A SMALL BLOW FOR EQUALITY: Former Ivy League athlete suspended for alleged sexual assault wins important — and surprising — court victory.

Can a male student held responsible by a university for an alleged sexual assault successfully make the case that his fate was the result of sex discrimination against him?

Many have tried and many have failed. Indeed, some have been all but laughed out of court.

But now the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has opened the door to just such a scenario. Reversing a U.S. District Court decision, the panel ruled Friday that a former athlete’s suit against Columbia University, which suspended him for a year for “sexual assault: nonconsensual sexual intercourse,” may go forward based on his claim that university officials acted with anti-male bias, in violation of Title IX, the federal education law that bars discrimination by schools receiving federal funds.

It’s not a decision on the merits — the court did not say the student was a victim of gender bias. It simply ruled that he made a sufficiently plausible case that he may now go forward with a claim the district court judge in the case called “overwrought” and tossed out.

This surprising ruling could have major repercussions in other cases, most prominently the suit brought by former Yale University basketball player Jack Montague, who was expelled from Yale just shy of graduation for sexual misconduct. Montague is making the same argument, among others, in the same circuit.

“The courts are beginning to realize that they should not give the back of their hands to these kinds of cases,” Montague’s lawyer, Max Stern, told the Post. Will the ruling help his client’s claim? “Yes.”

Good.