Opinion ID: 2735154
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Reasonableness of the District’s Response

Text: The standard of deliberate indifference sets a high bar for plaintiffs under Title VI and Title IX. See Davis, 526 U.S. at 643. School administrators must “continue to enjoy the flexibility they require” in disciplinary decisions unless their response to harassment is “clearly unreasonable.” Id. at 648– 49. The Court stressed in Davis that Title IX does not require administrators to “engage in particular disciplinary action.” Id. at 648. We echoed this concern in Gabrielle M. We said that a “school may take into consideration administrative burdens or the disruption of other students’ or their teachers’ schedules in determining an appropriate response [to peer harassment].” 315 F.3d at 825. As the Fifth Circuit has observed, “Judges make poor vice principals … .” Estate of Lance v. Lewisville Indep. School Dist., 743 F.3d 982, 996 (5th Cir. 2014). Doe argues that the school officials knew about a pattern of non-severe harassment by T.M. and his friends during sixth grade and early in seventh grade, and that based on that pattern, the school should have done more to investigate and to prevent the violent acts that were committed against Doe at the end of the seventh grade. If we accepted that argument, however, we would be substituting a negligence standard for both the severity and deliberate indifference standards that control this case under Davis. We agree instead with the district court that no reasonable jury could find that the defendants responded with deNo. 13-2551 15 liberate indifference to any of the bullying or harassment that Doe suffered, including both the severe and non-severe incidents. In Gabrielle M., we affirmed the grant of summary judgment in a Title IX case partly on the ground that the school district’s response to the peer harassment at issue was not clearly unreasonable. 315 F.3d at 825. We emphasized: “After each reported or observed instance involving Jason [the harasser] and other students, Jason was disciplined and steps were taken to prevent future inappropriate conduct.” Id. at 824. Similarly in this case, after every reported or observed incident of bullying involving Doe, school officials promptly intervened. As the incidents persisted and escalated, so did the school’s responses. The first incidents between Doe and T.M. occurred in the sixth grade. School officials responded adequately to each incident they knew about. When T.M. erased some of Doe’s work in English class and Doe told the teacher, the teacher spoke with T.M. and explained that what he did was wrong. When the gym teacher saw T.M. throw a ball at Doe in gym class, the gym teacher involved counselor Lakatos, who also spoke with Doe about the name-calling between her and T.M. The involvement of guidance counselors and school psychologists is evidence that a school district was responding appropriately. Porto v. Town of Tewksbury, 488 F.3d 67, 76 (1st Cir. 2007); Gabrielle M., 315 F.3d at 824. When the problems between Doe and T.M. resurfaced in the second half of the seventh grade, the undisputed facts show that school officials again responded swiftly and reasonably to incidents they knew about. When a teacher saw T.M. dump Doe’s papers on the floor, he ordered T.M. to help her pick them up. When M.C. knocked papers off her 16 No. 13-2551 desk, a teacher intervened. When the band director noticed Doe and T.M. pushing in band class, he gave both of them detention. In addition, counselor Lakatos continued to meet with Doe about once or twice a week. School officials also took measures to reduce contact between Doe and T.M. by moving their lockers, assigning them to different study groups, and asking them to agree to stay away from each other. We found similar efforts showed that a school’s response to harassment was not clearly unreasonable in Gabrielle M., where school administrators assigned the victim and harasser to different lunch and recess periods. 315 F.3d at 824–25. Similarly, in Porto v. Town of Tewksbury, the First Circuit overturned a jury verdict and found that the school district was not deliberately indifferent because officials had taken measures to separate the victims from their harassers. 488 F.3d at 76. The serious violence of the last day of school sparked a further escalation in the school’s response to the bullying. On that day, school officials responded promptly to two observed incidents. When a teacher saw T.M. and his friends chasing Doe with sticks, the teacher had the boys put the sticks down. And later, when another teacher saw Doe throw ice cream at T.M. and T.M. push Doe down into a mud puddle, she sent them both to Hinz’s office, and Hinz telephoned the students’ parents. Courts applying the deliberate indifference standard from Davis have regarded the involvement of parents as evidence that a school district is responding to harassment in a reasonable manner. See, e.g., Estate of Lance, 743 F.3d at 1000–01 (applying Davis standard to affirm summary judgment for school district; finding no deliberate indifference where district engaged in a “pattern No. 13-2551 17 of active responses” that included communicating with parents). Doe’s and her father’s visit to Principal Galster later that day prompted his investigation into what exactly T.M. and his friends had been up to. In his investigation, Galster learned the full extent of what the boys had been doing to Doe on the last day of school—hitting her violently with sticks. He also learned about the track-meet incident and the incident in which T.M. punched Doe’s face. Galster completed a thorough investigation, including interviewing witnesses, within twelve days of learning of the severe harassment. Cf. Zeno, 702 F.3d at 661, 671 (affirming a jury verdict for plaintiff for peer harassment where school district’s Title VI and Title IX compliance officer knew of reports of racial harassment but “elected not to investigate”). Not long after the investigation, Galster met with the Does and informed them of his decision to recommend the three boys for expulsion. Doe points out, however, that over the summer, the school district did not give her a formal safety plan even though her parents requested one. Nor did the school district grant her request to transfer to a different school. The school district also did not inform the Does that the three boys would not be returning to Pilgrim Park before the family decided to move to another school district at the end of August 2008. These facts still would not allow a reasonable jury to find that the defendants’ actions were clearly unreasonable. First, Davis does not entitle plaintiffs to any specific remedial measure. E.g., Zeno, 702 F.3d at 666 (disclaiming a victim’s right to specific remedies and according deference to school officials). The school was not required by federal law 18 No. 13-2551 to give Doe a formal safety plan. We also do not see how failing to adopt a formal safety plan could be clearly unreasonable in light of the fact that the harassing students were in the process of being expelled, making a safety plan less necessary. Second, it is true that in Gabrielle M., we regarded the fact that a school district granted the student-victim’s request to transfer to a different school as evidence that the school district’s response to her harassment was not clearly unreasonable. 315 F.3d at 825. But that does not make the denial of Doe’s request to transfer to a different school clearly unreasonable, at least when Doe’s harassers were in the process of being expelled and likely would not return to her school for eighth grade and in fact did not return. Finally, we do not think it clearly unreasonable that the school district failed to tell the Does by a specific date that summer that the boys would not be returning. As Superintendent Gibson correctly explained, although Doe’s family understandably would have liked to know what was happening in the boys’ expulsion hearings, school officials also had to respect the privacy rights of the disciplined students. See generally Wis. Stat. § 118.125 (confidentiality of pupil records). Given this tension between the legal rights of all the students involved, a reasonable jury could not find that it was clearly unreasonable for school officials not to inform the Does about the status of all three boys by the end of August. Nor is this a case where the school district responded with half-hearted remedial measures. See, e.g., Zeno, 702 F.3d at 668–71 (finding deliberate indifference where school district repeatedly gave the same ineffective warnings in reNo. 13-2551 19 sponse to known racial harassment). There was nothing halfhearted about the expulsion of the three boys. We do not mean to suggest here that expulsion of the harassers was the only reasonable disciplinary route. School-age bullies also have legal rights. See Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975). Federal law gives school officials wide discretion in making disciplinary decisions, especially as they have to balance the interests of all concerned. In this case, however, the forcefulness of expulsion certainly demonstrates how seriously the defendants took the boys’ bullying of Doe once they learned its full extent. The undisputed facts thus show that defendants’ responses to the known acts of severe peer harassment suffered by Doe in this case were not deliberately indifferent. We affirm the grant of summary judgment for the defendants on Doe’s Title VI and Title IX claims.