This spring, HBC partners Lauren Groth, Kimberly Hult, and John Clune settled a Title IX lawsuit against the University of Arizona for claims arising from its failure to respond to notice that a UA football player, Orlando Bradford, had engaged in serious dating violence directed toward HBC’s client and other undergraduate women at the school. For nearly six months after high-ranking officials first documented specific accounts of Mr. Bradford’s dating violence, HBC’s client continued to suffer from severe physical and emotional abuse while the University failed to take action to assist her. In February 2020, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona, in an important ruling for Title IX law, found as a matter of law that the University had the required notice of Mr. Bradford’s dating violence and was deliberately indifferent to that sexual violence. In its ruling, the court concluded that Mr. Bradford’s dating violence was gender-based discrimination that fell squarely within the protections offered by Title IX. The settlement, which is public, is the largest known settlement of Title IX claims against a public university involving a single plaintiff in a dating violence case. The full article from the Arizona Daily Star may be viewed here.