Opinion ID: 4556132
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Severe, Pervasive, and Objectively Offensive

Text: In Davis the Supreme Court declared that to be actionable under Title IX, the sexbased harassment by fellow students must be “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, and . . . [must] so undermine[] and detract[] from the victims’ educational experience, that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities.” 526 U.S. at 651. A reviewing court may consider “a constellation of surrounding circumstances, expectations, and relationships including, but not limited to, the ages of the harasser and the victim and the number of individuals involved[.]” Id. (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Ms. Doe’s complaint alleges that she was subjected to harassment by her peers more or less continuously from the time she reported Student 1 until she stopped attending regularly scheduled classes more than a year later. She says that she was called 16 a “dirty slut,” Aplt. App. at 23; blackmailed with nude photographs; told that “[c]onsent is a myth,” id. at 26, and that she would be the first to lose her virginity; and threatened with physical violence. She also alleges that a group of boys would start rumors about her, make rape jokes about her assailant to her, pull on her backpack, tell her to kill herself, and draw pictures of her killing herself. The district court ruled that it was “not persuaded that the few specific instances described in the complaint are adequate to show harassment that was pervasive and severe.” Doe, 2019 WL 3425236, at . It said that the allegations relating to the nature of the harassment were, for the most part, too conclusory to support a reasonable inference that DPS was liable for misconduct. We respectfully disagree. “A plaintiff should have—and must plead—at least some relevant information to make the claims plausible on their face.” Bekkem v. Wilkie, 915 F.3d 1258, 1275 (10th Cir. 2019) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted). But the plaintiff is not required to prove her case at the motion-to-dismiss stage. See id. at 1274 (“A complaint raising a claim of discrimination does not need to conclusively establish a prima facie case of discrimination.”). Further, matters of degree—such as severity and pervasiveness—are often best left to the jury. Thus, we have observed that “the severity and pervasiveness evaluation is particularly unsuited for summary judgment because it is quintessentially a question of fact,” O’Shea v. Yellow Tech. Servs., Inc., 185 F.3d 1093, 1098 (10th Cir. 1999); and it is even less suited for dismissal on the pleadings. These considerations are particularly potent here. Ms. Doe alleges that she was continuously harassed for a number of months. The complaint need not provide details 17 of the time, place, offender, and precise statement for every incident. Describing more than half a dozen of the types of things said to her, apparently repeatedly, can suffice, particularly when combined with her allegations that she reported ongoing and continuous harassment to school personnel almost monthly from the time of the sexual assault to the time she left the school. Adding to the evidence that the harassment was severe and pervasive are the allegations regarding the impact of the harassment on Ms. Doe and the evaluations of third parties. In particular, she alleges that by the spring semester of 2017 she was going to great lengths to structure her time at EHS to avoid contact with the students who were harassing her (eating lunch in the counselor’s office or teachers’ classrooms, using the back doors instead of the main entrance). And she alleges that two teachers and one counselor were sufficiently concerned to contact school administrators for their help. Cf. Asebedo v. Kan. State Univ., 559 F. App’x 668, 671 (10th Cir. 2014) (allegation that employer’s own internal investigations determined that the plaintiff had been subjected to a hostile environment supported a reasonable inference that he was, in fact, subjected to a hostile work environment). Such reactions would be uncommon responses to minor teasing or banter. Further, the specifics that Ms. Doe provides (being called a dirty slut, being told to kill herself, etc.) support an inference that the harassment was objectively offensive. In our view, Ms. Doe has adequately alleged that her harassment was severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive. 18