Former Brown University student William McCormick III, who was accused of raping a female student in September 2006, is suing the university for the way it dealt with the case, the Associated Press reported. This is "rais[ing] messy questions about the handling the case," according to the AP. McCormick, who denies the allegations, has said that he was pressured by the female student's attorney to drop out of Brown, after which the student's family dropped the charges, according to the AP. Assertions were made that the accuser's father, a Brown alumnus, had influence over the administration, which McCormick said failed to properly investigate the matter. Police were never involved, and evidence was neither collected nor analyzed. After leaving Brown, McCormick enrolled at Bucknell University, the AP reported.
The U.S. Supreme Court said on Tuesday that it would hear a case between medical colleges and the Internal Revenue Service debating whether medical school residents should be taxed as students or employees, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. The IRS considers residents to be employees, forcing schools to pay for half of each resident's Social Security and Medicare taxes, The Chronicle reported. The institutions, however, claim that residents should be treated as students, which would exempt both the school and the residents from the taxes, according to The Chronicle. In 2009, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the student tax exemption should not be extended to residents, but rather should only apply to individuals working while enrolled in classes. Since then, federal appeals courts in four other circuits have reviewed similar claims, deciding that the IRS should make exemption decisions on an individual basis, The Chronicle reported.
The University of Chicago's administration will continue with its plans to establish the Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics without faculty approval, spurring a petition signed by approximately 170 members of the faculty who oppose the creation of the institute, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. The petition claims the University is moving in a corporate direction and highlights that the University also allowed the People's Republic of China's to formulate a Confucius Institute on campus without faculty consent. In response to the new institute, the faculty formed the Committee for Open Research on Economy and Society, according to The Chronicle. The committee was a critical factor in creating the petition, which the administration has not yet received, according to University spokesman Jeremy Manier, The Chronicle reported.
