Higher Education Law Summit: Hot Topics for Colleges and Universities

Join your higher education colleagues for a full-day of educational sessions designed to provide the strategies and tools you need to respond effectively to the unique legal and practical challenges facing academic institutions. A multidisciplinary team of attorneys from Jackson Lewis P.C. will address a variety of issues.

Topics include:

Pay Equity: This session will cover federal and state equal pay regulations, pay considerations, litigation trends, pay equity audits and best practices.

Tenure Best Practices: After spending the better part of a decade preparing for the seminal point in their careers, professors are often upset – and litigious – when they find out they will not be awarded tenure. In this session our attorneys will discuss best practices for the tenure deliberation process to reduce the risk of litigation, including guidance on crafting tenure policies.

 Title IX Update: With the administration’s evolving take on Title IX, this session will review lessons learned from recent case law, OCR guidance and resolution agreements.

Faculty and Grad Student Organizing/Bargaining: This session will address issues raised by organizing and collective bargaining among graduate students, adjunct faculty and non-tenure track faculty, including strategies for facilitating faculty/administrator engagement. It will also address lessons learned from recent graduate student and adjunct faculty organizing campaigns; institutional rights and responsibilities when addressing organizing efforts; and strategies for negotiating collective bargaining agreements.

Student Disability Accommodations: Student requests for accommodation are on the rise. This session will address the institution’s legal obligations and the practical challenges associated with accommodating students when their accommodation may impact others. Presenters will discuss service animals, comfort animals, post hoc requests and more.

Hot Button Benefits Issues: Best Practices to Avoid Litigation: This session will cover the status of the 403(b) ERISA class actions and how to minimize your risk, what you need to know about the upcoming changes to the disability regulations regarding claims handling, and the status of the changes to the fiduciary rule and fiduciary governance and training.

Breakfast and lunch will be served, and the program will conclude with a cocktail reception.