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Editorial note: This story contains references to suicide and self-harm. 

Colgate University asked a federal judge to dismiss all nine counts of a lawsuit brought by former women’s lacrosse goalkeeper Amelia Cunningham ’24 in a Feb. 13 motion for judgment on the pleadings. The University attached a photograph of Cunningham’s suicide note to the public court filing without prior notice, a move that prompted a swift response from the presiding judge. 

When Cunningham filed a civil lawsuit against Colgate in December 2025, she described arriving on campus as a highly-recruited women’s lacrosse goalkeeper with a 4.0 GPA, a 50% athletic scholarship and dreams of becoming an orthopedic surgeon. By the time she left the women’s lacrosse team in 2023, according to the complaint, she had undergone multiple major surgeries, attempted suicide, been placed on academic probation and lost her scholarship. 

She alleged that former women’s lacrosse head coach Kathy Taylor had forced her and other players to practice through serious injuries, subjected her to verbal abuse and harassment about her sexuality and that the University had repeatedly failed to intervene on her behalf despite warnings.

Now, roughly three months after the complaint was filed, the case has moved to federal court before Judge Jesse M. Furman in the Southern District of New York.

Colgate’s attorneys at Bond, Schoeneck & King filed both the motion asking a federal judge to throw out the lawsuit before it ever reaches a jury and a formal answer to Cunningham’s complaint. 

In essence, Colgate’s motion argued that Cunningham waited too long to sue, that she signed away her right to sue when she joined the team and that, if both of those arguments fail, her complaint still doesn’t hold up legally.

The state of New York gives plaintiffs three years to file most personal injury and discrimination claims. Colgate argued that many of Cunningham’s allegations — including her wrist injury in fall 2020, respiratory illnesses in 2021 and a single conversation about her sexuality that same fall — are simply too old, even accounting for a 78-day pause on the clock to which both sides had previously agreed.

The motion also noted that when Cunningham arrived at Colgate in September 2020, she signed a standard assumption-of-risk form. In July 2022, a civil rights law firm sent a letter to University president Brian Casey, on behalf of six women’s lacrosse players, warning him about Taylor’s “extreme” coaching practices. Colgate subsequently launched an investigation into Taylor that concluded with no policy violations found. Following this, Cunningham signed a more expansive release that waived “any and all claims [she] may have in the future” arising from her participation in athletics, “including but not limited to claims arising out of the negligent acts or omissions” of the University. Colgate’s attorneys argued that those documents therefore negated her physical injury claims outright.

Carolin Guentert, a partner at Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight who co-chairs the firm’s Sexual Violence, Title IX, and Victims’ Rights practice group, is chief counsel for Cunningham. Guentert disputed that characterization. 

“Assuming risk in terms of sustaining the kinds of injuries that you would expect to sustain by playing a sport, which of course does come with some risk, is not at all the same thing as consenting to being harassed and the school looking the other way while somebody is intentionally injured,” Guentert said. 

Guentert also argued that relying on those documents at this stage of the case was premature in any case.

“That’s for later in the case — that’s after discovery — those documents really come into play,” Guentert said. “We need more information in the case, and we’re entitled to that in discovery.”

Colgate’s arguments on the merits of the lawsuit all concerned causation. The motion contended that Cunningham never clearly connected her long list of injuries and illnesses — wrist damage, bronchitis, pneumonia, vocal cord dysfunction, Epstein-Barr virus, depression and a hip injury — to any specific action by the University or by Taylor. 

“Plaintiff’s Complaint boils down to a series of disjointed ailments and injuries, none of which are tied to Plaintiff’s allegations of poor treatment by Coach Taylor,” the motion read.

Colgate’s attorneys specifically challenged Cunningham’s account of the hip injury that she alleged Taylor pressured her to train through in fall 2022. Attached to Colgate’s answer was a physician’s examination report in which Cunningham reportedly told a doctor about experiencing hip pain that had worsened after wakeboarding, and in which she denied any falls or trauma. 

Colgate argued that this report directly contradicted her claim that the injury came from practices and that, under settled legal standards, “the documents control,” meaning that written records take precedence. 

Then, on Cunningham’s Title IX claim — which alleged that Taylor interrogated her about her sexuality and suggested that a relationship with a female teammate “would be bad for the team” — Colgate argued that a single conversation does not meet the legal threshold of “severe and pervasive” harassment, and that Cunningham never reported the incident to a Colgate official, which is required to establish that the University was “deliberately indifferent.” One episode, the motion argued, was just not enough to warrant the lawsuit.

In responding to the scholarship cancellation, which Cunningham alleged violated her contract with the University, Colgate pointed to language in the scholarship agreement expressly allowing cancellation if a student-athlete “voluntarily withdraws from a sport at any time for personal reasons.” 

The University also noted that the agreement included a formal medical retirement pathway, one that would have let Cunningham keep her scholarship if she had submitted supporting medical documentation, and that she never pursued it, despite acknowledging in her complaint that she knew medical retirement existed.

Overall, the University’s answer to the complaint denied most of Cunningham’s core allegations entirely.

It characterized her departure from the team as voluntary, disputed that Taylor overruled medical staff and contested whether her mental health struggles were caused by the lacrosse program at all, stating that Cunningham’s own complaint attributes her diagnoses only to stress “in large part” from the lacrosse team — but not entirely — and that the pressures of competing as a Division I athlete for the first time are not the University’s legal responsibility.

The more striking development may not be the motion itself, but what Colgate attached to its court filings.

Among the exhibits Colgate filed publicly on Feb. 13 was a photograph of Cunningham’s suicide note. Colgate also attached a medical record from the Colgate Student Health Center detailing Cunningham’s injuries, medications, allergies and weight and a Campus Safety incident report from the night of November 5, 2022, that included her blood alcohol content. All of it was placed on the public federal docket with no warning to Cunningham’s legal team, and before the two sides had negotiated any agreement about how sensitive materials would be handled.

“I’ve not seen that in my practice before,” Guentert said. “Our position is that that was completely unnecessary to file a student’s suicide note on the public docket. I can’t really imagine a document that could be more personal than that.”

According to Jamie Moss, public relations counsel for Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight, Colgate’s lawyers moved to seal the sensitive exhibits after Cunningham’s legal team raised the issue. On Feb. 20, Cunningham’s attorneys filed a letter with the court supporting that motion to seal.

“That decision is unconscionable,” the letter read. “Colgate’s actions appear designed to harass, humiliate, and punish Plaintiff for bringing a lawsuit against the University — and to deter other students from bringing similar claims. It is crucial that steps be taken to avoid further public dissemination of highly confidential documents prior to the entry of a protective order.”

The letter was filed by Guentert and asked the court to seal the three exhibits and to issue an order requiring both sides to consult each other before publicly filing any sensitive materials until a formal protective order is in place.

“These documents should never have been posted publicly,” Guentert said. “There’s a time and a place to discuss those incidents. They could have been filed under seal to begin with.”

Moss said that beyond the sealing request itself, Guentert’s letter was meant to signal to the court the real-world harm of placing a former college student’s suicide note and medical records on a public docket, especially when those documents, as Cunningham’s attorneys framed it, served no legitimate legal purpose at this stage of the case.

“[Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight] filed a letter with the court supporting that letter to seal, and explaining the harm caused by publicly — and needlessly — posting our client’s suicide note and her medical records on the docket,” Moss said. 

On Feb. 24, Furman granted Cunningham’s motion to seal temporarily, directing that the suicide note, medical records and Campus Safety report be removed from public view for now. In his order, the judge also directed that the question of whether the materials should remain sealed or be permanently redacted will be decided alongside Colgate’s underlying motion to dismiss. This means that the fate of those documents is now attached to one of the most consequential questions in the case.

In the same order, Furman directed both sides to begin working toward a formal protective order governing how sensitive materials are handled going forward. Until that order is in place, he instructed both parties to “err on the side of caution” before filing anything that might contain sensitive or personal information, and to either seek the court’s permission to file under seal or first consult with the opposing side. 

The order did not assign blame for the original public filing, but its directions implicitly addressed the situation Cunningham’s attorneys had flagged — that the absence of any agreed-upon protocol had allowed the documents to be posted publicly in the first place.

Guentert and Cunningham’s other attorneys argued in the letter that the exhibits shouldn’t be public in the first place, and not just because of privacy concerns, but also because of how Colgate is using them. Since a motion for judgment on the pleadings is a narrow procedural tool, a court ruling on such a motion can only look at the allegations in the complaint itself and cannot resolve disputed facts. 

The letter argued that Colgate appeared to be attaching these records specifically to contest whether Cunningham actually attempted suicide — pointing, for example, to the Campus Safety report’s note that her vital signs were stable and that she was conscious when officers arrived. Using the Campus Safety report to contest whether Cunningham actually attempted suicide is something that cannot be decided at the current stage of the litigation. 

“A court may not use a motion for judgment on the pleadings to weigh disputed factual allegations,” the letter read, citing Second Circuit Court precedent.

Colgate’s answer itself went further. Regarding the suicide note, the University quoted its contents on the public record, noting that it “does not mention lacrosse or Colgate.” 

The procedural picture has shifted since the sealing dispute first emerged. Guentert confirmed that Furman’s order also allowed Cunningham’s legal team to file an amended complaint, which they did on March 13.

“That’s very common at this stage of the case,” Guentert said. 

Colgate now has an opportunity to refile its answer and motion, which Cunningham’s team will then oppose before the judge rules. The judge’s final decision on whether the sealed documents remain sealed is expected to come alongside his ruling on the substantive motion — meaning that the fate of the suicide note and medical records is now directly tied to whether the case proceeds at all.

If the case does proceed to discovery, Guentert said the investigation report compiled in 2022 would be at the top of her list. 

Guentert closed with a broader reflection on what the case represents.

“A coach holds enormous power over students who are typically young, away from home for the first time and figuring out their way in the world. A coaching relationship can be an incredible thing — it can really help students grow. It can also be a nightmare,” Guentert said. “I hope [the lawsuit] sends a message to Colgate and other universities that they have to pay close attention when players and parents raise the alarm about behavior like this.”

Colgate has not spoken publicly on the case, and declined to comment on any ongoing litigation when reached for comment. 

The Maroon-News will continue to follow this case. If you have information relevant to coverage of Colgate athletics or this litigation, contact the editors at [email protected].