A lawsuit filed by New York’s attorney general against a school district that reportedly failed to protect its students from widespread sexual harassment was brought back to life by a federal appeals court.
The New York Attorney General, Letitia James, filed a federal complaint against the Niagara Wheatfield Central School District (NWCSD) in June 2021 for violating Title IX.
She said that the NWCSD “repeatedly and egregiously” failed to protect its students by “deliberately and callously ignoring complaints by students of rape, assault, sexual harassment, and gender-based bullying.”
According to James’s complaint, over 30 cases of sex discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual assault, or gender-based bullying had been reported to NWCSD in the previous few years. However, the district did not make a single written safety plan or take any documented steps to keep students safe.
There was a report about a star cheerleader named “T.G.” who was raped by a male student only named “E.D.” The student was jailed, T.D. got a restraining order against him, and E.D. eventually admitted to rape, but school officials are said to have let E.D. keep bothering T.D. The school director wouldn’t let T.D. miss class because she had a panic attack because he thought she “had faked the panic attack for attention.” The cheering team’s head coach also told T.G. that “girls get raped all the time.”
It also talked about the cases of student “C.C.” who was bullied because of her gender for years and student “A.S.” who was struck at a school pep rally. James said that the school did nothing to help the students who were hurt in both cases.
U.S. District Judge John Leonard Sinatra, who was appointed by Donald Trump, threw out the case on the grounds because New York state did not have the right to file the lawsuit.
Sinatra said that James had not shown that the school district’s failure to move was a “policy or practice” that discriminated against student victims of gender-based violence and harassment on a large enough scale.
On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned the decision, saying that the State of New York had done what it needed to do to claim parens patriae standing at this point in the case.
This meant that the State of New York could continue the case as “sovereign and guardian of persons under a legal disability to act for themselves,” which in this case meant the students.
The judges were U.S. Circuit Judges Robert Sack, José Cabranes, and Sarah Merriam. Sack and Cabranes were both appointed by Bill Clinton, and Merriam was appointed by Joe Biden.
In his 32-page ruling for the panel, Sack said that the district court had made a mistake by “adding its own gloss” to the correct legal test.
As long as the school didn’t do anything that “amounted to a policy or practice enforced against a target population,” Sack said, the state could still be seen as the parent of the child.
Instead, Sack said that a single act that was being questioned could meet the law requirements as long as it caused “injury to an identifiable group of individuals” and “indirect effects of the injury” beyond that group.
The panel said that James’ lawsuit said that four students were sexually assaulted, harassed, raped, and bullied by their peers without the school doing anything about it, and that dozens of other students who made similar reports were also ignored.
The judges wrote that the school’s alleged failure to move had an effect on more than just the students who were directly involved. It had an effect on all students and parents.
The decision doesn’t mean the end of the case; it just means that it can now go on.
