A Greensboro Professor Sued His College for Ignoring Its Handbook

Tom Lipscomb would very much like to clear his name. 

The Bennett College journalism professor has spent the better part of two years participating in human resources hearings, writing legal briefs, and appearing in court—all over a written warning in his personnel file that almost no one would have seen if he hadn’t made it public. The issue didn’t even stop the college from renewing his contract. Twice.

It’s about the principle of the matter, Lipscomb said: “My daughter is not 3 years old yet, but that’s something that I’ll talk about with her. You should never have to accept false things on your record.”

The issue began with allegations that Lipscomb behaved inappropriately with undergraduate students at the historically Black liberal arts college for women. The school determined those claims were baseless, Lipscomb wrote in court documents, but he was then sanctioned for two unrelated issues involving a dispute over a student’s work-study hours. 

Lipscomb says each of those charges is false as well, but he has spent so much time fighting them in court because of what he views as the Greensboro college’s Kafkaesque investigation. In his legal filings, Lipscomb said he had to defend himself against the initial allegations without knowing what they were, wasn’t informed of one of the work-study allegations until he was punished for it, was denied representation during HR hearings, was not allowed to present exculpatory evidence, and more.

In short, he alleges that Bennett College flagrantly ignored its own documented HR policies, even while requiring him to follow them. He is suing the college for breach of contract.

“If I did not do something, then this process could be repeated on somebody else,” Lipscomb said.

In his responses in court, Bennett’s attorney, Dylan Hix, did not dispute the basic facts of Lipscomb’s complaints. Instead, he argued that even if all of Lipscomb’s arguments were true, he has no legal claim because Bennett has no contractual obligation to follow its own policies. Judges have twice sided with Bennett and dismissed Lipscomb’s suit, though he has appealed the ruling.

The college did not respond to multiple requests to comment for this story.

Rumor Mill

Lipscomb’s legal filings present an HR process marred with confusion.

He wrote that he first learned Bennett was investigating him in May 2024 when one of his students told him HR had interviewed a friend of hers. Lipscomb emailed his supervisors and HR that day asking for clarification, but an HR representative wouldn’t confirm any investigation, much less its content.

Two days later, two other students told Lipscomb they had been interviewed. Though they had been told not to discuss it, they described the line of questioning to Lipscomb. That was how he learned “the investigation concerned allegations implicating faculty-student sexual misconduct,” he wrote.

Nearly a week later, Lipscomb was officially informed that an investigation was underway. He was invited to respond to the allegations, though he was told only that they involved “your conduct in the workplace with students.” The opportunity to respond was also later rescinded. When Lipscomb attended a hearing with HR in June, he had not been officially informed of the specifics of the case. 

Lipscomb thought, based on what the two students had told him, that one allegation involved purchasing a hotel room for the students. During Lipscomb’s interview, HR investigators dumped a stash of photos onto the table, which is how he learned there was a second allegation about possessing inappropriate photos of students.

Both allegations were easily proven false, Lipscomb said in his lawsuit.

The hotel room was booked through the university for a sanctioned, documented school trip; Lipscomb said he provided his personal credit card for the hotel to place on file for incidental charges. And the photos were part of a department archive of class projects students submitted before Lipscomb worked at Bennett. A student in Lipscomb’s class discovered them in a storage area and brought them to his classroom. The photos were not included in court filings; Lipscomb described them to The Assembly as “arty” but not sexual.

The Policies

Because HR said that the initial allegations against Lipscomb “triggered Title IX considerations,” he argued in his lawsuit that he was entitled to everything spelled out in that policy.

Bennett’s faculty handbook also empowers a Faculty Welfare and Grievance Committee to step in if faculty think administrators have treated them unfairly. Lipscomb asked two members to attend his HR hearing with him but was told no third parties were allowed. After the interview, the committee began reviewing the process, according to emails contained in Lipscomb’s filing. But the committee received no response to its initial inquiry from HR and was later told there “is not a predefined policy or procedure documented in the handbook” for internal investigations.

In July, HR informed Lipscomb he was cleared of both allegations. But he received a written warning for two other issues. One was for violating workplace conduct policies by arguing with a different student, which had come up during Lipscomb’s HR interview. The other, which hadn’t been mentioned before, was for the “mismanagement” of the student’s work-study time, which “led to the accumulation of hours beyond the allowable limit.”

Bennett’s employee and faculty handbooks state that HR will “consult” with faculty accused of sexual misconduct before determining a resolution. Its Sexual and Relationship Misconduct Policy—which applies to conduct that “may potentially violate” federal Title IX laws against sex discrimination—says accused faculty should have at least three days’ notice to respond to allegations in writing, the opportunity to review evidence against them, and a chance to provide their own evidence.

Lipscomb was not allowed to provide testimony about the alleged argument from multiple eyewitnesses who he said disputed HR’s characterization, nor was he told which work-study policies he violated. After the warning was issued, Bennett’s director of financial aid confirmed to Lipscomb that none of his work-study students surpassed their budgeted hours.

Before turning to the courts, Lipscomb appealed the findings internally. In response, Suzanne Walsh, Bennett’s president when the investigation began, removed the warning from his academic file but said she didn’t have the authority to remove it from his human resources record. 

When he appealed to the Board of Trustees, they hired an unnamed outside investigator rather than working with the grievance committee and concluded everything was done according to policy. 

The grievance committee disagreed. In a letter to Bennett’s new interim president, who took over in June 2025, its members asked that Lipscomb’s sanctions be lifted. The investigation “was flawed from its inception because the college did not follow its written and advertised process for investigating allegations of this type,” they wrote, also arguing that “even if the correct process had been followed, the evidence does not support the finding of any wrongdoing by Professor Lipscomb.”

The trustees reviewed the matter again, ultimately deferring to Walsh’s decision to leave the sanction in place. But it didn’t interfere with Lipscomb’s employment: He signed a new contract in July 2025, and another when it expired in May 2026.

Moral vs. Legal 

Lipscomb sued Bennett in September 2025 for breach of contract/policy, defamation/false light, retaliation, and bad faith review/dishonesty. He represented himself in court.

Lipscomb’s moral case against Bennett is convincing, said Eric Fink, a law professor at Elon University specializing in employment law. The legal case is not.

“It’s very common in employment law that the employee, at a personal level, has a legitimate beef,” he said. “But it’s a beef that, for essentially policy reasons, the courts will not do anything about it.”

In November, Superior Court Judge Matthew Houston agreed with Bennett that because the college never publicly communicated about the investigation nor punished Lipscomb beyond a warning, there was no defamation or retaliation. Bad faith review/dishonesty is “not a cognizable claim at all,” Hix, the college’s lawyer, wrote in a motion to dismiss the suit.

Houston allowed Lipscomb to refile the breach of contract claim, though, which he did in March. As a result, the legal question came down to whether Bennett violated his contract by ignoring its faculty handbook and HR policies. 

While the contract says Lipscomb “must comply with the College’s Tenure and Promotion policy and the Faculty Handbook,” Hix argued that North Carolina courts have typically found that such references are not strong enough to consider the policies as part of the contractual agreement.

Because the contract also states that Bennett “reserves the right to modify such policies, procedures, and regulations,” Fink said it is not binding on employers like it is for employees.

“It’s kind of sleazy, but courts in North Carolina and elsewhere have said that’s fine,” Fink said. “The employer is allowed to do that, and that if you have that kind of disclaimer, then the employee has no reasonable reliance on it. They have no claim based on it.” 

Allegations triggering Title IX are an exception, but Hix argued Lipscomb’s case doesn’t apply because Lipscomb “cannot plead that anyone made a formal Title IX complaint,” which is a necessary prerequisite. 

Fink believes Bennett’s response passes legal muster, arguing there’s a difference between looking into whether a Title IX investigation is necessary and actually conducting one. If that’s right, the only documents that matter in Lipscomb’s case are the faculty and employee handbooks.

In April, Hix again moved to dismiss the suit on the grounds that Lipscomb never adequately claimed those documents are part of his employment contract.

“You wouldn’t know that he had a contract based on the complaint,” Hix said.

Angela Puckett, the judge overseeing the refiled case, agreed with Bennett as well and dismissed Lipscomb’s suit—this time with prejudice, meaning he can’t refile it. He has appealed the ruling.

Fink said the case is indicative of labor relations in the state. Though there’s a “good argument” that employers shouldn’t be able to unilaterally change policies referenced in a contract, courts haven’t found that it’s a legal violation.

The one ironclad protection is a union contract specifying a formal grievance procedure employers must follow. Tenure can provide some safeguards, as courts have occasionally shown deference to the culture of academic governance, but nontenured faculty like Lipscomb are at the mercy of at-will employment.

“If I lose the appeal, the college has no obligation to the truth,” Lipscomb said. “The handbook has a disclaimer, so they can just leave things false if they feel that that’s an OK thing to do. These procedures they invoke, that they said they were following: They’re not responsible for them because of a disclaimer.”