Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Sharkey worked as a special educator and assistant principal at Susquehanna Township High School in 2013. He and M.S., a 16-year-old female student, began a sexual relationship. Weeks later, students began spreading rumors. The District launched an investigation, which included numerous interviews with M.S., Sharkey, and others; review of Sharkey’s telephone records, and examinations of texts, emails, and photos on M.S.’s telephone and on Sharkey’s district-issued telephone. M.S. and Sharkey denied the rumors. Not finding any evidence of wrongdoing, the superintendent ended the investigation.At the beginning of the next school year, the rumors resurfaced. The District contacted the police and placed Sharkey on administrative leave. M.S. still denied having a sexual relationship with Sharkey but officers informed her that they planned to get a search warrant for her phone. The next day, M.S. and her parents met with the police; M.S. provided details about her relationship with Sharkey. Sharkey was criminally charged. The District informed Sharkey that it intended to terminate his employment and obtained his resignation.M.S. sued the District, alleging a hostile educational environment in violation of Title IX, violations of the Fourteenth Amendment, and state-law claims. The Third Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the District. Sharkey’s knowledge of his own wrongdoing is irrelevant to the District’s actual knowledge of the sexual harassment. No other appropriate person at the District had actual knowledge of the sexual relationship until days before Sharkey resigned. View "M. S. v. Susquehanna Township School District" on Justia Law

Adams, superintendent of the school district in 2013-2016, requested a forensic audit of the district’s expenditures and subsequently had disputes with board members that involved Adams filing a police complaint. The Board of Education revoked an offer to extend her three-year contract. Adams suspended the district’s business manager for financial irregularities. The Board blocked her email and told state education officials that Adams was no longer superintendent. Adams filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983. A jury awarded $400,000 in damages.The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding that the police report was not a personal grievance, but a matter of public concern within the scope of the First Amendment. The potential for physical altercations between public officials implies that an important public institution was not working properly, particularly given that a proposed forensic audit “seems to have unsettled at least one" Board member. The police report and the controversy more generally could have affected the outcome of elections and the daily management of the school system. The record permitted a reasonable jury to find that an ordinary employee in Adams’s position would be deterred from speaking by the prospect of losing her job and was permitted to consider the possibility that Adams would have remained on the job longer had she kept silent. Damages for a First Amendment violation are not limited by the duration of contracts. View "Adams v. Board of Education Harvey School District 152" on Justia Law

Ramsey, a medical student. unsuccessfully sought testing accommodations for dyslexia and ADHD from the National Board of Medical Examiners. Ramsey sued under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Third Circuit affirmed the award of a preliminary injunction, requiring the Board to provide her accommodations. Ramsay established irreparable harm because she would likely be forced to withdraw from medical school if she could not take the initial test with accommodations and pass. The balance of equities tipped in her favor because granting her accommodations would not undermine the Board’s interests in fair and accurate testing and it was in the public interest for the ADA to be followed, to increase the number of physicians. Evidence that Ramsay’s reading, processing, and writing skills were abnormally low by multiple measures provided a sufficient comparison of her abilities to those of the general population to support the finding of disability. While the district court viewed Ramsay’s experts more favorably and found the Board’s experts unpersuasive, there is no indication that the court believed that it was compelled to defer to Ramsay’s experts; the court discounted the Board’s experts because they never met with Ramsay, engaged in too demanding an analysis of whether Ramsay had a disability, and overly focused on Ramsay’s academic achievements. View "Ramsay v. National Board of Medical Examiners" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit alleging that the University of Arizona violated Title IX, 20 U.S.C. 1681(a), by discriminating against plaintiff on the basis of sex during the course of a sexual misconduct disciplinary case against him.The Ninth Circuit reversed and vacated the district court's order and judgment dismissing the Title IX claim, holding that plaintiff stated a Title IX claim against the University because he plausibly alleged gender bias. The panel held that plaintiff's allegations of contemporaneous pressure and gender-based decisionmaking establish background indicia of sex discrimination relevant to his Title IX claim. In this case, a professor's comments regarding plaintiff's disciplinary case reflects an atmosphere of bias against plaintiff during the course of the University's disciplinary case. Furthermore, plaintiff was not permitted to appeal the punishment and the University's underlying finding of responsibility; plaintiff was not permitted to file a harassment complaint against the complainant; and the investigation was one-sided. Considering the combination of plaintiff's allegations of background indicia of sex discrimination along with the allegations concerning his particular disciplinary case, the panel stated that sex discrimination is a plausible explanation for the University's handling of the sexual misconduct disciplinary case against plaintiff. View "Schwake v. Arizona Board of Regents" on Justia Law

Speech First challenged University of Illinois policies that allegedly impermissibly chill the speech of its student members. The Bias Assessment and Response Team (BART) responds to reports of bias-motivated incidents. Most students contacted by BART either do not respond or decline to meet; they suffer no consequences. If a student agrees to meet, BART staff explains that the student's conduct drew attention and gives the student an opportunity to reflect upon her behavior. BART’s reports are not referred to the University Police. The University Housing Bias Incident Protocol addresses bias-motivated incidents committed within University housing. There are no sanctions or discipline associated with a reported incident. When a student breaches his housing contract or violates University policy, there is a separate disciplinary process. Expression of the views described in the complaint would not contravene housing contracts nor violate any University policies. Individuals subject to student discipline may be subject to “No Contact Directives” (NCDs) and prohibited from communication with identified parties. NCDs do not constitute disciplinary findings and are not part of the students’ official disciplinary records. An NCD does not prohibit the student from talking or writing about the other. The University has not investigated or punished any members of Speech First under any of the challenged policies.The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of a preliminary injunction. Speech First failed to demonstrate that its members face a credible fear that they will face discipline on the basis of their speech as a result of the policies. View "Speech First, Inc. v. Killeen" on Justia Law

Kesterson, a Kent State student-athlete, told her coach, Linder, that Linder’s son had raped her. Linder, a mandatory reporter under Kent State’s Title IX policy, never notified anyone. Linder stopped calling Kesterson by her nickname; chastised her in front of another coach for becoming emotional; removed Kesterson from her starting shortstop position and limited her playing time; and required Kesterson to attend events at the Linder home, where her accused rapist lived. Kenderson subsequently told other Kent State employees about the alleged rape, but none reported it. The university learned about the assault two years later when Kesterson made a complaint to the school’s Title IX office. An investigation led to Linder’s resignation. Kesterson sued Kent State, Linder, and another coach citing the free-speech retaliation protections of the First Amendment, her equal-protection rights, and Title IX. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment.The Sixth Circuit reversed in part. A reasonable coach would have known at the time Linder acted that she could not retaliate against a student-athlete for reporting a sexual assault. Rejecting the Title IX claim, the court stated that Kent State’s employees’ failure to follow policy did not amount to deliberate indifference by the school. View "Kesterson v. Kent State University" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 action alleging violations of the Fourteenth Amendment and of state law arising from the suspension and termination of his employment. In this case, plaintiff was terminated from his position as an economics professor after the university concluded that plaintiff had sexually harassed his former student.The panel held that SCU, as a private university, does not become a state actor merely by virtue of being required by generally applicable civil rights laws to ameliorate sex (or any other form of) discrimination in educational activities as a condition of receiving state funding. Furthermore, the receipt of federal and state funds conditioned on compliance with anti-discrimination laws is insufficient to convert private conduct into state action. View "Heineke v. Santa Clara University" on Justia Law

In 2008, after being denied tenure, George filed a discrimination lawsuit against Youngstown State University and was reinstated as part of a settlement agreement. As soon as the university’s obligations under the agreement expired, it declined to renew George’s contract and terminated his employment as a professor. George applied to several other positions within the university but was rejected. He then filed employment discrimination and retaliation claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.Following discovery, the district court granted YSU summary judgment, finding that George either failed to show causation, failed to show he was qualified for the job, or failed to show that YSU’s claimed reasons for firing (or not hiring) him were pretextual. The court also dismissed one of George’s failure-to-hire claims— which arose after this lawsuit was filed—based on an administrative exhaustion requirement. The Sixth Circuit reversed. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to George reveals a genuine dispute of material fact as to each of the claims and the district court further erred in enforcing the administrative exhaustion requirement because the defendants expressly waived it below. View "George v. Youngstown State University" on Justia Law

Two teachers at Roman Catholic elementary schools were employed under agreements that set out the schools’ mission to develop and promote a Catholic School faith community; imposed commitments regarding religious instruction, worship, and personal modeling of the faith; and explained that teachers’ performance would be reviewed on those bases. Each taught religion and worshipped with her students, prayed with her students. Each teacher sued after her employment was terminated. One claimed violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act; the other claimed she was discharged because she requested a leave of absence to obtain breast cancer treatment. The Ninth Circuit declined to apply the Supreme Court's 2012 Hosanna-Tabor “ministerial exception” to laws governing the employment relationship between a religious institution and certain key employees.The Supreme Court reversed. The First Amendment’s Religion Clauses foreclose the adjudication of employment disputes involving those holding certain important positions with churches and other religious institutions. Several factors may be important in determining whether a particular position falls within the ministerial exception. What matters is what an employee does. Educating young people in their faith, inculcating its teachings, and training them to live their faith lie are the core of a private religious school’s mission. The plaintiff-teachers qualify for the exception; both performed vital religious duties, educating their students in the Catholic faith, and guiding their students to live their lives in accordance with that faith. Their titles did not include the term “minister” but their schools expressly saw them as playing a vital role in carrying out the church’s mission. A religious institution’s explanation of the role of its employees in the life of the religion is important. The Ninth Circuit mistakenly treated the Hosanna-Tabor decision as a checklist; that court invested undue significance in the facts that these teachers did not have clerical titles and that they had less formal religious schooling than the Hosanna-Tabor teacher. The Court rejected a suggestion that an employee can never come within the Hosanna-Tabor exception unless the employee is a “practicing” member of the religion with which the employer is associated. View "Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the school district in an action brought by a student, alleging Title IX and constitutional claims stemming from her abuse by two school employees who were later criminally prosecuted.Under the Supreme Court's decision in Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District, a school district is not liable under Title IX for teacher-on-student harassment unless the district, among other things, had "actual notice" of the misconduct and was "deliberately indifferent" to it. The court held that the school peace officer is not an "appropriate person" for purposes of Title IX. The court also held that the school district did not have knowledge of prior acts of sexual harassment that provided actual knowledge of a risk of substantial harm under Title IX. Finally, the court held that the school district does not have municipal liability under 42 U.S.C. 1983. View "Doe v. Edgewood Independent School District" on Justia Law