Opinion ID: 4556132
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Harassment on the Basis of Sex

Text: The district court decided that Ms. Doe failed to allege that the harassment she suffered was on the basis of sex. It reasoned that the facts alleged in the complaint “suggest that other students harassed her because they learned she had accused Student 1 of sexually assaulting her” and there was no allegation that “DPS responded differently when a male student made a similar accusation against another student at EHS nor any indication that it would have done so.” Doe v. Sch. Dist. No. 1, Denver, Colo., Civil Action No. 1:18-cv-03170-RM-STV, 2019 WL 3425236, at  (D. Colo. July 30, 2019). On appeal Ms. Doe argues that the harassment was “on the basis of sex” because the harassment was linked to the sexual assault by Student 1 and much of the harassment 12 involved sexually charged comments. For legal support she relies on an unpublished Second Circuit opinion which held that “‘[a] reasonable factfinder could conclude that when a fourteen-year-old girl reports a rape and then is persistently subjected by other students to verbal abuse that reflects sex-based stereotypes and questions the veracity of her account, the harassment would not have occurred but for the girl’s sex.’” Aplt. Br. at 14 (quoting Doe v. East Haven Bd. of Educ., 200 F. App’x. 46, 48 (2d Cir. 2006)). For the factual predicate of her argument, Ms. Doe points to her complaint’s specific allegations that Student 1 had raped her and that his associates harassed her by calling her a “dirty slut,” making rape jokes about her assailant, telling her that she would be the first to lose her virginity, and sending her a group Snapchat message that “[c]onsent is a myth.” There are also allegations that Student 1’s associates engaged in sex-neutral but hostile conduct toward her, such as pulling on her backpack, drawing pictures of her killing herself, telling her she should kill herself, and threatening her with physical violence. DPS responds that “[h]arassment for reporting misconduct is not the same as harassment because of gender,” Aplee. Br. at 12, and that Ms. Doe was not harassed “on the basis of sex” because her complaint alleges that the harassment was motivated by retaliatory animus toward Ms. Doe for reporting Student 1 to school authorities for assaulting her. This argument relies on our opinion in Seamons v. Snow, 84 F.3d 1226 (10th Cir. 1996). The plaintiff in that case had been sexually assaulted by his football teammates as part of a hazing ritual in which he was taped naked to a towel rack in the locker room and a female student was brought into the locker room to view him while his 13 teammates looked on. See id. at 1230. After he reported the incident, the school district responded by cancelling the football team’s last game of the season, which caused him to be “branded as the cause of the football team’s demise,” “threatened[,] and harassed.” Id. He claimed that school administrators discriminated against him by “fail[ing] properly to investigate the taping incident and to take disciplinary action against the students involved, creating a hostile environment.” Id. at 1232. We held that his claim failed because the discriminatory actions against him were not on the basis of sex: “[T]he facts as alleged tend to show only that [the plaintiff] was treated as he was because others felt he ‘betrayed’ the team by reporting the incident to the relevant authorities and by failing to apologize.” Id. at 1233. DPS says that just like the harassment of the plaintiff in Seamons, the harassment of Ms. Doe in this case was motivated by her reporting the sexual assault to school authorities and not her sex. In our view, Ms. Doe has adequately alleged discrimination on the basis of sex. First, we believe that it is a factual question whether the harassment of Ms. Doe was exclusively motivated by a desire to retaliate for her reporting that she had been sexually assaulted. In particular, a factfinder could decide that the comments that were sexual in nature—such as those relating to consent and the loss of her virginity—were harassment based on sex that went beyond gender-neutral harassment motivated only by a desire to retaliate against one who reports misconduct. Second, Seamons is readily distinguishable. It was a narrow holding under unique, peculiar facts. The case presented a limited claim that did not challenge the initial taping incident nor did it allege any sexual content in the School District’s 14 response other than a general nonspecific conclusion that the School District hypothetically might have handled a female athlete’s complaint differently. Third, and dispositively, after Seamons was decided, the Supreme Court held, directly contrary to what the District reads into Seamons, that retaliation for reporting sex discrimination comes within the meaning of the statutory language prohibiting discrimination “on the basis of sex.” See Jackson v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ., 544 U.S. 167 (2005). The factual question described above—whether the harassment was motivated solely by the report of the sexual assault—is therefore irrelevant to the dispute between the parties. As Jackson explained: Retaliation against a person because that person has complained of sex discrimination is another form of intentional sex discrimination encompassed by Title IX’s private cause of action. Retaliation is, by definition, an intentional act. It is a form of ‘discrimination’ because the complainant is being subjected to differential treatment. Moreover, retaliation is discrimination ‘on the basis of sex’ because it is an intentional response to the nature of the complaint: an allegation of sex discrimination. Id. at 173-74 (citations omitted). An allegation that the plaintiff was harassed for reporting misconduct can therefore suffice to state a claim for discrimination on the basis of sex if the misconduct reported is itself sex discrimination. Applying Jackson to the case before us, the sexual assault that Ms. Doe complained about was an act of sex discrimination. See Rene v. MGM Grand Hotel, Inc., 305 F.3d 1061, 1065 (9th Cir. 2002) (“Physical sexual assault has routinely been prohibited as sexual harassment under Title VII.”); see also id. at 1065–66 (collecting cases holding that physical sexual assault is sexual harassment). Hence, any harassment of her that was motivated by retaliatory animus for her complaint was “an intentional 15 response to the nature of [her] complaint” and was therefore “discrimination ‘on the basis of sex.’” Jackson, 544 U.S. at 173–74; see Feminist Majority Found. v. Hurley, 911 F.3d 674, 695 (4th Cir. 2018) (“[W]e are satisfied that an educational institution can be liable for acting with deliberate indifference toward known instances of student-on-student retaliatory harassment.”); cf. Fuller v. Idaho Dep’t of Corr., 865 F.3d 1154, 1166–67 (9th Cir. 2017) (“[W]hen an employer acts in a way that effectively condones or ratifies a rape or sexual assault and its effects, a jury may reasonably infer that the employer itself is discriminating because of sex.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Thus, in light of Jackson, we can only conclude that Ms. Doe’s complaint adequately alleges that her harassment by other students was on the basis of sex.