NEW YORK – A Columbia University student’s claim of gender discrimination in a 2013 sex assault case on campus was revived by a court of appeals, the latest in a flood of similar cases against colleges in recent years.

The student, who was not named by The Daily Beast, is moving forward with a federal lawsuit against Columbia University after the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday overturned a district court’s ruling to dismiss the case.

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

It centers on the student’s one-year suspension from the school in 2013 after Columbia officials deemed him guilty of “sexual assault: nonconsensual intercourse” involving a sexual encounter with a female classmate.

The case comes as universities across the country have responded to the Obama administration’s calls to crack down on alleged campus sexual assaults, an effort pushed through the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights based on Title IX federal laws, which prevents schools that receive federal funds from discriminating based on sex.

As a result, schools have “implemented sexual assault task forces; programs educating students about consent; and stricter sexual misconduct policies in response to reports of abuse,” the news site reports.

“Since the OCR’s 2011 demand to universities, there have been 170 cases in district courts of male students suing universities for gender-based discrimination under Title IX law,” The Daily Beast reports.

The Second District U.S. Court of Appeals ruling on the Columbia University case makes it the most recent to allow male students to pursue lawsuits against schools that now favor alleged victims over the accused, who are predominantly male.

“From the outset, Columbia University manipulated this investigation and engaged in gender bias against the accused, ignoring evidence and conflicting accounts presented by witnesses,” the Columbia student’s attorney, Andrew Miltenberg, told the news site.

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

Miltenberg contends that Columbia officials did not inform his client about his rights during the investigation into the alleged incident, and refused to interview witnesses who could confirm he was innocent.

Columbia has argued that because the student allegedly “coercively pressured” the female student to have sex and didn’t physically force her to do anything, officials had no reason to investigate the incident thoroughly, though the appeals court disagreed.

“(I)t is entirely plausible that the University’s decision-makers and its investigator were motivated to favor the accusing female over the accused male, so as to protect themselves and the University from accusations that they had failed to protect female students from sexual assault,” Judge Pierre N. Leval wrote in the recent ruling.

“The role of the court at this stage of the proceedings is not in any way to evaluate the truth as to what really happened, but merely to determine whether the plaintiff’s factual allegations are sufficient to allow the case to proceed,” he continued. “At this stage, the court is compelled to assume the truth of the plaintiff’s factual allegations and draw all reasonable inferences in his favor. Following those rules, we conclude that the complaint sufficiently alleges that Columbia was motivated by sex bias.”

Western New England School of Law professor and Title IX expert Erin Buzuvis predicts the university may now try to settle the case out of court to prevent costly litigation.

“If you’re a university and you get sued, the very first thing you’ll try to do is get the case thrown out,” said Erin Buzuvis, who writes a Title IX blog. “If the plaintiff is able to survive that preliminary decision, then universities have to decide whether they want to engage in the hassle of litigation or just pay that person to go away.”

Association of Title IX Administrators executive director Brett Sokolaw told The Daily Beast that many male students who have sued their schools under similar circumstances have also ultimately prevailed.

“What we’ve seen in recent years is that these guys are starting to win,” Sokolaw said. “They’re starting to prove that their universities mistreated them in an overreaction to (the Obama administration’s guidance on Title IX laws) or a politically correct desire to side with the victim.”

The appeals court vacated the lower court’s ruling and remanded the case back to the district court.