Title IX does not bar Equal Protection suits brought against school officials for gender discrimination, Seventh Circuit holds

In Trentadue v. Redmon, 2010 WL 3239397 (7th Cir. 2010), the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that a former student’s § 1983 equal protection claim against a school district official for sexual abuse she suffered was not barred because she brought a separate Title IX claim against the district, although she failed to present evidence showing the officials had knowledge of the abuse.  

While a junior at Pekin High School, the plaintiff, Rita Trentadue, was sexually abused on multiple occasions by an instructor in the school’s Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (“JROTC”) program. Shortly after the plaintiff and her mother reported the abuse, the school principal summoned the instructor, informed him of the allegations, and directed him to report to the Pekin Police Station. The instructor was later charged with and pled guilty to criminal sexual abuse.    

Shortly after the charges became public, two former Pekin High School students disclosed that they also had been sexually abused by the instructor. One student reported that the abuse occurred several times in 2002. The other reported that the abuse occurred in 1996.    

The plaintiff filed a § 1983 action against the instructor’s supervisor, Major Lee Redmon, alleging that Redmon violated her equal protection rights under § 1983. She also alleged that Pekin Community High School District No. 303 violated her rights under Title IX.    

The federal district court dismissed the § 1983 claim against Redmon, based on existing case law in the Seventh Circuit holding that Title IX provided an exclusive remedy against supervisory officials for sex discrimination in schools and thus precluded the plaintiff’s § 1983 claim. The court then granted the district’s motion for summary judgment on the Title IX claim, finding there was no evidence that school officials were aware of the instructor’s behavior and failed to stop it.    

The Seventh Circuit found the district court erroneously dismissed the plaintiff’s § 1983 claim against Redmon. The court noted that the district court’s ruling was correct under the then-controlling precedent. However, after the district court entered its final judgment, but before the parties filed their appellate briefs, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee, 129 S.Ct. 788 (2009), held Title IX was not intended to be an exclusive remedy for addressing gender discrimination in schools.    

The court nevertheless granted summary judgment as to the § 1983 claim against Redmon, finding that the plaintiff failed to present any evidence that Redmon knew about the instructor’s misconduct and either facilitated, approved, condoned or turned a blind eye to it. The court noted that it was undisputed that no one at the high school, including Redmon, knew about the abuse until the plaintiff and her mother reported it.    

It was also undisputed that no administrator or official in the District knew of the instructor’s abuse of the two other students until they came forward in 2003.