Court Opinion

ID: 9490543
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:46:34.852253+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:09.669041
License: Public Domain

CARNES, Circuit Judge,
concurring specially:
I concur in the holding that Title IX does not create a cause of action against public school boards or officials for failure to prevent or remedy student-student sexual harassment. In my view, that holding is correct for essentially those reasons stated in Parts I, II, III A, and IV of Judge Tjoflat’s opinion, and I join those parts of it, which constitute the opinion of the Court. However, for the reasons explained below, I do not join Parts III B and C of Judge Tjoflat’s opinion, which express only his own views.1
I.
The “Hobson’s choice” or “whipsaw liability” discussion in Part III B of the opinion is based upon a fundamentally erroneous premise. If school officials could be sued for failing to prevent or remedy student-student sexual harassment, that part of the opinion says, the potential liability would amount to a financial incentive to punish the accused harassers, which would or could render school officials impermissibly biased and require re-cusal. Of course, a student does have a property interest in a public education which is protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.2 And, due pro*1408cess does require that a decision depriving the student of that property interest be made by someone who does not have a pecuniary interest in having the student suspended or expelled. To take an extreme example, regardless of any other process afforded, due process would be violated if a principal took a bribe from the complaining student’s parents in return for suspending or expelling the alleged wrongdoer.. • But it is an entirely different matter to suggest, as Part III B of the opinion does, that a school official’s potential liability to the complaining student if that official fails to take legally required action amounts to a “financial incentive” which renders that official “impermissibly biased” and requires recusal from deciding what action, if any, is required in the circumstances. As authority for that novel proposition, the opinion cites only Gibson v. Berryhill, 411 U.S. 564, 579, 93 S.Ct. 1689, 1698, 36 L.Ed.2d 488 (1973). The Gibson decision provides no support for the proposition, because it does not hold, or even imply, that an official’s potential liability for failing to properly exercise decisionmaking authority constitutes a “financial incentive” which renders the official “impermissibly biased.”
Gibson involved a state optometry board composed exclusively of private practitioners who were in competition with corporate employee optometrists. Those board members had a substantial pecuniary interest in excluding from the market corporate employee optometrists, who accounted for nearly half of all the practicing optometrists in the state. The Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s holding that the private practitioner’s pecuniary interest in eliminating competition disqualified them from deciding whether the practice of optometry by corporate employees as such constituted unprofessional conduct justifying license revocation. See 411 U.S. at 578-79, 93 S.Ct. at 1698. That holding does not support the proposition that any time an official can be sued for failing to respond properly to a complaint that official is disqualified from making a decision about how to respond to the complaint.
If that suggested proposition were the law of this circuit — and thankfully it is not — no school official could ever discipline a student for any alleged misconduct as a result of another student’s complaint without violating the due process rights of the disciplined student. The reason such an imposition of discipline would violate due process is that such an official would always have a financial incentive, under that view, to believe the complaint in order to avoid a lawsuit filed by the complainant. The ramifications of such a rule would extend to discipline for any type of misconduct, because there is no principled basis on which a distinction can be drawn between discipline following a complaint about sexual harassment and that following a complaint about any other type of misconduct.
Nor is there any principled basis by which such an automatic disqualification rule could be confined to school settings. It would also apply outside the Title IX context; for example, in jail and prison settings. If one prisoner complains to a jailer or warden about what some other prisoner has done to him, under Judge Tjoflat’s view that official will have a financial interest in avoiding a lawsuit from the complaining prisoner (alleging deliberate indifference), and such an interest disqualifies the official from making any disciplinary decision about the complaint. So, not only would the disqualification rule be automatic, it also would be universal. No one would be able to decide any disciplinary matters in schools, in prisons, or in any other setting *1409within the purview of the Due Process Clause. All federal, state, or local officials called upon to decide what to do in response to one person’s complaint about another would have a financial incentive to avoid a lawsuit, which would disqualify them from making a decision. That cannot be the law, and it is not the law.
Judge Tjoflat’s response to having these flaws in his reasoning pointed out is contained in footnote 21 of his opinion, which will reward close scrutiny. First, that footnote assures us that we should not worry about the far-reaching ramifications of the suggestion that potential liability equals disqualifying bias, because this Court is holding that school officials have no liability under Title IX for student-student sexual harassment. Apparently forgotten is the assurance, in Part IV of the opinion, that “Georgia tort law may indeed provide redress” for the very same conduct. If a school official’s potential liability for not acting properly is a disqualifying financial interest, it matters not whether that potential liability is posed by Title IX or by state tort law. The opinion does not, and logically cannot, suggest otherwise. Instead, it adopts a head-in-the-sand approach which ignores everything but Title IX, as though that were the only potential source of liability for school officials who are called upon to decide what to do about student-student sexual harassment complaints.
With its head comfortably in the sand, the opinion also ignores entirely the obvious implications of its proposition for student-student disputes involving allegations of misbehavior other than sexual harassment. Part of the quotidian business of teachers and principals is resolving disputes in which one student alleges another has threatened, hit, stolen from, or otherwise mistreated him or her. Some of those disputes pose potential liability for the teacher or principal who fails to act. For example, a school official who fails to take appropriate action to protect a student from a threatened thrashing at the hands of another student may have to answer in a state court tort action. Under the reasoning contained in Part III B of the opinion, that potential liability would prevent any school official from deciding what to do about such a complaint, because that official’s potential liability to the complaining student would amount to a disqualifying financial bias. A careful reading of the opinion reveals that it fails to explain why that result would not necessarily follow from its suggested reasoning.
As to settings outside the school context, footnote 21 of the opinion offers two responses to this criticism. First, it simply denies— <cWe suggest nothing of the kind” — that its proposition about potential liability equaling disqualifying bias would have any application outside the schoolhouse. That ipse dixit assertion has as little reasoning behind it as the proposition itself. The opinion fails to offer any reason why the automatic bias theory it suggests would not apply in non-school contexts, because there is no reason. The right to an unbiased decision maker is a rudiment of due process, which is as applicable outside schools as within them.
Apparently realizing that the ipse dixit approach will not shield the naked illogie of its position from view, the opinion attempts to camouflage the problem with talk of immunity. “Don’t worry,” we are told, officials in non-school settings have “immunity from suit” which removes any potential liability for failing to decide for the complaining party, and any financial incentive to favor that party disappears along with the potential liability. The thinnest stripe of the attempted camouflage is the opinion’s reference to judicial immunity. We are not talking about judges. We are talking about the myriad of federal, state, and local non-judicial officials who are regularly called upon to decide what to do in response to one person’s complaint about another. Jailers, wardens, and other corrections officials are but a few examples. These people are not judges. They do not enjoy judicial immunity.
Even so, the opinion says, there is qualified immunity. There are three problems with the assertion that the availability of qualified immunity distinguishes non-school officials from school. officials by removing any threat of lawsuit by a complaining party dissatisfied with an official’s resolution of a complaint outside the school setting. First, qualified immunity is not absolute. Second, *1410qualified immunity does not shield officials from liability grounded on state law. Third, and most obviously, the doctrine of qualified immunity is the same for school officials as for non-school officials. If that doctrine shields non-school officials from threat of lawsuit sufficiently to remove any disqualifying financial incentive to decide for a complainant, it does exactly the same for school officials. Thus, with its talk of qualified immunity, Part III B of the opinion has succeeded in reaching around and biting itself in the back. If what Judge Tjoflat’s opinion says about the due process implications of qualified immunity is true, then the opinion has disproven the very proposition it is seekr ing to defend.
II.
Part III C of Judge Tjoflat’s opinion attempts to establish that student-student sexual harassment is such a widespread and extensive problem that a different holding in this case would impose massive liability upon school officials and boards. In its words, agreeing with appellant’s theory of liability would give rise to “thousands of lawsuits.” Tjoflat Opinion at n.25. The factual premise of that reasoning is based entirely upon one survey report. See American Ass’n of Univ. Women Educ. Found., Hostile Hallways: The AAUW Survey on Sexual Harassment in American Schools (1993) (hereinafter “AAUW Survey Report ”).
The AAUW Survey Report was not the subject of an evidentiary hearing in the district court, nor has it been examined in a hearing in any other court insofar as we know. Neither party to this appeal even mentioned the survey in the briefs; it was discussed only in one amicus brief. In general, we should be reluctant to incorporate into our reasoning the results of a survey that has not been examined critically or tested in a trial or evidentiary hearing, the time-honored and proven methods our system of justice uses to determine material facts.
Beyond the general problems with using surveys in judicial decision making, there are specific reasons why employment of this particular survey for the purpose Judge Tjoflat uses it in Part III C of his opinion is ill-advised. That purpose, of course, is to show student-student sexual harassment is so rampant that if a cause of action existed for it the resulting flood of litigation would inundate our public school systems, or at least school officials would have a basis for fearing that result — the basis being the survey.
The first reason we ought to be especially cautious about such a use of this particular survey is that its purported findings are, in the words of the sponsors of the survey: “startling,” and for some “the results will be surprising and shocking.” Id. at 2. The reason for such descriptions is that it is difficult to believe that 65 percent of all eighth through eleventh grade students have been sexually harassed by other students, and that half of all female and male students in those grades are self-professed sexual harassers. We ought to be reluctant to accept as fact, or assume that school officials would accept as fact, such “surprising and shocking” statistics based upon a single survey of only a tiny fraction of one percent of the total number of students in four grades.
Even a cursory look at the survey report gives more reason to be dubious about the opinion’s use of the report. The survey asked students how often “[djuring your whole school life” has anyone “when you did not want them to” done any of the following things, and it then provided a list of behavior the survey defined as sexual harassment. See id. at 5. Some behavior on that list clearly constitutes sexually harassing behavior of the most serious type. But included in the list is other behavior that is less serious and far less likely to lead to complaints and litigation, which is what Judge Tjoflat uses the survey to predict (or posits that school boards will use it to predict). For example, included in the survey’s definitional list of sexual harassment was any instance in which another student: “Made sexual comments, jokes, gestures, or looks;” or “[sjpread sexual rumors about you;” or “[sjaid you were gay or lesbian.” Id. at 5. Remember that a single unwelcome instance of such activity, during the student’s entire school life, renders that student a victim of sexual harassment for purposes of the survey.
*1411A student who has ever been looked at by another student in an unwelcome way perceived to be sexual is defined by the survey to be a sexual harassment victim. Any student ever called gay or lesbian is also a sexual harassment victim in the survey’s view. Any time unwelcome rumors are spread about a student having any type of sexual activity (presumably including kissing) with another student, those students are sexual harassment victims as the survey defines it. To take one final example of how the total incidence of “sexual harassment” reported overstates legally actionable incidents of sexual harassment, consider that the survey definition includes incidents in which someone “[f]lashed or ‘mooned’ you.” Id. at 5. Suppose that a student at a school function (which the survey defines to include school sporting events and field trips) “moons” all the students in attendance, or all those from a rival school. A single episode of that misbehavior — which is not nice and certainly should not occur, but has been known to happen — could make sexual harassment victims, as the survey defines the term, out of scores or even hundreds of students. Yet, such an incident is extremely unlikely to result in litigation against the school.
It is also worthy of note that the survey asked students whether the behavior it defined as sexual harassment had happened to them “[d]uring your whole school life.” Id. at 5. Therefore, the 65 percent figure reflects those who have experienced that behavior at any time during any school year of their life. It does not purport to be annual data.
Finally, Part III C of Judge Tjoflat’s opinion fails to point out that the survey also asked the students if any of them who had been sexually harassed, as that term was defined in the survey; had told a teacher about the experience. Only 7 percent of the sixty-five percent had. See AAUW Survey Report at 14. Whatever the reasons for not reporting such behavior to a teacher, the failure to do so in all but the rarest instances has obvious implications for the existence of causes of action against schools or the likelihood of actual litigation.
The opinion attempts to deflect criticism about misuse of the survey by suggesting that while the opinion’s author does not necessarily think that the survey is a valid indicator of how much student-student sexual harassment occurs, school boards might think that the survey is and reject federal funding as a result of it. With all due respect, there is no reason to believe that school boards would be less likely than federal judges to see the flaws in such an interpretation of the survey. School boards know more about what is going on in their schools than we do, and they can be expected to critically examine any survey before using it as a basis for turning down federal funding for their schools. Rather than hiding behind speculation about how school board officials might interpret the survey, the opinion ought to face up to the flaws in its suggested use of the survey.
Upon its release, the sponsors of the survey stated that they were “confident that the results of this survey will become a focal point on the agendas of policy makers, educators, and others concerned with the education of America’s children.” Id. at 21. Their confidence about how the survey would be used might be undermined by Part III C of Judge Tjoflat’s opinion. More importantly, we are not policymakers. We do not have agendas. We ought to leave this survey to those who do.
III.
The parts of Judge Tjoflat’s opinion that neither I nor any other member of the Court except its author joins, Parts III B and C, are not necessary to the opinion’s essential reasoning or to the holding of this case. Neither the language of Title IX nor its legislative history indicates that Congress intended to saddle school boards and officials with liability for student-student sexual harassment, and school boards had no notice that such liability would result from accepting Title IX funds. For those reasons, I do join the holding of the Court and Parts I, II, III A, and IV of Judge Tjoflat’s opinion.
BARKETT, Circuit Judge, dissenting, in which HATCHETT, Chief Judge, and KRAVTTCH and HENDERSON, Senior Circuit Judges, join:
In this case it is alleged that a fifth-grade student, LaShonda Davis, was sexually ha*1412rassed for over six months at school by another student, culminating in a sexual battery for which her harasser pled guilty in state court. It is also alleged that school officials were completely aware of the escalating gravity of the situation and took no meaningful action to deter it. The majority holds that no matter how egregious — or even criminal — the harassing discriminatory conduct may be, and no matter how cognizant of it supervisors may become — a teacher could observe it directly and regularly — -there would be no obligation to take any action to prevent it under the very law which was passed to eliminate sexual discrimination in our public schools. To reach this conclusion the majority ignores the plain meaning of Title IX as well as its spirit and purpose. I suggest that under appropriate statutory analysis as well as Supreme Court precedent, Davis has stated a cause of action.
The first principle in statutory analysis requires that a statute be accorded the plain meaning of its text. It is well established that “[cjourts must assume that Congress intended the ordinary meaning of the words it used, and absent a clearly expressed legislative intent to the contrary, that language is generally dispositive.” Gonzalez v. McNary, 980 F.2d 1418, 1420 (11th Cir.1993) (internal citation omitted). The Supreme Court has emphasized that “only the most extraordinary showing of contrary intentions from [legislative history] would justify a limitation on the ‘plain meaning’ of the statutory language.” Garcia v. United States, 469 U.S. 70, 75, 105 S.Ct. 479, 482, 83 L.Ed.2d 472 (1984). The text of Title IX provides in pertinent part:
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance----
20 U.S.C. § 1681(a). There is no ambiguity in this language. It is undisputed that the Monroe County School System is a recipient of federal financial assistance. It is also well established that hostile environment sexual harassment is a form of intentional discrimination which exposes one sex to disadvantageous terms or conditions to which members of the other sex are not exposed. See Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 64, 106 S.Ct. 2399, 2404, 91 L.Ed.2d 49 (1986); see also Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools, 503 U.S. 60, 75, 112 S.Ct. 1028, 1037-38, 117 L.Ed.2d 208 (1992) (hostile environment for student created by teacher is a form of discrimination cognizable under Title IX). The absolute prohibition contained in the text is framed solely in terms of who is protected. The identity of the perpetrator is- simply irrelevant under the language: “No person ... shall ... be excluded from participation ..., be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination____” Thus, under the statute’s plain language, liability hinges upon whether the grant recipient maintained an educational environment that excluded any person from participating, denied them benefits, or subjected them to discrimination.
Should one need to interpret the statute, it must initially be noted that Title IX was designed to protect individuals from sex discrimination by denying federal financial aid to those educational institutions that bear responsibility for sexually discriminatory practices. Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U.S. 677, 704 & n. 36, 99 S.Ct. 1946, 1961 & n. 36, 60 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979) (citing 117 Cong. Rec. 39252 (1971)). “It is a strong and comprehensive measure which ... is needed if we are to provide women with solid legal protection as they seek education and training for later careers.... ” Id. at 704 n. 36, 99 S.Ct. at 1961 n. 36 (quoting Sen. Birch Bayh, 118 Cong. Rec. 5806-07 (1972)). Thus, in interpreting Title IX, “[t]here is no doubt that if we are to give [it] the scope that its origins dictate, we must accord it a sweep as broad as its language.” North Haven Bd. of Educ. v. Bell, 456 U.S. 512, 521, 102 S.Ct. 1912, 1918, 72 L.Ed.2d 299 (1982) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Moreover, the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education, the federal agency responsible for enforcement of Title IX, interprets the statutory language to impose liability on school officials for permitting an educational environment of severe, persistent, or pervasive peer sexual harassment *1413when they know or should know about it, and fail to take immediate and appropriate corrective action to remedy it. See Sexual Harassment Guidance: Harassment of Students by School Employees, Other Students, or Third Parties, 62 Fed.Reg. 12,034, at 12,-039-41 (1997). The OCR’s final policy guidance explains that:
a school’s failure to respond to the existence of a hostile environment within its own programs or activities permits an atmosphere of sexual discrimination to permeate the educational program and results in discrimination prohibited by Title IX____ Thus, Title IX does not make a school responsible for the actions of harassing students, but rather for its own discrimination in failing to remedy it once the school has notice.
Id. at 12,039-40 (emphasis added).1
Notwithstanding the administrative interpretation of the statute, as well as its plain meaning, the majority concludes that Congress did not intend to create a cause of action under Title IX for student-on-student sexual harassment based largely on an analysis of legislative history. The majority emphasizes that “throughout this long legislative history, the drafters of Title IX' never discussed student-student sexual harassment. ...” See Majority Op. at 1397. Assuming this to be true, the mere fact that student-on-student sexual harassment may not have been specifically mentioned in the Congressional debates does not mean that it was not encompassed within Congress’s broad intent of preventing students from being “subjected to discrimination” in federally funded educational programs. The majority suggests that it is clear that Congress was not concerned with student-on-student sexual harassment because the legislative history focused primarily on the issues of discrimination in “admission[s],” “available services or studies,” and “employment within an institution,” none of which were pertinent to the claim raised in this case. See Majority Op. at 1395-96, 1397. However, under this narrow view, even the cause of action under Title IX for teaeher-on-student sexual harassment recognized by the Supreme Court in Franklin, 503 U.S. at 60, 112 S.Ct. at 1028-29, would not be supported by the *1414majority’s view of legislative history. In Franklin the Court considered a high-school student’s Title IX suit alleging that a teacher had sexually harassed and assaulted her and that school officials, who had knowledge of the misconduct, had failed to intervene. Id. at 63-64, 112 S.Ct. at 1031-32. Surely the majority would not suggest that the cause of action that the Supreme Court recognized in Franklin does not exist simply because it was not specifically mentioned in the legislative history. Moreover, the majority’s interpretation of the statute based on legislative . history would suggest that by using the unqualified words “discrimination under any education program” Congress only intended to cover the narrow areas of admissions, services, and employment. This contravenes both common sense and the plain meaning of the words of the statute.
Furthermore, the majority contends that Title IX may not be construed as authorizing a cause of action for a school board’s failure to remedy student-on-student sexual harassment because such an interpretation would conflict with the notice of liability requirement of the Spending Clause, which is the constitutional provision under which Title IX was ostensibly enacted.2 See Majority Op. at 1398-99, 1400-01 (citing Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 17, 101 S.Ct. 1531, 1539-40, 67 L.Ed.2d 694 (1981)). However, it is clear that the school board would have sufficient notice of liability based on the plain meaning of the statute, which unequivocally imposes liability on grant recipients for maintaining an educational environment in which students are subjected to discrimination. Further, sufficient notice was provided to satisfy the Spending Clause prerequisite for a damages action under Title IX as set forth in Franklin, 503 U.S. at 74-75, 112 S.Ct. at 1037-38. In Franklin the Court explained that the notice requirement for damages actions under the Spending Clause in Title IX cases is satisfied where the alleged violation was intentional. Id. The Court found that since sexual harassment constitutes intentional discrimination in violation of Title IX, the Spending Clause does not prohibit a cause of action for teacher-on-student sexual harassment under Title IX. Id. Similarly, in this case the alleged violation of Title IX was intentional because the school board knowingly permitted a student to be subjected to a hostile environment of sexual harassment. See, e.g., Doe v. Petaluma City Sch. Dist., 949 F.Supp. 1415, 1422, 1427 (N.D.Cal.1996) (holding that hostile environment sexual harassment constitutes “intentional discrimination,” and that schools are liable under Title IX when they know or should know about student-on-student sexual harassment and fail to take prompt remedial action); Bruneau v. South Kortright Central Sch. Dist., 935 F.Supp. 162, 172 (N.D.N.Y.1996) (recognizing that a school’s failure to take corrective action in response to hostile environment created by peers despite actual notice of harassment subjects it to liability for intentional discrimination, and therefore to damages under Title IX); Burrow v. Postville Community Sch. Dist., 929 F.Supp. 1193, 1205 (N.D.Iowa 1996) (holding that intentional discrimination may be inferred from “the totality of relevant evidence, including evidence of the school’s failure to prevent or stop the sexual harassment despite actual knowledge of the sexually harassing behavior of students over whom the school exercised some degree of control”); Oona R.-S. v. Santa Rosa City Schs., 890 F.Supp. 1452, 1464, 1469 (N.D.Cal.1995) (explaining that discriminatory intent can be found in “the toleration of harassing behavior of male students, or the failure to take adequate steps to deter or punish peer harassment”); see also Canutillo Independent School Dist. v. Leija, 101 F.3d 393, 406 (5th Cir.1996), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 2434, 138 L.Ed.2d 195 (1997) (noting that “when the Supreme Court referred to ‘intentional discrimination’ in Franklin, it *1415was referring to any form of discrimination other than disparate impact discrimination.”).
Finding that Title IX authorizes a cause of action for student-on-student sexual harassment, we should then follow the lead of other courts, including the Supreme Court, in turning to Title VII principles to delineate the scope of the school board’s duty and identify the elements of a cause of action under Title IX. In relevant part, Title VII requires an employer to take steps to assure that the working environment of its employees is free from sexual harassment3 that is “sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment.” Meritor, 477 U.S. at 67, 106 S.Ct. at 2405 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).
It is appropriate to turn to Title VII because the Supreme Court has explicitly relied on Title VTI principles in explaining that sexual harassment constitutes intentional “discrimination” under Title IX:
Unquestionably, Title IX placed on the Gwinnett County Public Schools the duty not to discriminate on the basis of sex, and “when a supervisor sexually harasses a subordinate because of the subordinate’s sex, that supervisor ‘discriminate[s]’ on the basis of sex.” Meritor Sav. Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 64 [106 S.Ct. 2399, 2402, 91 L.Ed.2d 49] (1986). We believe the same rule should apply when a teacher sexually harasses and abuses a student. Congress surely did not intend for federal moneys to be expended to support the intentional actions it sought by statute to proscribe.
Franklin, 503 U.S. at 74-75, 112 S.Ct. at 1037. Significantly, the Court relied on Mer-itor, a Title VII ease, to resolve the issue.
A well established line of cases preceded the Supreme Court’s decision to use Title VII principles in resolving a Title IX case. Prior to Franklin, courts had held that such principles are applicable in Title IX suits brought by employees of. educational institutions. See, e.g., Lipsett v. University of Puerto Rico, 864 F.2d 881, 897 (1st Cir.1988) (Title IX’s legislative history “strongly suggests that Congress meant for similar substantive standards to apply under Title IX as had been developed under Title VII.”); see also Preston v. Commonwealth of Virginia ex rel. New River Community College, 31 F.3d 203, 207 (4th Cir.1994); Mabry v. State Bd. of Comm. Coll. & Occup. Educ., 813 F.2d 311, 316 n. 6 (10th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 849, 108 S.Ct. 148, 98 L.Ed.2d 104 (1987). Courts had also relied on Title VTI when evaluating Title IX sexual harassment claims by students. See, e.g., Moire v. Temple Univ. Sch. of Medicine, 613 F.Supp. 1360, 1366 & n. 2 (E.D.Pa.1985), aff'd, 800 F.2d 1136 (3d Cir.1986) (hostile environment sexual harassment); Alexander v. Yale Univ., 459 F.Supp. 1, 4 (D.Conn.1977), aff'd, 631 F.2d 178 (2d Cir.1980) (quid pro quo sexual harassment).
Since the Supreme Court’s Franklin ease, at least five circuit courts have found that Title VII standards are applicable to students’ Title IX sexual harassment claims. See Oona, R__S._, by Kate S. v. McCaffrey, -F.3d-(9th Cir. Aug. 13, 1997); Doe v. Claiborne County, 103 F.3d 495, 514 (6th Cir.1996); Kinman v. Omaha Pub. Sch. Dist., 94 F.3d 463, 469 (8th Cir.1996); see also Seamons v. Snow, 84 F.3d 1226, 1232-33 & n. 7 (10th Cir.1996) (holding that although Title IX does protect against hostile environment sexual harassment in schools, plaintiff failed to state a valid claim because he did not allege that the harassment in question was based on sex); Murray v. New York University College of Dentistry, 57 F.3d 243, 249 (2d Cir.1995) (“The [Franklin ] Court’s citation of Meritor ..., a Title VII ease, in support of Franklin’s central holding indicates that, in a Title IX suit for gender discrimination based on sexual harassment of a student, an educational institution may be held liable under standards similar to those applied in eases under Title VII.”). But cf. *1416Rowinsky v. Bryan Indep. Sch. Dist., 80 F.3d 1006, 1016 (5th Cir.1996), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 165, 136 L.Ed.2d 108 (1996) (holding that student-on-student sexual harassment cannot be the basis for a cause of action under Title IX unless the plaintiff demonstrates that the school responded to sexual harassment claims differently based on sex).
Additionally, the Ninth Circuit has recently relied on an analogy to Title VII in holding that the law is clearly established that school officials have a duty under Title IX to take reasonable steps to prevent student-on-student sexual harassment. See Oona, R__S._, — F.3d at---. Moreover, virtually every district court to address the issue has held that Title IX, by analogy to Title VII, imposes liability on schools for failure to remedy severe and pervasive student-on-student sexual harassment. See, e.g., Bruneau, 935 F.Supp. at 172 (“When an employer fails to act to remedy a hostile environment created by co-workers the employer discriminates against an individual in violation of Title VII. Similarly, [this] Court finds that in the Title IX context, when an educational institution fails to take steps to remedy peer-on-peer sexual harassment, it should be held hable to the harassed student for that discriminatory conduct.”); Bosley v. Kearney R-1 Sch. Dist, 904 F.Supp. 1006, 1021 (W.D.Mo.1995) (“Following the [Franklin ] Court’s logic, the same rule as when an employer is held hable for a sexually hostile work environment under Title VII must apply when a school district has knowledge of a sexually hostile school environment and takes no action,”); see also Nicole M. v. Martinez Unified Sch. Dist, 964 F.Supp. 1369, 1377-78 (N.D.Cal.1997); Collier v. William Penn Sch. Dist., 956 F.Supp. 1209, 1213-14 (E.D.Pa. 1997); Franks v. Kentucky School for the Deaf, 956 F.Supp. 741, 746 (E.D.Ky.1996); Petaluma, 949 F.Supp. at 1427; Wright v. Mason City Community Sch. Dist, 940 F.Supp. 1412, 1419-20 (N.D.Iowa 1996); Burrow, 929 F.Supp. at 1205; Oona R._S._, 890 F.Supp. at 1467-69 & n. 13; Patricia H. v. Berkeley Unified Sch. Dist, 830 F.Supp. 1288, 1293 (N.D.Cal.1993). But see Garza v. Galena Park Indep. Sch. Dist., 914 F.Supp. 1437, 1438 (S.D.Tex.1994). Thus, the apphcable case law firmly supports applying Title VII principles to dehneate the scope of a school board’s liability under Title IX for failure to remedy student-on-student sexual harassment.
Notwithstanding this abundant support for applying Title VII principles, the majority contends that Title VII principles may not be applied in this case because “the exposition of liability under Title VII depends upon agency principles.” See Majority Op. at 1399-1400 n. 13. The majority asserts that “[a]gency principles are useless in discussing liability for student-student harassment under Title IX, because students are not agents of the school board.”4 Id. This argument overlooks the Supreme Court’s caveat in Meritor that “common law principles [of agency] may not be transferable in all then-particulars to Title VII.” Meritor, 477 U.S. at 72, 106 S.Ct. at 2408 (emphasis added).5 Un*1417der Mentor’s flexible approach, courts have held that an employer may be held liable under Title VII for failing to take action to remedy a hostile environment created by non-employees, who are certainly not agents of the employer. See, e.g., Powell v. Las Vegas Hilton Corp., 841 F.Supp. 1024, 1028 (D.Nev.1992) (denying motion to dismiss blackjack dealer’s claim that her employer violated Title VII by faffing to protect her from sexual harassment by gamblers at her table, because “an employer could be liable for the sexual harassment of employees by non-employees, including its customers”); Magnuson v. Peak Technical Services, Inc., 808 F.Supp. 500, 512-13 (E.D.Va.1992) (holding that employers of alleged victim can be held liable for faffing to take corrective action to remedy hostile environment created by non-employee); see also Henson v. City of Dundee, 682 F.2d 897, 910 (11th Cir.1982) (“The environment in which an employee works can be rendered offensive in an equal degree by the acts of supervisors, coworkers, or even strangers to the workplace.”) (emphasis added) (internal citations omitted).6 The employers were held liable in these eases by virtue of their own failure to comply with the duty of eliminating discrimination under Title VII — not under any theory of vicarious liability for the acts of a third party.
Application of Title VII principles also recognizes that a student should have the same protection in school that an employee has in the workplace.7 See Franklin, 503 U.S. at 74-75, 112 S.Ct. at 1037-38. Just as a working woman should not be required to “run a gauntlet of sexual abuse in return for the privilege of being allowed to work and make a living,” Meritor, 477 U.S. at 67, 106 S.Ct. at 2405 (internal citation omitted), a female student should not be required to run a gauntlet of sexual abuse in return for the privilege of being allowed to obtain an education. In the employment context, women historically have not had the power to simply walk away from an environment that is made to be demeaning, embarrassing, and humiliating for them because of their gender. Similarly, it is virtually impossible for female students to leave their assigned schools to escape an environment where they are harassed and intimidated on the basis of their gender. Just as in the employment setting where employees are dependent on their employers to ensure workplace equality, so too students are dependent on teachers and school officials to control the educational environment. Additionally, sexual harassment — regardless of its source — subordinates girls in the classroom just as much as in the workforce. Although a hostile environment can be created by someone who supervises or otherwise has power over the victim, a hostile environment can also be created by co-workers or fellow students who have no direct power relationship whatsoever with the victim.8 And like *1418Title VII, Title IX was enacted to remedy that discrimination and ensure sexual equality in public education.
Having determined that Title VII principles should guide our analysis of the scope of the school board’s liability under Title IX, I conclude that Davis’s allegations sufficiently plead a cause of action. The elements a plaintiff must prove to succeed in this type of sexual harassment case are: (1) that she is a member of a protected group; (2) that she was subject to unwelcome sexual harassment; (3) that the harassment was based on sex; (4) that the harassment was sufficiently severe or pervasive so as" to alter the conditions of her education and create an abusive educational environment; and (5) that some basis for institutional liability has been established. See Mentor, 477 U.S. at 66-73, 106 S.Ct. at 2405-09; see also Harris v. Forklift Sys. Inc., 510 U.S. 17, 20-24, 114 S.Ct. 367, 370-71, 126 L.Ed.2d 295 (1993); Lipsett, 864 F.2d at 898-902; Henson, 682 F.2d at 903-05.
Assumed as true, the facts alleged in the complaint, together with all reasonable inferences therefrom, satisfy these elements. There is no question that the allegations satisfy the first three requirements. First, as a female, LaShonda is a member of a protected group. Second, she was subject to unwelcome sexual harassment in the form of “verbal and physical conduct of a sexual nature.” 29 C.F.R. § 1604.11(a). Third, the harassment LaShonda faced clearly was on the basis of her sex.
As to the fourth requirement, I recognize that a hostile environment in an educational setting is not created by simple childish behavior or by an offensive utterance, comment, or vulgarity. Rather, Title IX is violated “[wjhen the [educational environment] is permeated with ‘discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult’ that is ‘sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s [environment] and create an abusive [educational] environment,’ ” Harris, 114 S.Ct. at 370, 510 U.S. at 21 (quoting Mentor, 477 U.S. at 65, 67, 106 S.Ct. at 2405-06) (internal citations omitted). In determining whether a plaintiff has established that an environment is hostile or abusive, a court must be particularly concerned with (1) the frequency of the abusive conduct; (2) the conduct’s severity; (3) whether it is physically threatening or humiliating rather than merely offensive; and (4) whether it unreasonably interferes with the plaintiff’s performance. Harris, 510 U.S. at 23, 114 S.Ct. at 371. The Court has explained that these factors must be viewed both objectively and subjectively. If the conduct is not so severe or pervasive that a reasonable person would find it hostile or abusive, it is beyond Title IX’s purview. Similarly, if the plaintiff does not subjectively perceive the environment to be abusive, then the conduct has not actually altered the conditions of her learning environment, and there is no Title IX violation. Id., 510 U.S. at 21-22, 114 S.Ct. at 370.
In this case, the five months of alleged harassment was sufficiently severe and pervasive to have altered the conditions of La-Shonda’s learning environment from both an objective and a subjective standpoint: (1) G.F. engaged in abusive conduct toward La-Shonda on at least eight occasions; (2) the conduct was sufficiently severe to result in criminal charges against G.F. to which he pled guilty in state court; (3) the conduct, such as the groping and requests for sex, was physically threatening and humiliating rather than merely offensive; and (4) the conduct unreasonably interfered with La-Shonda’s academic performance, resulting in the substantial deterioration of her grades and emotional health. The facts alleged go far beyond simple horseplay, childish vulgarities, or adolescent flirting.
*1419Finally, I believe that the fifth and final element — -whether any basis for the Board’s liability has been shown, has likewise been sufficiently alleged. Under Title VII, an employer may be held hable for a hostile environment of sexual harassment created by a co-worker if “the employer knew or should have known of the harassment in question and failed to take prompt remedial action.” Faragher, 111 F.3d at 1538; Henson, 682 F.2d at 905; see also Meritor, 477 U.S. at 72-73, 106 S.Ct. at 2408-09. By analogy, in this instance the school board may be held hable if it knew or should have known of the harassment and failed to take timely remedial action. In Title VII cases, an employee can demonstrate that the employer knew of the harassment “by showing that she complained to higher management of the harassment or by showing the pervasiveness of the harassment, which gives rise to the inference of knowledge or constructive knowledge.” Henson, 682 F.2d at 905 (citation omitted). In this case, Davis has alleged that she told the principal — a higher level manager — of the harassment on several occasions. She also alleged that at least three separate teachers, in addition to the principal, had actual and repetitive knowledge from La-Shonda, her mother, and other students. Finally, Davis alleged that despite this knowledge, the school officials failed to take prompt remedial action to end the harassment.9 These allegations regarding institutional liability, as well as the other allegations, are sufficient to establish a prima facie claim under Title IX for sexual discrimination due to the Board’s failure to take action to remedy a sexually hostile environment.
For all the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the district court’s dismissal of Davis’s Title IX claim against the Board.

. Parts I, II, III A, and IV of Judge Tjoflat's opinion constitute the opinion of the Court, because those parts are joined by six of the ten judges participating in this decision. By contrast, none of the other nine judges participating in this decision have joined Parts III B and C of that opinion.

. The nature and extent of the protection afforded the property interest in a public education, the due process requirements attendant to its loss, depends upon the severity of the loss. In Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565, 95 S.Ct. 729, 42 L.Ed.2d 725 (1975), the Supreme Court held that, with any suspension of up to ten days, all the Due Process Clause requires is for the student to “be given oral or written notice of the charges against him and, if he denies them, an explanation of the evidence the authorities have and an opportunity to present his side of the story." 419 U.S. at 581, 95 S.Ct. at 740; accord Arnold v. Board of Educ., 880 F.2d 305, 318 (11th *1408Cir.1989). The Supreme Court said in Goss that "[i]n the great majority of cases the disciplinarian may informally discuss the alleged misconduct with the student minutes after it has occurred,” and ”[w]e hold only that, in being given an opportunity to explain his version of the facts at this discussion, the student first be told what he is accused of doing and what the basis of the accusation is.” 419 U.S. at 582, 95 S.Ct. at 740. The Court has since explained that all Goss requires before a suspension is an “informal give and take" in order to provide the student "the opportunity to characterize his conduct and put it in what he deems the proper context.” Board of Curators v. Horowitz, 435 U.S. 78, 86, 98 S.Ct. 948, 953, 55 L.Ed.2d 124 (1978) (quoting Goss, 419 U.S. at 584, 95 S.Ct. at 741); accord, e.g., C.B. v. Driscoll, 82 F.3d 383, 386 (11th Cir.1996) ("The dictates of Goss are clear and extremely limited.”). These "rudimentary precautions," to use the description from Goss itself, 419 U.S. at 581, 95 S.Ct. at 740, are a far ciy from a due process tribunal hearing attendant to some properly interest deprivations.

. It is worth noting that the OCR’s interpretation of Title DC as holding schools liable for permitting peer sexual harassment is consistent with its interpretation of Tide VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d (1964), as holding schools liable for allowing peer racial harassment. This is significant because the Supreme Court has noted that "Title IX was patterned after Title VI.” Cannon, 441 U.S. at 694, 99 S.Ct. at 1956. As the majority points out, the language of the two statutes is virtually identical, and the Supreme Court has held that they should be interpreted in the same way. See Majority Op. at 1398-99 (citing Cannon, 441 U.S. at 696, 99 S.Ct. at 1957-58). The OCR issued An Investigative Guidance on Racial Incidents and Harassment Against Students at Educational Institutions in 1994 providing, ”[T]he existence of a racially hostile environment that is created, encouraged, accepted, tolerated or left uncorrected by a recipient also constitutes different treatment on the basis of race in violation of Title VI.” See 59 Fed.Reg. 11,448, at 11,448 (1994). Furthermore, the OCR has stated that the obligation of school districts with notice to remedy racially hostile environments applies "regardless of the identity of the person(s) committing the harassment — a teacher, student, the grounds crew, a cafeteria worker, neighborhood teenagers, a visiting baseball team, a guest speaker, parents or others.” Id. at 11,450. As explained by the OCR:
Under this analysis, an alleged harasser need not be an agent or employee of the recipient, because this theory of liability under Title VI is premised on a recipient’s general duty to provide a nondiscriminatory educational environment.
Id. at 11,449.
Additionally, it is interesting to note that shortly after the enactment of Title VI, the former Fifth Circuit recognized that school officials must take steps within their power to prevent racial harassment among students. In United States v. Jefferson County Bd. of Educ., 380 F.2d 385 (5th Cir.1967) (en banc), which is binding precedent in this circuit, see Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir.1981) (en banc), the court of appeals entered a model desegregation decree which'complied with "the letter and spirit of the Civil Rights Act of 1964”, Jefferson County, 380 F.2d at 390. The decree provided in relevant part:
Within their authority school officials are responsible for the protection of persons exercising rights under or otherwise affected by this decree. They shall, without delay, take appropriate action with regard to any student or staff member who interferes with the successful operation of the plan. Such interference shall include harassment, intimidation, threats, hostile words or acts, and similar behavior.
Id. at 392.

. In Franklin, the Supreme Court assumed, without deciding, that Title IX was enacted pursuant to the Spending Clause. Franklin, 503 U.S. at 75 & n. 8, 112 S.Ct. at 1037 & n. 8. It is also arguable that the provision was enacted pursuant to § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. For purposes of this discussion, I will assume, like the majority, that the authorizing provision was the Spending Clause.

. Sexual harassment involves unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other unwelcome verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. 29 C.F.R. § 1604.11(a) (1991). Such harassment constitutes actionable sex discrimination in the workplace either as “quid pro quo” sexual harassment, which conditions employment benefits upon sexual favors, or as "hostile environment” sexual harassment, which creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment that unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance. See Mentor, 477 U.S. at 62, 65, 106 S.Ct. at 2403, 2404-05.

. The majority also argues that Title VII case law is inapplicable to Title IX because Title IX, unlike Title VII, was enacted under the Spending Clause. However, the Supreme Court has relied on Title VII in analyzing claims under Title VI, which also was enacted under the spending power. In Guardians Ass'n v. Civil Service Comm'n, 463 U.S. 582, 103 S.Ct. 3221, 77 L.Ed.2d 866 (1983), for example, the Court found that Title Vi's prohibition of discrimination was "subject to the construction given the antidiscrimination proscription of Title VII in Griggs v. Duke Power Co.....” Guardians, 463 U.S. at 592, 103 S.Ct. at 3227. The Court also adopted Title VII's "business necessity” defense to analyze disparate impact claims in a Title VI case involving student placement. See Board of Educ. v. Harris, 444 U.S. 130, 151, 100 S.Ct. 363, 375, 62 L.Ed.2d 275 (1979). Likewise, this court has utilized Title VII to analyze a disparate impact claim under Title VI, stating that “[t]he elements of a disparate impact claim may be gleaned by reference to cases decided under Title VII.” Georgia State Conf. of Branches of NAACP v. Georgia, 775 F.2d 1403, 1417 (11th Cir.1985). Thus, the fact that Title VII is not a Spending Clause statute has not been a bar to importing its standards into Title VI, which formed the template for Title IX, and therefore should not be a bar to importing its standards into Title IX.

. As Judge Tjoflat has explained, “Title VII, as interpreted in Meritor, requires employers to take steps to ensure that sexual harassment does not permeate the workplace. To the extent that the application of common law agency principles frustrates Title VII's goal of eliminating such harassment — by effectively relieving the employ*1417er of the responsibility of pursuing that goal— those principles must yield." Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 111 F.3d 1530, 1544, 1546 n. 2 (11th Cir.1997) (Tjoflat, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part).

. Moreover, guidelines promulgated under Title VII recognize that an employer may be held liable for failing to take corrective action to remedy a hostile environment created by a third party. See 29 C.F.R. § 1604.11(e) ("An employer may also be responsible for the acts of non-employees in the workplace ..., where the employer (or its agents or supervisory employees) knows or should have known of the conduct and fails to take immediate and appropriate corrective action.”).

. Indeed, where there are distinctions between the school environment and the workplace, they “serve only to emphasize the need for zealous protection against sex discrimination in the schools.” Patricia H., 830 F.Supp. at 1292-93. The ability to control and influence behavior exists to an even greater extent in the classroom than in the workplace, as students look to their teachers for guidance as well as for protection. The damage caused by sexual harassment also is arguably greater in the classroom than in the workplace, because the harassment has a greater and longer lasting impact on its young victims, and institutionalizes sexual harassment as accepted behavior. Moreover, "[a] nondiscriminatory environment is essential to maximum intellectual growth and is therefore an integral part of the educational benefits that a student receives. A sexually abusive environment inhibits, if not prevents, the harassed student from developing her full intellectual potential and receiving the most from the academic program.” Id. at 1293 (citation omitted).

.Numerous circuit courts, including this one, have held that an employer's failure to take prompt remedial action after notice of severe and pervasive sexual harassment by a co-worker *1418is actionable. See, e.g., Henson v. City of Dundee, 682 F.2d 897, 905 (11th Cir.1982); see also DeAngelis v. El Paso Municipal Police Officers Assoc., 51 F.3d 591, 593 (5th Cir.1995); Nichols v. Frank, 42 F.3d 503, 508 (9th Cir.1994); Carr v. Allison Gas Turbine Div. Gen. Motors Corp., 32 F.3d 1007, 1009 (7th Cir.1994); Karibian v. Columbia University, 14 F.3d 773, 779 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 512 U.S. 1213, 114 S.Ct. 2693, 129 L.Ed.2d 824 (1994); Kauffman v. Allied Signal, Inc., Autolite Div., 970 F.2d 178, 182 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 506 U.S. 1041, 113 S.Ct. 831, 121 L.Ed.2d 701 (1992); Baker v. Weyerhaeuser Co., 903 F.2d 1342, 1345-46 (10th Cir.1990); Hall v. Gus Construction Co., 842 F.2d 1010, 1015-16 (8th Cir.1988).

. The complaint also alleged that during the time of the harassment, the Board had no policy prohibiting the sexual harassment of students in its schools, and had not provided any policies or training to its employees on how to respond to student-on-student sexual harassment.