Ex-adult film star wins $1.7 million after suing Oregon community college for discrimination under Title IX

• Nicole Gililland said she faced unfair treatment from Southwestern Oregon Community College.
• She said professors give her wrong assignments and penalize her differently from other students.

An Oregon woman on Thursday was awarded roughly $1.7 million dollars by a jury after she claimed a community college forced her out of their competitive nursing program for her past work in adult films.

Nicole Gililland brought a lawsuit against Southwestern Oregon Community College for emotional distress and for sex discrimination under Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding, after attending the college from around Fall 2017 to Spring 2018.

Gililland said faced what she believed was unfair treatment by her school after finding out about her past work.

Oregon judge Mustafa T. Kasubhai issued an opinion in December 2021 in favor of Gililland.

Gililland enrolled in the community college's nursing program in the fall of 2017, according to court documents. Still, her past work in porn became relevant in 2018 when she emailed her professor Melissa Sperry. In the email, Gililland told the professor that she had confided in a fellow student about her past work and was worried they would embarrass her.

In the months that followed the email, Sperry's attitude towards Gililland would change, per court documents. Sperry had sent Gililland the wrong assignments, then failed her on the incorrect assignment. Additionally, according to the court document, Sperry would penalize her for taking a make-up exam, court records said.

Finally, Gililland confronted her professor. According to court records, when Gililland asked the professor why she was treating her the way she did, the professor responded, "it takes a classy woman to be a nurse, and unclassy women shouldn't be nurses."

Gililland contacted deans, the board of education, and professors, addressing her unfair treatment but with no response for months. Gilliand would later be placed under academic probation for alleged improper citation of sources.

According to a February 2020 report by VICE, Susan Walker, the head of the community college's nursing program, accused Gililland of being an "angry person" and "unsafe with her patients" at an academic probation hearing.

"Stigma tells sex workers that they're not worth anything, and I want my lawsuit to be a wake-up call," Gililland told VICE. "This is what I want it to illuminate as if on a neon billboard: be careful who you treat like shit."