Title IX suit alleges a 'boys' club' lab, a hallway confrontation, and a forced exit
A former Auburn doctoral student says their advisor ran a "boys' club" and pushed them out when they pushed back.
Marlene "Mars" Walters sued Auburn University on May 1, 2026, accusing the school of sex discrimination and retaliation in a complaint filed in the US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. The lawsuit, brought under Title IX and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, names the university as the sole defendant and centers on the conduct of Walters's primary advisor in the College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Environment.
Walters, who uses they/them pronouns, started their Ph.D. in August 2023 on a federally funded research project. They had picked the program to work with Dr. Jonathon Valente and Dr. Christopher Lepczyk. The complaint says they ended up working mostly with Valente, and that the working relationship soured fast.
Walters alleges Valente talked over them in meetings, dismissed their ideas unless a male peer repeated them, and denied them credit for work they did on the project's broad experimental design. Two male colleagues - a master's student and the project manager - got preferential assignments despite what the complaint calls substandard performance.
The filing describes a male-dominated environment marked by sexist comments and sexualized language. According to the complaint, Valente made remarks in lab and field settings involving male genitalia and commented about a...
In January, there was a lot of hype around an announcement from Finnish company Donut Lab: It claimed to have created the world's first production-ready solid-state battery. The Donut battery, mar...