Publication Sneak Peek: School Law Review This segment features content from other AAEA publications. School Law Review is a quarterly publication available to subscribing districts. The following excerpt comes from the September 2023 issue.
RECENT COURT DECISIONS: STUDENTS California District Settles OCR Sexual Harassment Claim (June 8, 2023) The U.S. Office for Civil Rights alleged that the district violated federal law nine times in failing to protect against sexual harassment and discrimination. Investigators reviewed and documented 41 reports of sexually explicit comments, name-calling and unwanted sexual touching among students, which included rape, sexual harassment, sexual cyber-bullying, obscene sexual gestures, and the exposure of private parts. Three allegations involving teachers were documented, including two in which teachers made inappropriate comments and touched students. Doe v. North Penn. Sch. Dist., U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Oct. 19, 2022) A student claimed the District violated Title IX due to its deliberate indifference to the risk of sexual assault posed by a classmate. In sixth grade, a student sexually assaulted one of her classmates. A teacher witnessed the incident and did not report the incident because she assumed the touching was consensual. Six months later, another teacher reported the same student had sexually assaulted someone else, and the student’s teacher then shared the previous incident with the principal. The student then allegedly committed other sexual assaults at the middle school on other students. Years later, the classmate from sixth grade found herself seated next to the perpetrator in their
tenth-grade class, and he allegedly began assaulting her again. The district sought dismissal of the case, arguing that it was not deliberately indifferent to the reports of sexual assault. The court denied the district’s motion to dismiss, holding that the case would have to be decided by a jury. While the district did not have actual notice of the alleged assaults on other students, it placed this student in the same class as her assailant and merely suspended him for three days, downplaying his acts as less serious misconduct. Myers v. Boardman Sch. Dist., U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio (July 11, 2022) The parent of a child with autism, learning disabilities, ADHD, OCD, anxiety, and dyslexia sued the district alleging it violated the child’s constitutional rights when a classroom aide stapled a note to the child’s head because the district approved of and condoned the aide’s actions. The district requested dismissal based on its lack of knowledge about the alleged abuse until the parent informed a school official and its discipline of the aide when it learned of the misconduct. The court dismissed the case reasoning that the parent failed to establish that the district failed to train or supervise the aide or that the district had a custom, practice, or policy of abuse or was deliberately indifferent to or tolerant of misconduct.
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