Key Points

  • The 11th Circuit affirmed summary judgment for City Schools of Decatur on a mother's Title IX and Title VI claims over the district's response to a report that her kindergartner was sexually assaulted by a classmate.
  • Undisputed evidence that the district investigated, ordered restroom supervision of the accused child and moved the girl to a classroom with a private bathroom defeated the deliberate indifference claim, regardless of the investigation's quality.
  • An Education Department civil rights office finding that the district violated Title IX regulations did not create a jury question, because the office did not apply the deliberate indifference standard.
  • A social worker's text messages about homeless families could not be imputed to the district to show racial intent, because she held a subordinate role and others directed the response.

A federal appeals court ruled on Nov. 6 that a Georgia school district cannot be held liable for damages over its handling of a report that a kindergartner was sexually assaulted by a classmate in a school restroom. It ruled that way even though the U.S. Department of Education had found the district's response violated federal regulations.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit affirmed summary judgment for City Schools of Decatur. Judge Jill Pryor wrote the published opinion for a panel that included Judges Branch and Ed Carnes. The court rejected claims by Pascha Thomas, the girl's mother, under Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in federally funded schools, and Title VI, which bars race discrimination by funding recipients.

The decision holds that a finding by the Education Department's civil rights office that a school violated Title IX regulations does not, on its own, let a parent take a damages claim to a jury. Such claims require proof of deliberate indifference, a standard the court called "exacting." The panel also held that a district social worker's text messages could not be attributed to the district as evidence of racial bias, because she was not a decisionmaker.

According to the opinion, Jane Doe, a five-year-old Black girl at Oakhurst Elementary, told her mother on Nov. 16, 2017, that a boy had pushed her against a wall in the girls' restroom and assaulted her. Thomas reported the assault to school staff the next morning. She waited more than 30 minutes without getting to see the principal, Marcia Fowler.

Fowler acted on the report anyway. Within 15 minutes she passed it to Bruce Roaden, the district's executive director of student support, and Superintendent David Dude put Roaden in charge of investigating. Fowler told the girl's teacher and classroom aide to supervise both children on future restroom trips. Two social workers filed reports on both children with the Department of Family and Children Services, or DFCS. Jane was later moved to a classroom with a private restroom, and she transferred to another school in January 2018 at her mother's request.

Other parts of the record cut against the district. One social worker, Nicole Jefferson, told a DFCS case manager that the girl seemed "coached." Jefferson also said she had told the district's homeless liaison "to be careful about believing some of these families. They are all not really homeless just looking for a quick come up to sue." Thomas and her children were unhoused at the time. DFCS later closed a case against Thomas as unsubstantiated.

Roaden told the superintendent he had concluded that no assault occurred, but he never wrote a report, and he later died. Fowler's "safety update" to the school community called the allegation unfounded, though she did not know either investigation's outcome. A forensic interviewer, Dr. Julie Medlin, later concluded that the girl's "statements and nonverbal behavior during the interview were consistent with sexual abuse."

The Education Department's civil rights office found that the district failed to give a "prompt and equitable response" and "took no further steps to determine what occurred." The district agreed to a resolution agreement with the office, which rejected Thomas's separate retaliation claim.

Under Supreme Court precedent, a school is liable for one student's harassment of another only if its response was "clearly unreasonable in light of the known circumstances." Pryor wrote that the undisputed facts settled the question. "Far from making an official decision not to remedy the situation, these undisputed facts show that CSD staff responded to Thomas's report by initiating an investigation, increasing supervision of John Doe, and moving Jane Doe to a classroom with a separate bathroom," she wrote. She added that there was no evidence the girl suffered further harassment.

Absent evidence that the district knew its investigation was inadequate, Pryor wrote, "the fact that Roaden undertook an investigation is enough—regardless of the investigation's ultimate quality." The civil rights office's report, she wrote, "did not purport to apply the deliberate indifference standard that governs our analysis here," and the report itself acknowledged the district's immediate steps and interim measures.

"There is no doubt that allegations of child sexual assault at school are terribly serious and should be treated as such," Pryor wrote. But even if the staff "made unfair assumptions about Thomas and communicated poorly with her and the public, those shortcomings alone do not amount to deliberate indifference under Title IX."

On the race claim, Thomas argued that the district treated her family worse than the boy's. The boy is also Black, but he was adopted and his father is white. The panel found that the children were "treated substantially similarly," noting that the school filed DFCS reports on both. It held that a statistical report on the district's middle and high schools said nothing about elementary students.

Thomas argued that Jefferson's remark about homeless families was racially motivated because every homeless family in the district was Black. The panel did not decide whether a statement that never mentions race could show intent. It held instead that Jefferson played "a subordinate role," while Dude, Roaden and Fowler "dictated the investigation and response." The court relied on its 2020 decision in Thai Meditation Association of Alabama v. City of Mobile, in which it declined to impute bias "of a subordinate non-decisionmaker to the final decisionmakers."

In a footnote, the court also upheld the dismissal of a claim attacking the district's gender-neutral restroom policy.

The ruling leaves in place the judgment of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. Thomas's equal protection claims against Dude and Fowler, which the trial court also rejected, were not part of the appeal.