No. 96-1866

The Question Before the Court

What standard of liability applies to a school district under Title IX for a teacher’s sexual harassment of a student?

Background

Facts:

Frank Waldrop, a teacher at Lago Vista High School, met Jane Doe when she was an eighth-grade honors student in his wife’s class. Jane Doe was thirteen at the time. In the ninth grade, Doe was assigned to Frank Waldrop’s advanced social studies class. Waldrop often flattered Doe and made a point of spending time alone with her.

In the spring of 1992, Waldrop, knowing that Doe would be home alone, visited under the pretext of returning a book. He initiated sexual contact with Doe, fondling her breasts and unzipping her pants. During the summer, Waldrop and Doe, who was then fifteen years old, had sex on a regular basis.

Although none of the encounters took place on school property, the parents and guardian of two other students complained to Michael Riggs, the high school principal, that Waldrop had made inappropriate remarks in the presence of female students. Riggs organized an investigation into this complaint, but Waldrop denied the charges and Riggs failed to bring the matter to the attention of the district superintendent.

Frank Waldrop’s sexual exploitation Jane Doe ended in January of 1993 when a Lago Vista police officer happened to discover Waldrop and Doe having sex. There was no direct evidence that any school official was aware of the relationship until that time.

Lower Courts:

Jane Doe and her parents brought a section 1983, Title IX and negligence action against Lago Vista School District in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. The District Court granted summary judgment to the School District. Jane Doe appealed the summary judgment on the Title IX claim. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held, based on a common law agency theory, that the School District was not liable under Title IX for a teacher’s sexual harassment of a student. The United States Supreme Court granted cert.

The Importance of this Case

The Supreme Court’s decision will have powerful implications for the right to be free from sexual harassment and sexual discrimination in schools. Under Title IX, women and girls are entitled to the fundamental guarantee of equal educational opportunity, free from sexual harassment. However, the goal of achieving equality of rights for women and girls cannot be attained if the school systems in which our children are taught allow sexual harassment to continue unabated or lack adequate policy guidelines for receiving and addressing sexual harassment complaints.

Schools should be held liable for the sexual harassment aided by a teacher’s actual or apparent authority. Schoolteachers have a unique ability to exert power over their students. In fact, the Seventh Circuit recently acknowledged that “[t]he damage caused by sexual harassment… is arguably greater in the classroom than in the workplace because that harassment has a greater and longer lasting impact on its younger victims, and institutionalizes sexual harassment as accepted behavior.” Studies indicate that the vast majority (65-85%) of female high school students are victims of some form of school-related sexual harassment. Of students who reported experiencing sexual harassment, 44% reported harassment by a member of the school staff other than a principal, 16% reported harassment by a teacher and 2% reported harassment by a principal. With no way to voice their complaints in sexual harassment cases, students will remain victimized and silenced.

Experience has shown that the adoption by schools of clear sexual harassment policies and adequate reporting procedures can reduce the incidence of sexual harassment. To encourage the development of policies and reporting procedures, schools should be deemed to have constructive knowledge of sexual harassment if they fail to establish anti-harassment policies and meaningful reporting procedures.

Otherwise, schools will continue to ignore indicia of sexual harassment and allow it to proceed unchecked.

Equal Rights Advocates’ Position

The case requires the Supreme Court to determine what standard governs a school’s responsibility for sexual harassment by its teachers. Equal Rights Advocates and other women’s organizations argue that a school should be held liable for sexual harassment where: (1) the harasser acted as an agent of the school by relying on the victim’s belief that the harasser was acting under the apparent authority of the school or by using the authority delegated from the school to accomplish the harassment; or (2) the school knew or should have known of harassment, yet failed to take prompt and appropriate corrective action.

In applying the second standard, a school’s failure to adopt and disseminate effective policies and procedures for addressing sexual harassment should establish constructive notice of any harassment that does occur. If the school had taken reasonable steps to find out about harassment, it would have actual notice of the harassment. Sexual harassment in school is eminently foreseeable, especially when one considers the power exercised by teachers over students. Thus, if a school fails to provide reasonable measures for reporting and adequately addressing incidents of sexual harassment, and such harassment occurs, the school should be liable under Title IX. It should have known about and responded to the harassment.

The Supreme Court’s Decision

In June 1998, the Supreme Court held that a school district will not be liable for sexual harassment unless an official of the school district, who at a minimum has authority to institute corrective measures on the district’s behalf has actual notice of, and is deliberately indifferent to, the teacher’s misconduct. The Court reasoned that the principal enforcement mechanism of Title IX is administrative and requires actual notice of the alleged misconduct to officials of the funding recipient. Therefore a damages recovery against a school district based on principles of respondent superior or constructive notice (as opposed to actual notice) would frustrate the purposes of Title IX. Because the defendant school district had no knowledge of the teacher’s sexual harassment of the plaintiff student, the district is not liable.

As a result of this decision, children who experience sexual harassment at school and their parents must inform a school official of the harassment. The Court requires that the official be of a high-enough level to be able to institute corrective measures on the school’s behalf. Although the opinion does not specify which officials would satisfy the notice requirement, it indicates that the student must inform at least the school principal.