Respect for Others
We will treat everyone we contact with respect and dignity-
This means that each member of the campus community
- Does not engage in or condone engaging in discriminatory practices
Perspective: A Real World Illustration
A December 2005 Albany (New York) Times Union newspaper article reported on a 37-year-old Texas man, who was nine credits away from an undergraduate degree, suing a New York university for age discrimination in housing.
The former student is claiming he was wrongly removed from his dorm room three years ago because school officials didn't want him living with a 19-year-old.
The former student has had ongoing complaints with the university since he enrolled in 2002. At one point, he started his own newspaper to take shots at college policy. But a large number of the free copies were allegedly stolen.
Claiming his state and federal rights have been violated, the former student filed a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court. He is demanding to be allowed to return to finish out the spring semester.
The former student transferred from a Texas university in 2002. He was in a freshman dorm for a few days, but, because of his age, was moved by the Office of University Life to a wing that contained older students.
He claims he was harassed and verbally abused by university staff as the battle to stay in the freshman dorm room wore on and then was physically assaulted three days in a row by the older roommate he was assigned to live with.
"Due to the deleterious effect this harassment and hostile environment wreaked upon plaintiff's documented depressive disorder, plaintiff was forced to withdraw from [the university] after the fall 2003 semester," court papers claim.
The former student insists that the university's office of residential life has no written policies governing room assignments.
He believes officials in that office were behind a move to get the New York attorney general's office to sue him for unpaid housing charges.
In April, those fees were reclassified as unpaid tuition, even though a federal loan was already applied to the bill, documents claim.
A court of claims lawsuit the former student filed in May 2005 was dismissed.
Last Revised 5/23/2006