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Supreme Court puts educators, police on notice

Rulings on student-on-student harassment, media 'ride-alongs'

May 24, 1999
Web posted at: 12:35 p.m. EDT (1635 GMT)

(CNN) -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that educators can be held liable if they deliberately ignore a student's allegations of sexual harassment by a classmate.

A separate decision, dealing with news coverage and television "reality" shows, found that police violate privacy rights if they allow the news media to accompany them into a person's home during an arrest or search.

Sexual harassment

Ruling in a Georgia case, the justices said educators who fail to stop students from sexually harassing other students may be violating a federal anti-bias law and can be forced to pay the victims

The 5-4 decision is enormously important for all schools -- from elementary to university levels -- that accept federal money.

The court ruled that a Georgia school district can be held financially responsible for the sexual harassment of a fifth-grade girl if officials with the authority to help her knew about the harassment but were "deliberately indifferent" to it.

Such harassment has to be severe and pervasive, the court said as it revived Aurelia Davis'  lawsuit and sent the case back to a lower court for more study.

Davis sued the Monroe County school board and two officials over a five-month "barrage of sexual harassment and abuse" her daughter LaShonda allegedly endured from a fellow fifth-grader in 1992-93.

The boy allegedly touched LaShonda's breasts, rubbed against her suggestively and repeatedly told her he wanted to have sex with her.

LaShonda Davis, an eighth grader, was 10 years old at the time of the alleged sexual harassment

The lawsuit stated that LaShonda, now a high school junior, and her mother reported each incident to school officials but that the boy was never disciplined.

The youth pleaded guilty to sexual battery after Mrs. Davis complained to the county sheriff.

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Media 'ride-alongs'

In Monday's other major ruling, the Supreme Court said police can be sued for letting TV camera crews and other journalists accompany them into people's homes to observe arrests or searches.

The unanimous decisions in cases from Montana and Maryland said police who authorize and carry out such media "ride-alongs" violate privacy rights protected by the Constitution's Fourth Amendment.

The ruling means law enforcement officers can be forced to pay monetary damages for violating the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Still pending before the justices is an important related issue: Can the journalists be punished financially, too?

But the court, by an 8-1 vote, ruled also that allowing such news media access was not "clearly established" as unconstitutional back in 1992 and 1993, when the raids in Maryland and Montana occurred, respectively.

Therefore, the court said, the law enforcement officials involved in those incidents are immune from the ensuing lawsuits against them.

News media lawyers contend that reporters on such assignments provide a valuable public service by detailing police work.

Twenty-four news organizations, including CNN, sided with law enforcement officers in the cases.

In other rulings on Monday, the Supreme Court:

Source: www.CNN.com Correspondent Charles Bierbauer and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Child's play or sexual harassment?

Supreme Court hears case about school responsibility

January 12, 1999
Web posted at: 3:41 p.m. EST (2041 GMT)

In this story:

(CNN) -- Where do you draw the line between everyday schoolyard teasing and improper sexual harassment? Supreme Court justices who will have to answer that question were asking it Tuesday as they heard arguments in a case that will decide whether schools can be held responsible for such conduct.

At issue is a complaint that a Georgia school district failed to stop crude and allegedly threatening conduct directed toward LaShonda Davis by one of her male classmates.

Both were in fifth grade at the time. Davis, now 16, is a high school junior.

The case, which has implications for about 45 million students in the United States, is considered one of the most important of the court's 1998-1999 term.

"I'm sure schoolchildren nationwide tease each other. Little boys tease little girls," said Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. "Is every one of these incidents going to lead to a lawsuit?"

The court is expected to decide by July whether educators violate a federal law when they fail to stop students from sexually harassing other students.

A federal appeals court threw out a lawsuit from the Davis family, ruling that the disputed federal law never applies to student harassment of another student.

The law, known as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, bans sexual discrimination in any educational institution that receives federal money. The Supreme Court long has treated sexual harassment as a form of illegal bias.

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The arguments

If the child cannot learn, he or she is being discriminated against, argued Verna Williams, an attorney representing the Davis family.

"If it knows about it ... (a school) must take reasonable steps to address and remedy it," Williams said.

But the lawyers for the Monroe County Board of Education said imposing such liability on school districts would be unwieldy and unfair, and was never intended by Congress.

W. Warren Plowden, representing the Georgia school district, warned about "opening up the courthouse door to all kinds of lawsuits."

He cited a survey that 75 percent of all high school girls and 66 percent of all boys report at least one instance of harassment.

"The potential here for litigation is enormous," he said.

Justice Anthony Kennedy appeared to agree, questioning whether there would have to be "a federal code of conduct for every classroom in the country."

Background:
When LaShonda Davis was in fifth grade, she repeatedly told her teacher and principal about the troubles she had with a boy identified in court papers as G.F., a classmate at Hubbard Elementary School in Forsyth, Georgia. She said the boy grabbed her breasts and crotch, simulated having sex with her and threatened to do so several times. The family's lawsuit against the school district said officials did nothing to help stop the harassment. After LaShonda's mother complained to the county sheriff, the boy pleaded guilty to sexual battery. The family's lawsuit seeks monetary damages for LaShonda's suffering.

 

Teasing or sexual harassment?

 

The justices questioned both sides closely about how a school might distinguish between ordinary teasing among students and true harassment. Taunts, jabs and even some degree of sexual bullying go on in every school, several justices said.

"In the first grade, boys tease girls because they are girls," Justice David Souter said.

"We don't think every teasing would be sexual harassment," for which a student could sue under Title IX, Williams replied.

Much of the distinction lies in whether school officials knew of improper behavior and did nothing to stop it, she said.

Justice Stephen Breyer said the problem of sexual harassment traditionally has been dealt with by educators and counselors through discussion and mediation, and by calling in the families of the students involved.

He expressed concern about handing it over to lawyers and judges.

The National School Boards Association supports the Georgia school district and urged Supreme Court justices in a friend- of-the-court brief to let the Davis family's lawsuit die.

But women's rights groups and teachers' unions also submitted friend-of-the-court briefs, and sided with the Davis family.

Source: www.CNN.com Correspondent Charles Bierbauer and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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