EUGENE, Ore. – In February, a woman named Nicole Gililland filed a lawsuit against the Southwestern Oregon Community College (“SWOCC”) District, the community college itself and six employees of the college, asserting that the defendants subjected her to an “illegal hostile education environment,” among other claims.
In her complaint, Gililland alleges the defendants violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and accused them of breach of contract, negligent supervision, intentional interference with economic relations and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
According to Gililland’s complaint, SWOCC first became aware of her past as an adult performer in the spring of 2018, when “an individual informed SWOCC that Plaintiff was a former adult model and actress.” The complaint further alleges that defendant Melissa Sperry, a nursing instructor and academic advisor at SWOCC, “became aware of Plaintiff’s former career” at that time, as well.
The alleged hostile environment appears to have first been experienced by Gililland following her prolonged absence from school that same spring, when she had a kidney infection and suffered sepsis.
“Upon return from her absences, Defendant Melissa Sperry began making comments about the quality of a woman a nurse should be,” Gililland states in her complaint. “Ms. Sperry then added extra assignments to Plaintiff’s workload that were not within the syllabus or provided to any other student. Plaintiff was informed about the extra assignment on Friday night, but was not actually provided the assignment until Saturday morning. On the following Monday, Ms. Sperry informed Plaintiff that the extra-assignment was due on Friday by 15:00 – hours before it was provided.”
While Sperry subsequently allowed to Gililland to both take her exam late and complete a case study assignment for which she had received zero credit, both the exam and the case study were subject to a 10% penalty for lateness.
Later that same week, Gililland “discovered that all her grades were changed to failing grades,” according to her complaint. When she asked Sperry why her grades had been changed, “Sperry said that she discovered plagiarism,” and a hearing on the issue was scheduled for April 30, 2018.
“The week prior to the hearing Plaintiff provided conclusive evidence that she did not properly use APA citation in her paper,” the complaint states. “At the hearing, Plaintiff entered the room with Tim Daily, Francisco Saldivar, Melissa Sperry, Susan Walker, and Robin Finney meeting and discussing Plaintiff. Dean Saldivar informed Plaintiff that she improperly cited a resource and was being placed on academic probation and would receive a zero on her assignment in lieu of expulsion.”
The academic probation and zero score on the assignment were not the only consequences Gililland was facing, though. At the end of the hearing, Walker, the Director of Nursing and Allied Health for SWOCC, allegedly told Gililland that she was “calling the Nursing Board stating that (Gililland) was unsafe with patients.”
According to Gililland, her clinical instructors backed her up when Walker went “to Coquille Valley Hospital, Plaintiff’s clinical placement, to interrogate Plaintiff’s clinical instructor to support Ms. Walker’s unsubstantiated claim that Plaintiff was unsafe with patients.”
“The clinical instructor supported Plaintiff and informed Dean Saldivar that Plaintiff was safe with her patients,” the complaint states.
Whatever the reason may be, SWOCC ultimately stuck to the failing grades it had issued to Gililland and dismissed her from the school’s nursing program. When Gililland confronted Pamela Wick, a nursing instructor at SWOCC, about not being awarded points for correct answers on her exams, Wick was not exactly sympathetic to Gililland’s plight.
“Ms. Wick responded that ‘the Nursing instructors had academic freedom to lower grades and that nobody would be able to help Plaintiff,’” Gililland claims in her complaint.
Gililland is seeking economic, compensatory and punitive damages, all to be determined at trial. She is also asking the court for injunctive relief requiring SWOCC to “reinstate Plaintiff into its Nursing Program so that she may complete her degree” and “take effective steps to prevent harassment of students based on prior careers,” among other requests.
On Monday, attorneys for the defendants filed a response with answers and affirmative defenses to Gililland’s claims. In their response, the defendants “deny that they had knowledge of plaintiff’s former work in the adult industry prior to plaintiff disclosing the same.”
The defendants also “admit that there were consequences once SWOCC employees discovered concerns that plaintiff had engaged in plagiarism in violation of its policies and code of conduct,” and that “SWOCC employees worked with plaintiff to address her concerns about the plagiarism allegation.”
That said, the defendants also assert that Gililland’s complaint “fails to state a claim for which relief may be granted against any defendant.”
“Plaintiff’s claims against defendants are claims against agents of a special government body and, as such, any actions available to plaintiff are subject to the conditions, limitations, and immunities set forth in the Oregon Tort Claims Act,” the defendants assert in their response.
The defendants also argue that Gililland failed to “exhaust administrative remedies” which may have prevented the litigation from being filed.
“At no time prior to her leaving the nursing program did plaintiff raise any complaint or concerns that defendants had violated her rights under Title IX,” the defendants state in their response. “Therefore, defendants did not have an opportunity to address those concerns through SWOCC’s administrative process.”
The defendants have asked the court to dismiss all Gililland’s claims with prejudice and to grant the defendants “reasonable costs and attorney fees.”
