The case is now in discovery, and in yesterday's Canaan v. Carnegie Mellon University, Judge Scott Hardy (W.D. Pa.) allowed a considerable amount of discovery about CMU's relationship with Qatar, where it has a major campus. [UPDATE: For more on the underlying substantive dispute, see this post and this post.] The court concluded the requested discovery was generally relevant (this is just an excerpt from a very long opinion):
Qatari interests partially fund the position of Elizabeth Rosemeyer, because she serves both CMU's Main Campus and its Doha campus as Assistant Vice Provost for DEI and Title IX Coordinator…. Rosemeyer is an integral participant in Canaan's case. She is referenced repeatedly in the Complaint, notably as one of several CMU officials specifically responsible for enforcing CMU's anti-discrimination policies and protecting students from discrimination and harassment. Importantly, Canaan specifically alleges that Rosemeyer aggressively discouraged her from filing a formal complaint, which would have triggered an investigation of Professor Arscott's purported discriminatory mistreatment of her, as well as of the DEI Office's failure to address the misconduct and of Professor Issaias's purported retaliation.
Although CMU downplays any possible Qatari influence in its partial funding of Rosemeyer's position by averring that she was hired by its then Vice-President of Operations and not by any Qatari donor, entity, or representative, such point merely generates, at most, a potential factual dispute about whether or to what extent Qatari funding of Rosemeyer's position and Qatari "consultation" during CMU's identification, review, and selection of Rosemeyer may have influenced Rosemeyer's handling of Canaan's complaints of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation….
Importantly, another relevant connection between Canaan's Title VI claims and CMU's Doha campus is that at least three CMU DEI-related officials involved in Canaan's complaints of antisemitism had work-related visits to CMU's Doha campus. Wanda Heading-Grant, CMU's Chief Diversity Officer, visited the Doha campus twice, once to provide training and education programs regarding "civility, bias, discrimination" and "belonging and inclusion, leadership [and] listening" along with a "couple of other members from [her] office" and a second time for a "professional development engagement." Mark D'Angelo¸ another senior CMU administrator responsible for antidiscrimination efforts, similarly visited the Doha campus for such training. D'Angelo describes the purpose of his visit as follows:
