evaluating liability risks and providing legal guidance, our lawyers are aware of the potential impact that our legal advice can have on students, faculty, alumni and donors, and on an institution’s reputational standing. We understand that significant legal decisions can trigger or exacerbate student unrest on campus, raise faculty concerns about academic freedom, lead to questions from regulators, interfere with a capital campaign, or hamper relations with the local community.

Sensitive to these considerations, we work closely with in-house counsel, presidents, senior administrators, deans, internal committees, and boards of trustees to develop practical legal solutions that are tailored to each client’s unique circumstances. When appropriate, we coordinate our work with outside investigators, public relations firms, and government relations firms, especially when working  on high-risk matters – for example in responding to government investigations, litigating complex and highly sensitive lawsuits, addressing crises on campus, and negotiating critical strategic alliances and affiliations.

Wiggin and Dana is headquartered in Connecticut, with a strong presence and offices in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C., which positions our team to serve educational institutions across the Northeast and beyond.

Representative Matters

We represent higher education clients on a wide array of issues. Representative matters include:

• Advising college on handling protests over the Gaza war, including compliance with T. VI, non-discrimination policies, and policies on academic freedom and freedom of expression
• Successfully defending a suit in trial court and appellate court brought by a former faculty member alleging retaliation in violation of a state statute and university policies on academic freedom
• Defending and successfully settling a suit brought by a local resident seriously injured by a college student who was driving drunk, which sought to hold the college liable for failing to prevent underage drinking on campus
• Representing a university in transaction to outsource its student health and counseling services to a private provider, including advice on federal and state regulatory compliance issues
• Advising colleges and universities on compliance with the U.S. Department of Education’s Title IX regulations on sexual harassment
• Representing institutions in US Department of Education Title IX investigations of sexual harassment claims and Title III investigations of website accessibility
• Advising a university on legal and liability risks of allowing campus safety officers to carry firearms
• Advising colleges on handling the posting of racially inflammatory articles on social media
• Advising a university law review on the risks of possible litigation challenging race-conscious policies for selecting law review editors under changing U.S. Supreme Court precedent
• Litigating appeal of a judgment against a university concerning a contentious dispute with a fraternity over compliance with a university’s residential co-education requirement
• Negotiating a favorable settlement in a class-action lawsuit alleging that a university’s employee-wellness plan violated the ADA and Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act
• Successfully representing a university on appeal in a Nobel Prize winning professor’s intellectual property suit against the university
• Negotiating executive compensation, employment agreements, and severance agreements with college and university presidents
• Negotiating resolution of a state attorney general’s investigation into financial aid practices of multiple colleges and universities
• Overhauling a university’s bylaws to address significant institutional changes and to incorporate best governance practices
• Counseling educational institutions on inquiries from Latin American and African countries concerning artifacts, human remains, and paleogical specimens, and an inquiry from prosecutors concerning Asian antiquities
• Counseling educational institutions on compliance with Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act
• Drafting collections policy, ethics policy, and contracts for loans of art objects for museums at educational institutions
• Successfully defending a prominent university against a class action suit seeking recovery of tuition from during COVID-related shutdown and teaching of classes remotely
• Successfully defending a university in unfair labor practice charges before the NLRB, including charges arising out of COVID-related layoffs

Our Team

Wiggin and Dana’s Education Practice Group is headed by co-chairs Aaron Bayer in our Litigation Department, and Caroline Park in our Labor, Employment, and Benefits department. Both Aaron and Caroline are members of the National Association of College and University Attorneys.

As former secretary and general counsel to Connecticut College, Aaron has a unique understanding of the culture and operations of colleges and universities. In that position, he coordinated the activities of the Board of Trustees, advised the college’s President, and was responsible for overseeing all legal matters, including litigation, contractual agreements, internal policies, regulatory compliance, and adherence to state and federal statutes. Beyond his role as legal counsel, he served as Acting Vice President for Advancement and taught Constitutional Law at the College and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

In her higher education practice, Caroline has substantial experience in providing counsel and advocacy for colleges, universities, and exclusive private secondary schools across a diverse spectrum of issues. Her areas of focus include Title IX and broader regulatory compliance, student-related matters, faculty assessments and tenure proceedings, and processes for addressing bias, discrimination, and disability accommodations. She also advises and guides institutions on the full range of labor and employment matters in educational settings, including collective bargaining. She has also served as the Acting General Counsel for Quinnipiac, overseeing all of the University’s legal affairs, giving her additional insight into the legal, operational and cultural issues universities face.