High Court Lets Stand Harassment Suit Barrier

In a setback for women’s rights leaders, the Supreme Court on Monday let stand a Texas ruling that shields school districts from being sued for failing to halt the sexual harassment of one student by another.

Altogether, the justices, meeting on the first day of the fall term, turned away appeals in more than 1,500 cases that had piled up over the summer.

The court’s refusal to intervene in the Texas case leaves the law in flux in the fast-evolving area of sexual harassment in the schools.

Over the last decade, the court has made clear that companies can be sued and forced to pay damages if they fail to protect female employees from “severe and pervasive” sexual harassment on the job.

Recently, some judges have begun to apply the same rule to schools. In July, for example, three federal district judges cleared the way for trials on damage claims against school districts growing out of the sexual harassment of girls in junior high schools.

In each instance, the girls said they had been repeatedly grabbed, taunted and humiliated by one or several boys in hallways or on school buses. Though they and their parents complained for months, they said, nothing was done to stop the harassment.

In August, the U.S. Education Department told the nation’s 15,000 school districts to adopt clear policies against sexual harassment and establish procedures so that students could complain if they have a problem.

The legal actions are based on Title IX of the 1972 Education Act, which prohibits sex discrimination in school and colleges.

Not all the federal courts agree. In April, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that students were protected from harassment and sexual abuse committed by teachers and other employees, but not by fellow students.

“The mere existence of sexual harassment does not necessarily constitute sexual discrimination,” wrote Judge Jerry Smith, an appointee of former President Reagan, for a 2-1 majority.

The ruling threw out a lawsuit brought by Debra Rowinsky, the mother of two eighth-grade girls from Bryan, Texas. Her legal complaint said her daughters had been “physically and verbally abused” on the bus by a few boys who grabbed their breasts, pulled at their skirts and called them names such as “whore” and “bitch.”

Lawyers for the Clinton administration, the NOW Legal Defense Fund and the National Women’s Law Center urged the justices to hear an appeal and make clear that school officials could be held liable for the gross sexual harassment of students by other students.

But without comment the justices turned away the appeal (Rowinsky vs. Bryan Independent School District, 96-4).

“We’ll just keep litigating the issue. If women in the workplace should not have to endure sexual harassment, why should young girls have to endure it at school?” said Julie Goldscheid, a NOW Legal Defense Fund lawyer in New York.

She predicted that the high court would take on the issue after another appeals court weighs in on the matter.

The recent series of rulings upholding claims of sexual harassment at school may reflect the impact of new federal judges appointed by President Clinton.

In July, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken, a Clinton appointee in Oakland, cleared the way for a damages trial against the Petaluma, Calif., school district.

A young woman who had been grabbed and called “slut” and “whore” by several junior high boys in 1992 filed the suit because school officials refused to intervene. Lawyers for the school maintained that the district and its officials could not be held liable for the actions of unruly students.

Wilken disagreed. Just as in the workplace, harassment that is “severe and pervasive” can result in a legal claim if officials fail to “take prompt and appropriate remedial action,” she wrote.

Similarly, Judge Rosemary Barkett of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court, another Clinton appointee, upheld a damage claim brought by the mother of a fifth-grade girl from Georgia who was grabbed and fondled by one boy for months.

“When supervising authorities knowingly fail to act to eliminate the harassment,” they can be held responsible, she wrote for a 2-1 majority. But the full appeals court later voted to reconsider that case.

Now that schools have been put on notice of the problem, some schools appear to have overreacted. A North Carolina school recently suspended a first-grade boy for kissing a girl.

Women’s rights lawyers say that such examples tend to make the problem of adolescent girls who are abused and humiliated daily at school appear to be trivial.

The court also:

* Refused to hear an appeal from “Unabomber” suspect Theodore J. Kaczynski complaining of prejudicial news leaks. His lawyers said murder charges should be dismissed on grounds that news leaks had prejudiced the public. Such a claim, if upheld, could free most notorious criminals, and the justices without comment dismissed the appeal (Kaczynski vs. United States, 95-8785).

* Refused for now to consider whether Congress has the authority to make it a federal crime to obstruct the entrances to an abortion clinic. Last year the court, on a 5-4 vote, struck down the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act and said that Congress could not regulate an activity not substantially involved with interstate commerce.

Antiabortion activists said that Congress exceeded its authority when it extended federal law to cover clinics. But the justices dismissed appeals from five Wisconsin antiabortion activists raising the claim (Skott vs. United States, 95-1523).

* Refused to limit the reach of the Whitewater prosecution. Former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker contended that independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr exceeded his authority when he prosecuted Tucker and several associates for obtaining fraudulent loans.

But a U.S. appeals court in St. Louis said Starr was authorized to look into “all matters” related to the collapse of the Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan. The justices refused to hear the appeal (Tucker vs. United States, 95-2013).

* Let stand a lower court ruling that federal judges appointed before 1983 could not be forced to pay higher taxes for Social Security and Medicare. The Constitution does not allow for the pay of judges to be reduced. Because four of the nine justices said they would be directly affected by the result, the court said it lacked a quorum to rule on the matter.

U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter in Los Angeles and 15 other judges brought a suit contesting the tax increase in the case (United States vs. Hatter, 95-1733).