Higher Ed Counsel & Strategic Solutions

For colleges and universities, enforcement actions brought by federal government agencies, such as the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the US Department of Justice (DOJ), or the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), raise a financial threat before any lawsuit is ever filed or before any federal funding is pulled. As the federal government increases its scrutiny of higher education institutions, responding to investigations can require significant expenditures on outside counsel, document production, and compliance efforts. Many colleges and universities may not realize until it is too late that these costs fall outside the scope of their insurance coverage.

On August 14, 2025, the US District Court for the District of Maryland vacated the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) February 14, 2025 Dear Colleague Letter (DCL). Hunton previously provided an overview of the implications of the February 14 DCL for colleges and universities in client alerts published in February and March 2025.

On April 24, 2025, federal courts in New Hampshire, Maryland, and the District of Columbia weighed in on three separate challenges brought against the U.S. Department of Education’s February 14, 2025 Dear Colleague Letter (“DCL”), the March 1, 2025 Frequently Asked Questions (“FAQs”), and the April 24, 2025 Certification Requirement for states and public school districts (the “Certification”).