Finding the university was on notice and had an obligation to preserve interview notes related to a climate and culture review because it knew or reasonably should have known to anticipate litigation, the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho granted a motion for sanctions for the spoliation of evidence against the University of Idaho (UI) College of Law. Sanders v. The University of Idaho, College of Law, et al., No. 3:19-cv-00225-BLW (Oct. 7, 2022).
The court’s opinion is worth a close reading on the document retention obligations of colleges and universities, especially when conducting climate and culture reviews.
UI received multiple complaints about the climate, culture, and work environment at UI’s College of Law in or around winter 2018. These complaints included overarching concerns about gender and sex discrimination under UI leadership.
In response to the complaints, the provost ordered a climate and culture review be conducted at the College of Law. A former UI human resources coordinator interviewed 32 College of Law faculty and staff members and took notes during these interviews. Some of the interviewees discussed concerns of potential racial bias and gender bias within the College of Law.
After the completion of the interviews, the human resources coordinator finalized the College of Law Climate & Culture Review (CCR) on April 17, 2018. The human resources coordinator then turned the notes taken during the interviews over to UI’s human...
crime TOKYO Videos falsely portraying foreigners as stealing metal from railway tracks in Japan have spread widely on the country's social media, apparently to suggest foreigners are a threat to p...