Davis v. Monroe County Bd. of Educ.

• Decision Date: 14 February 1996
• Docket Number: No. 94-9121,94-9121
• Citation: 74 F.3d 1186
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit
• Parties: , 106 Ed. Law Rep. 486 Aurelia DAVIS, a/n/f of Lashonda D., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MONROE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, Charles Dumas and Bill Querry, Defendants-Appellees.

Page 1186

74 F.3d 1186

64 USLW 2521, 106 Ed. Law Rep. 486

Aurelia DAVIS, a/n/f of Lashonda D., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MONROE COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION, Charles Dumas and Bill Querry, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 94-9121.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

Feb. 14, 1996.

Marcia Greenberger, Verna Williams, Deborah Brake, The National Women's Law Center, Washington, DC, for appellant.

Wallace Warren Plowden, Jr., William T. Prescott, Macon, GA, for appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

Before BIRCH and BARKETT, Circuit Judges, and HENDERSON, Senior Circuit Judge.

BARKETT, Circuit Judge:

Aurelia Davis, as mother and next friend of LaShonda D., appeals the district court's order dismissing her claims under Title IX and Sec. 1983 against the Monroe County Board of Education ("Board"), Board Superintendent Charles Dumas and elementary school Principal Bill Querry (collectively "defendants"). Davis' complaint for injunctive relief and compensatory damages alleged that LaShonda was sexually harassed on a continuous basis by a male, fifth-grade classmate, that defendants knew of the harassment yet failed to take any meaningful action to stop it and protect her, and that LaShonda suffered harm as a result of their failure to act. The defendants' failure to act, Davis asserted, discriminated against LaShonda and denied her the benefits of a public education in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. Secs. 1681-88 (1988). Davis also claimed that defendants' omissions violated LaShonda's liberty interest to be free from sexual harassment and from intrusions on her personal security in violation of her substantive due process rights under the United States Constitution.

The district court dismissed the Title IX claim against the Board, concluding that

[t]he sexually harassing behavior of a fellow fifth grader is not part of a school program or activity. Plaintiff does not allege that the Board or an employee of the Board had any role in the harassment. Thus, any harm to LaShonda was not proximately caused by a federally-funded educational provider.

Aurelia D. v. Monroe County Bd. of Educ., 862 F.Supp. 363, 367 (M.D.Ga.1994). The court also dismissed the Sec. 1983 due process claims against the Board and the individual defendants.

On appeal, Davis argues that the court erred by dismissing her Title IX claim against the Board ¹ and by dismissing her Sec. 1983 due process claims against all defendants. She also contends that she made an equal protection claim on which the district court failed to rule. Because we find them without merit, we reject Davis' arguments regarding the due process and equal protection claims without further discussion. See 11th Cir. Rule 36-1. For the reasons that follow, however, we conclude that Davis' allegations that the Board knowingly permitted a hostile environment created by another student's sexual harassment of LaShonda state a valid Title IX claim against the Board and accordingly we reverse the dismissal of her complaint as to that claim.

I. BACKGROUND

Davis' factual allegations, presumed as true in our review of a motion to dismiss, Duke v. Cleveland, 5 F.3d 1399, 1402 (11th Cir.1993), can be summarized as follows. Over the six-month period between December 1992 and May 1993, "G.F.," a fellow fifth-grader at a Monroe County elementary school, sexually harassed and/or abused LaShonda by attempting to fondle her, fondling her, and directing offensive language toward her. In December, for instance, G.F. attempted to touch LaShonda's breasts and vaginal area, telling her, "I want to get in bed with you," and "I want to feel your boobs." Two similar incidents occurred in January 1993. In February, G.F. placed a doorstop in his pants and behaved in a sexually suggestive manner toward LaShonda. Other incidents occurred later in February and in March. In April, G.F. rubbed against LaShonda in the hallway in a sexually suggestive manner. G.F.'s actions increased in severity until he finally was charged with and pled guilty to sexual battery in May 1993.

LaShonda reported G.F. to her teachers and her mother after each of the incidents and, after all but one of the incidents, Davis called the teacher and/or the principal to see what could be done to protect her daughter. The requests for protection went unfulfilled. Following one incident, for example, LaShonda and other girls whom G.F. had sexually harassed asked their teacher for permission to report G.F.'s harassment to the principal. The teacher denied the request, telling the girls, "[i]f he [the principal] wants you, he'll call you." After LaShonda told her mother of another incident of harassment, adding that she "didn't know how much longer she could keep him off her," Davis spoke with Principal Querry and asked what action would be taken to protect LaShonda. Querry responded, "I guess I'll have to threaten him [G.F.] a little bit harder," and he later asked LaShonda "why she was the only one complaining." LaShonda and Davis also asked that LaShonda, who had an assigned seat next to G.F., be allowed to move to a different seat. Even this request was refused and she was not allowed to move her seat away from G.F. until after she had complained for over three months. School officials never removed or disciplined G.F. in any manner for his sexual harassment of LaShonda.

Finally, the complaint alleged that G.F.'s uncurbed and unrestrained conduct severely curtailed LaShonda's ability to benefit from her elementary school education, lessening her capacity to concentrate on her schoolwork and causing her grades, previously all As and Bs, to suffer. The harassment also had a debilitating effect on her mental and emotional well-being, causing her to write a suicide note in April 1993.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Reviewing the claim de novo, we will uphold the dismissal only if it appears beyond a doubt that the allegations in the complaint do not constitute a claim upon which relief may be granted. Hunnings v. Texaco, Inc., 29 F.3d 1480, 1484 (11th Cir.1994). "The issue is not whether a plaintiff will ultimately prevail but whether the claimant is entitled to offer evidence to support the claims." Taylor v. Ledbetter, 818 F.2d 791, 794 n. 4 (11th Cir.1987) (en banc), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1065, 109 S.Ct. 1337, 103 L.Ed.2d 808 (1989) (quotation omitted).

III. DISCUSSION

Title IX provides in pertinent part as follows:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance....

20 U.S.C. Sec. 1681(a) (1988). It is undisputed that the Monroe County School System is a recipient of federal financial assistance. Accordingly, the issue before us is whether the Board's alleged failure to take action to stop G.F.'s sexual harassment of LaShonda "excluded [her] from participation in, ... denied [her] the benefits of, or ... subjected [her] to discrimination under" the Monroe County educational system on the basis of her sex.

Davis argues that the Board's failure to stop the sexual harassment discriminated against LaShonda and denied her the benefits of her education on the basis of sex. In support of this argument, Davis urges us to apply sexual harassment principles from the more extensive caselaw of Title VII, which prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace. ² In relevant part, Title VII requires an employer to take steps to assure that the working environment of its employees is free from sexual harassment ³ that is "sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim's employment and create an abusive working environment." Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 67, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 2405, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986) (quotation omitted). The Board contends, however, that Title VII principles are not applicable to Title IX cases such as the present one.

Enacted in 1972, Title IX was designed to protect individuals from sex discrimination by denying federal financial aid to those educational institutions that bear responsibility for sexually discriminatory practices. Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677, 704 & n. 36, 99 S.Ct. 1946, 1961 & n. 36, 60 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) (citing 117 Cong.Rec. 39252 (1971)). "It is a strong and comprehensive measure which ... is needed if we are to provide women with solid legal protection as they seek education and training for later careers...." Id. at 704 n. 36, 99 S.Ct. at 1961 n. 36 (quoting Sen. Birch Bayh, 118 Cong.Rec. 5806-07 (1972)). To accomplish this goal, employees and students of federally funded educational institutions who are discriminated against on the basis of sex have a private right of action under Title IX for injunctive relief and compensatory damages. Id. at 717, 99 S.Ct. at 1968; Franklin v. Gwinnett County Pub. Schs., 503 U.S. 60, 75-76, 112 S.Ct. 1028, 1037-38, 117 L.Ed.2d 208 (1992). Moreover, in interpreting Title IX, "[t]here is no doubt that if we are to give [it] the scope that its origins dictate, we must accord it a sweep as broad as its language." North Haven Bd. of Educ. v. Bell, 456 U.S. 512, 521, 102 S.Ct. 1912, 1918, 72 L.Ed.2d 299 (1982) (quotation omitted).

Although the Supreme Court recognized a private right of action under Title IX in 1979, see Cannon, 441 U.S. at 717, 99 S.Ct. at 1968, until recently the denial of financial aid to the institution was the only remedy available to a Title IX plaintiff. Accordingly, early lawsuits brought under Title IX primarily challenged discriminatory practices in athletic programs and admissions policies. See, e.g., id. at 680, 99 S.Ct. at 1949. In 1992, however, the Supreme Court unanimously allowed monetary damages to private plaintiffs for intentional violations of Title IX, see Franklin, 503 U.S. at 76, 112 S.Ct. at 1038,...