The University of Northern Colorado did not violate a court order when it chose not to reinstate a suspended student-athlete immediately, a federal judge decided.

After U.S. District Court Judge Regina M. Rodriguez sided last week with Kevin Williams Jr. and ordered the university to reduce his punishment for leaving a loaded gun in an unattended backpack, UNC issued a revised sanction that curtails his suspension after the current fall semester. That outcome was unsatisfactory to Williams, who asked Rodriguez to compel the dean of students to comply with her order and terminate the suspension entirely.

Rodriguez on Tuesday declined to order further action.

“The Court finds the Dean’s new decision on remand to be in compliance with its November 9 Order,” she wrote, rejecting Williams’ argument that his punishment never should have included suspension in the first place.

The judge’s decision marks the end of a whirlwind month for Williams and UNC, in which Rodriguez found merit to Williams’ argument that the university violated his procedural rights under the law. Following an Aug. 23 hearing with Dean Colleen Sonnentag about the gun incident, Williams received a suspension through the spring of 2022 and was subject to a no-trespass order for the Greeley campus.

Williams, who is a graduate student and football player, appealed Sonnentag’s sanction. Two university employees known as appeal readers agreed that he had violated the code of conduct, but they also believed the sanction was too harsh. The appeal readers recommended alternative means of punishment, including having Williams host a community impact meeting or author an essay about safe gun storage.

Sonnentag subsequently declined to lessen the punishment, and instead chose to add the gun storage essay on top of the other terms of the sanction.

Williams filed a federal lawsuit in October and Rodriguez agreed that Sonnentag had acted arbitrarily in overriding the appeal readers’ conclusions. 

“The Court recognizes the grave and serious public interest in gun safety to both the University and the broader public,” she wrote in a Nov. 9 order. “However, it is also in the public interest to require the University to follow its own procedures that it has established to handle student disciplinary proceedings.”

Rodriguez ordered Sonnentag to revise her decision and follow the appeal readers’ determination that a lesser sanction was appropriate. The dean’s new decision ends Williams’ suspension after Dec. 3, allows him to re-enroll for the winter session and indicates UNC will remove any reference to the suspension on his transcript.

Williams alleged in response that the appeal readers believed suspension was not an appropriate punishment to begin with. By allowing his suspension to continue through the semester rather than terminating it, the university did not follow the court’s directive, his lawyers argued.

Rodriguez disagreed, finding the revised decision was in line with her order and with the appeal readers’ conclusions.

The case is Williams v. Sonnentag et al.