violation as as set forth in the amended complaint because this was a colby six motion i believe that the district court failed to recognize that there was a lack of proper response from the school that led directly to professor humphries a torn thing doctor or in an appropriate manner when along with him such as an elevator passing a hallway when nobody was around in the sta the erast meant was clearly sexual in nature it dealt with him winking blowing kisses raising his eyebrows looking up and down in a sexual way the conduct occurred on a set on a somewhat regular basis  to continue because basically the school didn't do anything af in terms of any sort of investigation when the initial sexual harassment was brought to the attention not once not twice but over that actually basically gave the green light to professor humphries to come to base to harass him in this way in addition a professor hunter humphries had it and usually powerful position and in this music department he controlled the admission process he controlled the evaluation process he was a significant power in the department itself in fact did the amended complaint is replete with example after example after example of faculty members who would not confront humphries or even administrator who didn't want to confront humphries willing to confront humphries in fact he had a there was a time when when dr rare i was taking piano lessons with another professor and i may be mispronouncing your name i apologize an and as soon as he filed his complaints she said i can't be seen with you anymore i don't why i don't know if i want to make eye contact with you anymore particularly if humphries is around and that's the power that he dealt that was dealt with  that humphries had at the school and basically my client's entire professional career and he in the record cites the many accomplishments he had going in and playing in carnegie that the sexual taunting and mocking occurred because the university failed to follow its own policy and thus humphrys had nothing to fear by doing a sexual twenty and if it's a continuing violation then one could reach back to the april two thousand and ten date where it was a actual physical touching i want i don't need to go into that it's suffered forth with a great deal of specificity and i would cement at least the continuing violation is present as a result of the universities and actions the they may try to allegedly should have complained about the  however there were comments made on a couple of occasions by humphries that if you continue to pursue the sexual harassment complaints that he would make quote unquote his life a living hell given the fact that he's a student and his whole entire professional career basically is riding on whether or not he can get out of the program i suspect we submit that he did what he was supposed to do he brought the complaints officially to the attention of of the university of rochester that two of various teams and nothing happened the other issue i'd like to address which is the causation issue on the  proximity is just too far away from the initial complaint it's too far away if all you're relying on is temporal proximity aren't you arguing on direct relying on direct evidence at least as that led to the  retaliation pertaining to the issue being turned ships because it's a patently false statement was made by the university and there's no explanation other than retaliation i see my time is up thank you may please the court my name is marion blanc off i'm with the firm of nixon peabody and we represent the defendants in this action we are here today asking the court to affirm the ruling of the district court below which dismissed the complaint as a matter of law the essence of this complaint is that a former student the plaintiff is trying to reach back in time to find a reason so that he could challenge certain academic marks that he received which he disagreed with despite receiving these negative remarks necked scuse me these negative marks on his first two are attempts at his solo recitals plate of nonetheless continued on to graduate from the easement school of music and receive his doctoral degree and yet again when he could not find a college level teaching position which he wanted he again reach back in time to try to connect that failure to the former already time barred incidents that had occurred well well part of his retaliation claim is does not reach back part of it is he believes that with problems with discovery he would establish that within the limitation period yes that is correct with respect to his his claims that are based on his cause of action in which he asserts that dr humphrey's must have provided some negative references to prospective employers because that is surely the only reason why he couldn't have received those positions but even at the complaint stage at the pleading stage there still has to be allegations of fact that give rise to plausible inferences to so of course allegation is he graduated from one of the premier schools and he applied to twenty eight institutions and got not even an interview with any of them so it's not as if he says nothing he may he be alleges those facts and suggest that there is an inference from which is at least plausible the inference that comes must be more than just as as  inference is plausible he still still must come up with some plausible inference that shows a violation of title nine occurred in other words a plausible inference that the reason he didn't receive a position was because there was sex discrimination or retaliation that qualified as a violation of title allegation for complaining about sexual harassment yes your honor and it would  selected yes but in this case because of the and as as the court found below the plaintiff was not able to establish the required causation because even his allegations consisted of speculation and conjecture upon conjecture where it's a little hard to fault him for not knowing who what the referent what the references were when he's been thrown out before there was any discovery how could  possibly know he could have contacted any one of his twenty eight alleged contacts of future employers to find out whether in fact they had provided good universities make a practice of when somebody calls up and says i wasn't admitted to your institution i was offered a job by your institution please tell me who gave me a bad reference they answer those inquiries on a routine basis i don't know that i know i know the answer to that and you know the answer to that and the answer is they do not but nonetheless the the the the absence of of a complaint of the allegations in the complaint still were so they were so deficient that why is it not a plausible inference if you allege and this could all be lies for all we know we'll find out if there were a trial or summary judgment record  someone alleges this man made sexual advances to me i said no he was angry too he told me he would make my life a hell if i  making complaints about this and he told me i would never get a job in a university now of course perhaps that's because of his poor performance we don't know based on that is it not and and finally he makes the allegation that this is a very prestigious institution a very prestigious degree and he got no nibbles at all from institutions that he alleges would be expected to contact  dean told him that you can't get away from humphreys no point in changing your teacher because he's all over your transcript in any but do you apply to is going to call him which of course they would because it is alleged he is the most prominent member of the department and he is the man who taught mister in several courses with it but it's implausible to think that based on those allegations that one no one of these institutions thought to check his references the references that the plaintiff put down did not include dr humphreys and after even the doctor humphries was his primary piano teacher for the first two years of his graduate studies he admitted switched away from dr humphreys and and for the remaining years studied with a different are you holding it against him that he didn't list humphrey as a reference no your honor not at all i think i thought that's one of the points of the school makes that he did not list him as a reference that are reason for pointing that out is to show that in fact plaintiffs are argument that dr humphrey's must have given him a negative reference and that must have been the reason why he was rejected for your employment was not a plausible he collocation because he didn't list because he didn't list and that was one of the reasons why on earth would a person who's been sexually harassed list his harassers as a reference we're not arguing that he should have been listed plaintiff here is drawing you're drawing some sort of inference from the fact that he did not yes we are trying to your drawing is that none of these other institutions would ever think to call up someone who wasn't listed as a reference by history or on his own applications we submit that that's that gets into the question of whether it is possible that another institution would have contacted dr dr humphreys and that's a possibility or what do and and you're a law firm of course for example would never call up a professor that somebody in the law firm knew at an institution where an applicant was if they were concerned about references they would just call the people that the applicant listed and every other employer operates that way an academic employers operate that way it's not a plausible inference your inference is not plausible it seems to me that if the allegations are true i don't have any independent basis to know how important them freezes but they allege that he's like the department it was art speculative those are alleged facts yes john and you don't think that they add a basis for an inference that he's the person school would have another school would have contacted  i don't believe that they add that inference at least at the stage that plaintiff is talking about where he never even received a telephone in interview according to him at least that's what i would have thought that that strengthens his case not weakens it well your honor we we contend that this really is is in the realm of possibilities because in fact plaintiff still is say he must have given the records a possibility the question is at a pleading stage is a very plausible inference who did to dismiss it as as a mere possibility doesn't really tell us whether it's plausible or not and at the pleading stage what in  order to get this to a viable cause of action plaintiff would also have had to tie this to the writ to the ledger tell you tory motive for the alleged rejection of advances and that occurred the the incident at the piano allegedly is that the the rejections he got were prompted by a continuing animists that existed after or within the limitation period the alleged and a mess that he cites is that dr humphreys allegedly stated that if you put your allegations in writing i will make your life a living hell he did not put his allegations in writing so that's the first instance as to why the animists is not connected to  equal you think that the statement from the department head was a technical pleading point and saying i i will hold it against you if you do your right but so long as you don't write it i will i will have a if in fact there had not already been a previous complaint where this allegation was somehow not included in the complaint and it was only when the defendants pointed out that all those allegations are time his reply but my question was you know of any case were eastman has ever graduated a student who failed to solo performances i don't know one way or the other you know any leading school of that's ever done  advances that the school did not expel him after two failures but instead gave him another chance to pass and he did and the school also allowed him to switch piano teachers as he requested and  i think a plausible inference is that to the extent that he had to submit records of his performance for example or are required to cover letters that that they did not find that they are as good as the other candidates i this isn't in the record but i know that university level teaching jobs are not easy to find you mean when they look at the record and notice he was flung on to performance they would not notice that and would see that no they would not your honor and complaint very carefully does not contain any allegation that these failures are reflected on the transcript if fact they are not although that fact is outside the record leaving stage he has no way of alleging he has had no discovery he doesn't know whether that was disclosed to any of the twenty eight institute again that apt leading stage though the plaintiff is required to state allegations that state a cause of action he does not have any allegation in there that his transcript influenced the prospective employers and that that is the reason why he did not receive any know that without discovering it if it's if it's sufficient to simply say i think i didn't receive a job offer because i did not because you know i haven't because i graduated from a prestigious school and then in under that reasoning why wouldn't eric that would be a hopeless case he doesn't say i graduated and i didn't get up and therefore i have a case now he says i was told by a person who sexually harassed me that my that i'm going to be i'm not going to have much of a future if i put it in writing he says that right that is his yes and then he's got twenty eight schools where it's reasonable to infer at least one of them probably half of them contacted the chairman of the department who was he's an instructor and we don't know the answer to any of that we don't know the answer but you don't know that you don't think handle to find out you know your honor i don't not under these circumstances and thank you  that she said that humphries is on dr eris transcript extensively that you would expect that future employers would call email or otherwise contact conferees to get feedback regarding dr rarer his abilities to perform his primary instrument she stated that rekick she received calls all the time even though i'm not listed as someone's reference she further stated we cannot get him out of adam's your life he has been your teacher for so