Supreme Court to decide whether Title IX is exclusive remedy for sex harassment
Education Week reports that the U.S. Supreme Court has granted review in Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee, No. 07-1125, a case that raises the question of whether Title IX provides the exclusive legal remedy for cases of sex discrimination in public schools. The Court will address the split in the federal appeals courts circuits over whether an older, broader federal civil rights law, known as Section 1983, also provides a basis for lawsuits alleging sex discrimination in education. The plaintiffs argued in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit that Title IX claims are subject to very real limitations, such as the Supreme Court ruling that school districts may only be held liable for peer sexual harassment in schools when school officials had actual notice of the harassment and responded with deliberate indifference. Section 1983, which derives from the Civil Rights Act of 1871, is often the basis for sex-discrimination suits that allege a violation of the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment. In their brief petitioning the Court to review the First Circuit’s ruling, the plaintiffs’ contended: “Because an equal protection claim brought under Section 1983 may vindicate certain rights regarding school-place sexual harassment that are not actionable under Title IX, the Title IX statutory rights are not virtually identical to their constitutional counterparts.” The suit claims that a female kindergarten student was subjected to sexual harassment by a third grader while riding the bus to school. The parents were dissatisfied with school officials' proposed response, which allegedly was to have the female student change buses. They sued under both Title IX and Section 1983. Both a federal district court and the First Circuit ruled against their Title IX claim and held that the Section 1983 claim was foreclosed by Title IX. The school district asserts that offering to place the kindergartner on another bus was a reasonable response to the alleged peer harassment, which the district adds it had trouble substantiating. The district also argues that even had a Section 1983 claim been allowed, the school system could not have been held liable because it had no custom or policy of allowing peer sexual harassment to go unchecked. The Court will hear arguments in the case next term, which commences in October.
Source: Education Week, 6/9/08, By Mark Walsh
[Editor’s Note: The First Circuit’s opinion is summarized below.]
NSBA School Law pages on Fitzgerald v. Barnstable Sch. Comm.