Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District: School District Remains Afloat in Title Ix Litigation Floodwater - Richard A. Weller

• Citation: Vol. 50 No. 3
• Publication year: 1999

Casenotes

Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School

District: School District Remains Afloat in

Title IX Litigation Floodwater

In Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District,¹ the United States Supreme Court held that a school district could not be held liable under Title IX for a teacher's sexual harassment of a student without actual notice and deliberate indifference.² In a five to four decision, the Court affirmed summary judgment in favor of the school district.³

I. Factual Background

In Gebser the Court considered the circumstances that warrant imposing liability on a school district for sexual harassment in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 ("Title IX").⁴ Frank Waldrop, a teacher at Lago Vista's high school, was involved in a sexual relationship with one of his students, Alida Gebser. Waldrop first met Gebser when she was a thirteen-year-old student in an eighth-grade class that his wife taught. Ironically, it was Waldrop's wife who referred Gebser to Waldrop's high school discussion group. A relationship ensued, and by the time Gebser was fifteen years old, what started out as sexually suggestive and flattering comments progressed into frequent consensual sexual relations.⁵ Eventually, a police officer arrested Waldrop after discovering the couple engaging in sexual intercourse. Although school officials had received complaints that Waldrop had often made sexually suggestive comments to students, they were unaware of the sexual relationship until Waldrop's arrest. Subsequently, the high school terminated his employment, and the Texas Education Agency revoked his teaching license.⁶

Gebser and her mother filed a sexual harassment suit against the school district under Title IX, seeking compensatory and punitive damages.⁷ The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the school district, and Gebser appealed, arguing that school districts can be liable on agency principles when teachers use their authority to abuse students ("teacher-student harassment").⁸ The circuit court affirmed, citing prior case law that rejected theories of strict liability and constructive notice.⁹ The court also expressed its concern that common-law agency theories would impute vicarious liability to school boards for all teacher-student harassment.¹⁰ For these reasons, the circuit court refused to recognize strict or vicarious liability for a Title IX sexual harassment violation absent a school board's actual knowledge.¹¹

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address when a school district could be held liable for damages under Title IX for sexual harassment of a student by a teacher. In a five to four decision, the Court affirmed.¹² The Court held that Title IX does not authorize damages against a district unless a school official, having the authority to address unlawful discrimination and the power to take corrective measures, has actual knowledge of the discrimination and fails to take adequate action to end it.¹³

II. Legal Background

Title IX provides that "[n]o 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."¹⁴ The statute is administratively enforced by the Office of Civil Rights ("OCR"), a division of the federal Department of Education.¹⁵ Originally, Title IX deterred discrimination only administratively through the threat of withdrawal of federal funds,¹⁶ but judicial construction has since transformed it into a limited, yet powerful, weapon for obtaining private damages as well.

The Supreme Court launched this trend in Cannon v. University of Chicago.¹⁷ Cannon, a female student, was denied admission to two universities because of her sex. The lower courts determined that Title IX contained no express private right of action and declined to infer one.¹⁸ However, the Supreme Court, examining legislative intent underlying Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VII") and Title IX,¹⁹ determined that Congress expected Title IX to contain private remedies for intentional discrimination because Congress had not objected to court interpretations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ("Title VI") that found an implied private remedy.²⁰ The Court stated that Congress patterned Title IX after Title VI by inserting the word "sex" in the place of Title VI's language protecting classes based on race, color, and national origin.²¹ When Title IX was enacted, the language in Title VI concerning the protected classes had already been interpreted to provide a private remedy.²²

The expansion of remedies continued in Franklin v. Gwinnett County Public Schools,²³ when the Court, without construing the standard for a funded entity's liability, addressed the issue of the appropriateness of monetary damages in an implied private right of action under Title IX.²⁴ Christine Franklin, a student, was subjected to sexually oriented conversations and coercive sexual intercourse by one of her teachers. When school administrators became aware of this teacher-student harassment, they failed to take action sufficient to stop the harassment and also discouraged Franklin from pressing charges. The teacher resigned, and the school closed its investigation.²⁵ The district court determined that Title IX did not provide for monetary damages and subsequently dismissed the complaint.²⁶ On appeal, the Supreme Court reviewed only the damages issue. It relied upon a presumption that all appropriate remedies are available unless Congress expressly precluded them.²⁷ The Court also examined the legislative history of Title IX and determined that Congress did not intend to limit the types of remedies available.²⁸ The Court held that monetary damages, including recovery for emotional distress, are available, at least for intentional violations of Title IX.²⁹ Although Franklin established a damages remedy, it provided no guidance concerning the standards governing a school district's liability for actionable harassment by an employee. Before Gebser, the lower courts had devised several standards including strict liability, constructive notice, and actual notice.

In Bolon v. Rolla Public Schools,³⁰ the district court adopted a strict liability approach.³¹ Relying on a portion of the Franklin opinion that equated supervisor-employee sexual harassment (of the type prohibited by Title VII) to the teacher-student sexual harassment at issue, the court imputed liability to the school district for intentional sexual discrimination by a teacher regardless of whether the school district was aware of the discrimination.³² The court determined that strict liability was necessary if Title IX was to have any effect.³³ It characterized the constructive notice standard as unworkable because teacher-student harassment is inherently clandestine, making the harassment difficult to detect, yet easy to ignore.³⁴

Taking a different view of the standard for entity liability under Title IX, the Eighth Circuit applied a constructive notice standard in Kinman u. Omaha Public School District.³⁵ In Kinman a teacher initiated a sexual relationship with one of her students. During an investigation into the relationship, the teacher voluntarily took lie detector tests that indicated deception. Despite this evidence and additional allegations that the relationship had continued, the school took no further action.³⁶ The court of appeals looked to Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson³⁷ and other Title VII cases for guidance in its quest for an appropriate Title IX school liability standard, because it had only recently held that Title VII standards were applicable to Title LX actions.³⁸ The court held the constructive notice standard was appropriate for...