The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals revived part of a public high school student’s sex and race discrimination case in Sewell v. Monroe City School Board, et. al, No. 18-31086 (5th Cir. 2020). The reported facts of the case are that on the first day of the 2016-2017 academic year, Roosevelt Rankins, Dean of Students at Neville High School, asked teachers to send students with dyed hair to his office. The Louisiana high school’s dress code prohibited “hair dyed outlandish colors.” Many students of all races, male and female, wore dyed hair to school, sporting “blonde, purple and red colors as well as fiery-colored tips.” Some African American female students also wore multi-colored weaves in their hair. However, the only students sent to the dean’s office on that first day were African American males, one of whom was Jaylon Sewell. Because of Sewell’s dyed blond hair, Dean Rankins, who is also African American, and Principal Whitney Martin did not let him attend class that day. The next day, Sewell’s mother, Bonnie Kirk, met with Principal Martin and Superintendent Brent Vidrine and told them she believed her son was being discriminated against because he is an African American male.
While Sewell was allowed to return to school, Dean Rankins “ridiculed” him “every other day” by calling him a “thug” and a “fool.” The dean also asked Sewell if he “was gay with ‘that mess’ in his head.” Sewell further asserted that the dean discouraged other students from talking to him. In November, Sewell was suspended after he was accused of sexual assault by a female student. Sewell claimed that the dean “encouraged” the girl to “lie” about the alleged incident. Furthermore, Sewell asserted that the dean told him that “he wouldn’t be getting in so much trouble if his hair was not that color.” Shortly thereafter, Principal Martin recommended Sewell for expulsion.
The school board’s expulsion committee voted not to expel Sewell and “chose not to suspend Sewell because the timing of events was suspicious; school officials did not complete expulsion documentation until four days after the assault and did not deliver the documentation to Kirk until ten days after that.”
In November 2017, Kirk filed suit in Federal Court on behalf of her son against the school board, the school board’s insurer, Superintendent Vidrine, Dean Rankins, and Principal Martin alleging, among other things, race and sex discrimination under Title VI and Title IX. The District Court granted Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss on all counts. Sewell, who by then had attained majority, filed an appeal concerning the dismissal of his Title VI and IX claims only.
While the Court of Appeals agreed with the dismissal of Sewell’s cause of action for intentional discrimination, the Court found that “Sewell’s’ harassment claim has some legs.” In addressing the plausibility of the hostile environment/ harassment claims, the Court examined whether the dean’s verbal abuse was based on Sewell’s sex and/or race and whether it was “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” that it deprived Sewell of an educational benefit. First, the Court found it was plausible that the Dean’s harassment of Sewell stemmed from a discriminatory view that African American males should not have blond hair. Though white and female students wore a variety of dyed hairstyles, Sewell was the only student punished during the year for violating the school’s hair policy. Furthermore, the dean’s “verbal abuse also tied Sewell’s hair to his race and sex.”
Second, the Court found that the harassment may have been so severe, pervasive and offensive that it denied Sewell an educational benefit. In his complaint, Sewell claimed that the verbal abuse from the dean made him “depressed” and “traumatized.” The Court found that “intense verbal abuse that comes from an authority figure—like a school administrator—and persists for most of the school year can constitute a hostile education environment.”
Third, the Court found it is plausible that the school board knew about the harassment. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that “the school board had knowledge if a district official with authority to address the discrimination did.” The Court of Appeals found that the superintendent in this case “fits the bill” because Sewell’s mother complained to several school officials, including the superintendent. Furthermore, the Court found that not only did the superintendent know about the harassment, but he could have done something about it. The superintendent could have stopped the dean by directing the principal or by disciplining or dismissing the dean. “His knowledge was thus the school board’s knowledge.” Though the school board knew of the harassment, it did nothing after the superintendent promised to “talk to” the dean and principal. A school board is liable for harassment if it knew about the abuse and was deliberately indifferent. Thus, Sewell’s harassment claims under Titles VI and IX survived the pleading stage.
Read the Court’s full opinion by downloading here.