Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Jane, a sophomore, reported to Oberlin College’s Title IX office (20 U.S.C. 1681–1688) that she believed her sexual encounters with Doe amounted to sexual misconduct. The office did not inform Doe of the allegations for several weeks and did not investigate. According to Doe, the delay resulted in a failure to preserve exculpatory security-camera footage. Doe alleges that the dearth of information provided to him led him to hire a private investigator. Doe believed that Jane had spoken to other students about the matter and requested that Oberlin protect his privacy. Doe was told that Jane had requested an informal resolution but was later told that Jane had decided to pursue a formal resolution. Doe asserted a retaliation complaint, claiming that the change was prompted by his complaint that Jane was slandering him. Oberlin then provided Doe with the requested reports and complaints.Doe sought a temporary restraining order weeks after learning of Roe’s complaint, before any formal hearing process began, alleging violations of federal due process, Title IX, and state tort laws. Oberlin subsequently officially concluded that Doe had not violated the Sexual Misconduct Policy. The district court dismissed the due process claim with prejudice and dismissed the remaining claims without prejudice. The Sixth Circuit affirmed in part. Although the district court did not follow the appropriate process for an on-the-merits, sua sponte dismissal of Doe’s due process claim, Oberlin is not a state actor subject to federal due process requirements. The court remanded in part; the court was correct to dismiss the remaining claims for lack of ripeness, but subsequent factual developments have ripened the claims. View "Doe v. Oberlin College" on Justia Law

Escondido Union School District (“Escondido”) appealed the district court’s ruling that Escondido denied D.O. a Free Appropriate Public Education (“FAPE”) by failing to timely assess him for autism. An administrative law judge ruled that Escondido’s delay in assessing D.O. for autism was neither a procedural violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (“IDEA”) nor a denial of a free appropriate public education, or FAPE. The district court reversed the ALJ in part, holding that Escondido’s four-month delay in assessing D.O. constituted a procedural violation of IDEA and that this procedural violation denied D.O. a FAPE by depriving him of educational benefits.   The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgment ruling. The panel concluded that Escondido’s duty to propose an assessment in an area of suspected disability was triggered on December 5, 2016, when Escondido was put on notice that D.O. might be autistic by Dr. M.D., who had completed an assessment and report. The panel concluded that Escondido’s subsequent four-month delay in proposing an autism assessment plan did not violate any California statutory deadlines or any federal statutory timeline. The panel held that Escondido’s delay did not constitute a procedural violation of IDEA because Escondido did not fail to assess D.O., and some delay in complying with IDEA’s procedural requirement is permissible. The panel held that the district court erred in determining that Escondido’s delay was due, at least in part, to the subjective skepticism of its staff. The panel also held that even if the delay were a procedural violation of FAPE, it did not deny D.O. a FAPE. View "D.O. V. ESCONDIDO UNION SCHOOL DIST." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court dismissed this appeal stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and the controversy over whether a mandate should be implemented requiring the state's schoolchildren to wear masks while in school, holding that this Court lacked jurisdiction.In June 2020, the state Department of Education, the state Commissioner of Education, and the Governor (collectively, Defendants) undertook to mandate that schoolchildren wear masks in school. Plaintiffs brought this lawsuit challenging the legality of Defendants' school mask mandate and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The Supreme Court granted summary judgment for Defendant, concluding that Plaintiffs were not entitled to relief. Plaintiffs appealed. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that because the Department repealed the school mask mandate while this appeal was pending, the appeal was moot. View "Conn. Freedom Alliance, LLC v. Dep't of Education" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, the mother of a minor child with special needs, brings this action for attorney’s fees under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). The IDEA allows parents who prevail in state administrative proceedings challenging their children’s individualized education programs to recover attorney’s fees in federal court. But Plaintiff did not file her claim for fees until almost two years after her administrative hearing, and the district court dismissed her case as untimely. The district court concluded that a standalone fees action like Plaintiff’s is most comparable to an IDEA claim for substantive judicial review of an adverse administrative determination. And because Virginia, where Plaintiff lives, sets a 180-day limitations period for such substantive IDEA claims, the court deemed her claim time-barred.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that the IDEA contains no express statute of limitations for attorney’s fees actions, so courts must “borrow” an appropriate limitations period from state law. The court wrote that Va. Code Section 22.1-214(D), by allowing parties 180 days to seek substantive judicial review of IDEA due process hearings, provides an appropriate – even generous – analog to attorney’s fees actions under 20 U.S.C. Section 1415(i)(3)(B). The court also agreed with the district court that his 180-day limitations period does not begin to run until after the aggrieved party’s time to seek substantive review has expired, meaning that a party has 360 days from the date of the administrative decision to commence a fees action. View "Jemie Sanchez v. Arlington County School Board" on Justia Law

Baro was an ESL teacher for Waukegan Community School District in 2019 when she signed a union membership form—a contract to join the union that represents teachers in the District. The form authorized the District to deduct union dues from her paychecks for one year. Baro alleged she learned later that she was not required to join the union. She tried to back out of the agreement. The union insisted that her contract was valid. The District continued deducting dues from her paychecks.Baro filed suit, arguing that the dues deduction violated her First Amendment rights under the Supreme Court’s 2019 “Janus: decision. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. Baro voluntarily consented to the withdrawal of union dues. The enforcement of a valid private contract does not implicate her First Amendment rights. The “First Amendment protects our right to speak. It does not create an independent right to void obligations when we are unhappy with what we have said.” View "Baro v. Lake County Federation of Teachers Local 504, IFT-AFT" on Justia Law

Defendant, the School Board of St. Johns County (the “School Board”), is responsible for providing “proper attention to health, safety, and other matters relating to the welfare of students” within the St. Johns County School District (the “School District”). Plaintiff, is a transgender boy. The case involves the practice of separating school bathrooms based on biological sex. This appeal required the court to determine whether separating the use of male and female bathrooms in public schools based on a student’s biological sex violates (1) the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. Const. amend. XIV, Sections 1, and (2) Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972. The district court enjoined the School Board from prohibiting Plaintiff’s use of the male bathrooms and granted Plaintiff $1,000 in compensatory damages.   The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded the district court’s order. The court explained that commensurate with the plain and ordinary meaning of “sex” in 1972, Title IX allows schools to provide separate bathrooms on the basis of biological sex. That is exactly what the School Board has done in this case; it has provided separate bathrooms for each of the biological sexes. And to accommodate transgender students, the School Board has provided single-stall, sex-neutral bathrooms, which Title IX neither requires nor prohibits. Nothing about this bathroom policy violates Title IX. Further, the court wrote that whether Title IX should be amended to equate “gender identity” and “transgender status” with “sex” should be left to Congress—not the courts. View "Drew Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County, Florida" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was a long-time teacher in the Evergreen School District #114 (District) in Vancouver, Washington. Before the 2019–2020 school year began, he attended two days of teacher training and brought with him a MAGA hat. The question, in this case, is whether the First Amendment was violated when a principal told Plaintiff he could not bring his Make America Great Again (MAGA) hat with him to teacher-only trainings on threat of disciplinary action and when the school board affirmed the denial of the teacher’s harassment complaint filed against the principal.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s summary judgment in favor of Defendants in Plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 action. The panel first concluded that Plaintiff was engaged in speech protected by the First Amendment because the undisputed facts demonstrated that his MAGA hat conveyed a message of public concern, and he was acting as a private citizen in expressing that message. The record failed to establish, however, that the school district’s Chief Human Resource Officer, took any adverse employment action against Plaintiff, and for this reason, Plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claim against that defendant failed as a matter of law.   Further, any violation of Plaintiff’s First Amendment rights by the principal was clearly established where longstanding precedent held that concern over the reaction to controversial or disfavored speech itself does not justify restricting such speech. For these reasons, the panel reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the principal. View "ERIC DODGE V. EVERGREEN SCHOOL DISTRICT #114, ET AL" on Justia Law

This case concerns a public high school’s ability under the First Amendment to discipline students for assertedly “private” off-campus social media posts that, once they predictably made their way onto campus, amounted to “severe bullying or harassment targeting particular” classmates.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment rejecting First Amendment claims brought by students against Albany High School and school officials after the students were disciplined for assertedly “private” off-campus social media posts that amounted to severe bullying or harassment targeting particular classmates. The panel held that, under the circumstances of the case, the school properly disciplined two of the involved students for bullying. The court explained that some of the posts used violent imagery that, even if subjectively intended only as immature attempts at malign comedy, would reasonably be viewed as alarming, both to the students targeted in such violently-themed posts and to the school community more generally. Nothing in the First Amendment would even remotely require schools to tolerate such behavior or speech that occurred under its auspices.   The panel concluded, taking into account the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Mahoney Area Sch. Dist. v. B.L. ex rel. Levy, 141 S. Ct. 2038 (2021), that the speech bore a sufficient nexus to Albany High School and its students to be susceptible to regulation by the school. Finally, the panel concluded that the discipline did not independently violate the California Constitution or the California Education Code. Because California follows federal law for free expression claims arising in a school setting, Plaintiffs’ reliance on the California Constitution failed for the same reasons discussed above. View "KEVIN CHEN, ET AL V. ALBANY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, ET AL" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Black student at George Washington University, claimed that the university discriminated against him on the basis of race in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The district court, applying the one-year statute of limitations contained in the District of Columbia Human Rights Act, granted summary judgment to the university. Plaintiff appealed.On appeal, The D.C. Circuit reversed the district court's granting of summary judgment, finding that the lower court erred in applying the one-year statute of limitations under the District of Columbia Human Rights Act; the proper statute of limitations was the three-year limit that applies to personal injury actions. The court also refused to affirm on alternate grounds, as requested by the university. View "Jabari Stafford v. George Washington University" on Justia Law

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted discretionary review to consider whether the Commonwealth Court erred when it applied the plurality’s analysis in Easton Area School District v. Miller, 232 A.3d 716 (Pa. 2020) (Easton Area II) and ordered redaction and disclosure of the school bus surveillance video it determined to be an education record subject to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In 2016, Valerie Hawkins, on behalf of Fox 43 News (collectively, Requester), submitted a Right-to-Know Law (RTKL) request to Central Dauphin School District (the District), seeking a copy of school bus surveillance video which captured an incident between a 17-year-old member of a District high school basketball team (the student), and a parent of another player (the adult), who allegedly grabbed the student’s wrist during their interaction. The incident occurred in a parking lot outside the high school’s gymnasium, while the players and school staff were boarding the school bus following a basketball game. The adult involved received a summary citation for harassment related to the incident. Requester attached a copy of the citation notice from the magisterial district court record to the record request; the notice identified the adult and student by name as the defendant and victim, respectively. Karen McConnell, the District’s open records officer, denied the request for access to the video, explaining it was an education record containing “personally identifiable information directly related to a student or students,” which, according to the District, protected the video from release under FERPA, and consequently precluded its disclosure under the RTKL as well. The Supreme Court concluded the Commonwealth Court did not err when it applied the analysis articulated in Easton Area II and ordered the mandatory redaction and disclosure of a school bus surveillance video it determined to be an education record subject to FERPA. Accordingly, the Supreme Court affirmed the Commonwealth Court's order with instructions to the District to reasonably redact the students’ personally identifiable information prior to disclosure. View "Central Dauphin Sch. Dist. v. Hawkins, et al." on Justia Law