Schools Have Discretion in Handling Student-on-Student Harassment

The standards for harassment are not identical in the workplace and the school as the law recognizes that some degree of teasing, bullying and even limited physical intimidation are unavoidable among children. However, when a student is denied access to educational benefits and opportunities as the result of harassment, the school may not sit idly by. Schools walk a fine line when monitoring and policing student-upon-student harassment. This fine line may have gotten a little wider in the recent Title IX case of C.R.K. v. USD 260, et. al., filed in a Kansas court.

A female student accused her ex-boyfriend, an older male student ("Martin"), of rape. For a full year, while the investigation was ongoing, Martin and his friends made subtle (and non-subtle) threats to the plaintiff, and followed her around the school. She reported these incidents to school administrators and teachers, some of whom were aware of the pending charge against the male student. In response, the school provided a security guard to walk her to class, and made arrangements to minimize contact between the plaintiff and Martin during extracurricular activities.

After Martin pled guilty to misdemeanor battery, admitting that he had touched the plaintiff after she had said "No," the school continued to attempt to keep the two separate without denying either access to any school function. The plaintiff did not feel that this was sufficient, preferring expulsion of Martin or banning him from school activities. The plaintiff filed suit against the School District in 1997.

The Kansas court, relying on the "deliberate indifference" standard of liability set forth by the Supreme Court's decision in Davis v. Monroe County Bd. of Education, found that the school's attempts to synthesize its competing responsibilities were made in good faith and were not "clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances."

While the court did not stamp the school's actions with approval and was critical in some respects, it held that the Davis standard had been met, and the school had not been indifferent to the harassment. The court found that good-faith grounds existed for each of the school's decisions.

The court also made two observations constructing Title IX that are worth noting. First, only recipients of federal aid are amenable to suit under Title IX. Only the school district could be said to qualify by this standard, so all claims against individual defendants were dismissed outright. Second, the court expressed doubt that the plaintiff was truly making a sexual harassment claim cognizable under Title IX. The harassment at school was not sexual in nature, but arose from a sexual incident. The court expressed doubt that this association was enough. However, the court declined to rule definitively on this question. Instead, they assumed that Title IX applied and dismissed unequivocally.