Opinion ID: 170152
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Unreasonable Response Excluded K.C. From School

Text: The majority also holds that even if the school district's non-response was unreasonable, the district is not liable because K.C. suffered no more harassment after she left school on January 16, 2003. This misunderstands Title IX. Title IX forbids a school district from exclud[ing] students on the basis of their sex. 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a). A district is liable for student-on-student sexual harassment that effectively bars the victim's access to an educational opportunity or benefit. Davis, 526 U.S. at 633, 119 S.Ct. 1661. Thus, if the district's deliberate indifference to K.C.'s sexual harassment is responsible for her decision, on advice of her psychiatrist, not to return to the school, the district is liable for illegally excluding her. The majority states that the district's response did not cause K.C. to undergo harassment or make her liable or vulnerable to it. Maj. Op. 1123-24. But the reason K.C. did not undergo additional harassment is that she never went back to school. Moreover, there is evidence from which a jury could infer that the school's non-response to the boys' sexual harassment is what kept her away. K.C.'s psychiatrist advised Ms. Rost that it was important to help [K.C.] find a safer environment, especially considering that if she goes back to the exact same high school, she will be around [the boys.] R. 310. When asked why she had refused to send K.C. back to school, Ms. Rost testified that she was relying on the psychiatrist's recommendation not to return. The majority is therefore wrong to conclude that Ms. Rost would not have allowed K.C. to return to any school in the district under any circumstances,  Maj. Op. 1123 n. 2 (emphasis added). The record suggests that it was the undeterred presence of the boys that kept K.C. from returning to school. The fact that K.C. was not harassed after leaving the school does not entitle the district to summary judgment. It is true that in Davis the Supreme Court said that, to create liability, deliberate indifference must, at a minimum, cause students to undergo harassment or make them liable or vulnerable to it, Davis, 526 U.S. at 645, 119 S.Ct. 1661, but that comment must not be taken out of context. Davis elaborated the further-harassment requirement in explaining that it was not necessary . . . to show physical exclusion to demonstrate that students have been deprived [of their rights.] Id. at 651, 119 S.Ct. 1661. Davis never suggested that exclusion would not be sufficient to create liability and indeed said that [t]he most obvious example of student-on-student sexual harassment capable of triggering a damages claim would . . . involve the overt, physical deprivation of access to school resources. Id. at 650, 119 S.Ct. 1661. If a school's unreasonable inaction in response to sexual harassment makes further harassment reasonably certain, it would make no sense to impose liability only if a student returned for more abuse, but not if she stayed away and was effectively excluded from participation in school. 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a).