A dispute in a graduate-level college class that escalated into a female student being escorted out of the class and ultimately prevented her from re-enrolling involves potentially valid First Amendment and due process claims, a federal judge ruled.

Western District Judge William Skretny (See Profile) found that Marie Perez de Leon-Garritt sufficiently showed possible constitutional rights violations by the State University of New York at Buffalo to allow her complaint to survive a dismissal motion.

Skretny agreed with de Leon-Garritt's contention that difficulties with her fellow graduate students and instructors in a spring 2012 lab started a chain of events that resulted in her “de facto dismissal”—possibly in violation of her due process rights—from the school's Rehabilitation Counseling master's degree program.