A federal appeals court has given a former West Texas A&M University police detective another chance to pursue his claim that he faced retaliation after participating in a Title IX sexual harassment investigation.
That does not mean Nathan Crawford has won his case. It does mean the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals believes there are factual disputes that should not have been resolved before a jury had the opportunity to consider them.
That distinction is important.
Crawford sued WTAMU under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, alleging Police Chief Shawn Burns retaliated against him after Crawford corroborated another officer’s allegations during a 2021 Title IX investigation.
The investigation began after Officer Allison Munsell told Crawford that Sgt. Aaron Price had engaged in sexual misconduct. Crawford encouraged her to report the allegations and later participated as a witness. Several female officers eventually filed complaints against Price.
What happened afterward is at the center of Crawford’s lawsuit.
According to the appeals court, Burns expressed frustration with the investigation and the officers involved in it. The court pointed in particular to recordings and statements that could take on different meanings depending on how a jury interprets them.
Burns said at one point that he was “ready to start stacking bodies,” which he explained as a reference to firing employees who needed to be fired. The appellate opinion also says Burns complained about officers who did not initially report possible Title IX violations but later participated in the investigation.
Crawford also alleged that then-Lt. Kyle Hawbaker told him that, following a conversation with Burns, Crawford “had no chance of making sergeant” because he had been “lumped in with the others” involved in the investigation.
Those statements do not by themselves prove retaliation. But the 5th Circuit concluded they are evidence a jury should be allowed to consider.
“On this record, Crawford has successfully created a genuine dispute of material fact that Burns’ rationale was pretextual and that he retaliated against Crawford for participating in a Title IX investigation,” Judge James Graves wrote.
The dispute intensified after Crawford recorded a conversation between Burns and then-Assistant Chief Robert Byrd in 2022. Crawford said he could hear the conversation from his desk, walked closer to the office and recorded it before sending it to the Texas A&M University System Ethics and Compliance Office.
That prompted another investigation — this time into whether Crawford had illegally recorded a private conversation and whether he had been truthful about where he was standing when he made the recording. Surveillance video showed Crawford standing closer to Byrd’s office than his email to the compliance office suggested.
WTAMU therefore had a stated reason unrelated to Title IX for investigating Crawford.
The appeals court acknowledged that point. WTAMU presented what the court described as a legitimate, nonretaliatory explanation for its actions. The issue is whether that explanation tells the whole story.
Crawford was placed on paid administrative leave while the matter was investigated. Burns eventually recused himself, and police chiefs Bryan Vaughn of Texas A&M University-Commerce and Matt Welch of Tarleton State University reviewed the case. They recommended Crawford be fired and receive a dishonorable discharge on his peace officer record.
Crawford resigned before he could be fired but still received the dishonorable discharge. An administrative law judge later determined his discharge should have been classified as honorable.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk granted summary judgment to WTAMU in July 2025, concluding in part that Crawford’s paid suspension and the investigation did not amount to materially adverse employment actions and that Crawford had not sufficiently connected them to his Title IX participation.
The 5th Circuit disagreed with that analysis.
The appellate court concluded that paid administrative leave can constitute an adverse employment action depending on the circumstances. Because Crawford was placed on leave for disciplinary reasons during an investigation, a jury could find that the action damaged his standing in the workplace.
The court also concluded there was enough evidence for a jury to consider whether Crawford’s participation in the Title IX investigation played a role.
“Burns knew about Crawford’s involvement in the Title IX investigation and resented it,” the court wrote.
There are limits to Crawford’s appellate victory.
The panel found he had not sufficiently connected his dishonorable discharge to his protected Title IX activity. The two outside police chiefs who recommended the discharge said they were unaware of Crawford’s involvement in the Title IX investigation. Judge Cory Wilson also wrote separately that Crawford had not properly preserved the dishonorable-discharge issue in his original EEOC charge or federal complaint.
The ruling therefore should not be read as vindication of every allegation Crawford has made. Nor should it be read as a judicial finding that Burns or WTAMU retaliated against him.
Instead, it represents something more procedural but still consequential: the appeals court determined that competing evidence exists and that some of those disputes belong before a factfinder rather than being settled through summary judgment.
That is particularly significant when intent is at the heart of a retaliation claim. WTAMU has offered reasons for investigating Crawford that are supported by the record, including questions about the recording and Crawford’s description of how he obtained it. Crawford, meanwhile, has pointed to statements and circumstances that he argues reveal another motive.
The 5th Circuit decided there is enough evidence on both sides that those competing explanations should be tested further.
Crawford’s lawsuit now returns to federal district court in Amarillo for additional proceedings. What happens there remains to be seen.
