Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Congress intended Title IX to prevent suits against public schools for sex discrimination.

During the 2000-2001 school year, Jacqueline Fitzgerald, a kindergartener in Hyannis, Mass., told her parents that an older student on the school bus had bullied her into lifting up her skirt. Her parents contacted school administrators, and Jacqueline then identified the boy who she alleged had been harassing her. The school did not have a written policy to address peer-on-peer sexual harassment.

The school, along with local law enforcement, began investigating the situation. The police determined that “there was insufficient evidence to proceed criminally” and the school ultimately decided not to take disciplinary action against the boy.

School officials suggested placing Jacqueline on a different bus or segregating her and the other kindergartners from the older students on the bus. Her parents rejected both of these options and proposed that the school either transfer the boy to a different bus or place an adult
monitor on the bus to ensure that no harassment occurred.

After the school district declined these options, the parents filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. They alleged violations of Title IX, the U.S. Constitution and Massachusetts state law. In particular, they argued that Jacqueline had “a clearly established right under state and federal statutory and constitutional law to equal access to all benefits and privileges of a public education, and a right to be free of sexual harassment in school.”

The district court granted the school’s motion for summary judgment on the section 1983 claims, the state law claims and eventually on the Title IX claims.

In October 2007, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the granting of summary judgment with respect to the Title IX claim. The court declined to consider the parents' constitutional claims filed via Section 42 U.S.C. 1983, holding that the potential availability of relief under Title IX preempts additional, constitutional claims.

There is a split among the circuit courts on this issue. The Sixth, Eighth and Tenth Circuits all allow plaintiffs to bring both Title IX and 1983/constitutional claims for the same conduct. Meanwhile, the First, Second, Third and Seventh Circuits have all held that Title IX preempts these claims.

On June 9, the Supreme Court agreed to review the case. Oral arguments will be held during the fall term.

Question presented:

Whether Title IX precludes Section 1983 constitutional claims to remedy sex discrimination in educational settings.