T.E. v. Pine Bush Central School District

Five Jewish students, including T.E., D.C., and O.C. (the students) (plaintiffs) brought Title VI, equal- protection, and state-law civil-rights claims against the Pine Bush Central School District (school district) and various administrators (collectively, PBCSD) (defendants), alleging anti-Semitic harassment. D.C. was enrolled in the school district from sixth through twelfth grade. D.C. alleged that he was physically and verbally threatened by other students, including being told he would be “burned in an oven”; saw swastikas everywhere and reported them to teachers; heard students singing a derogatory “white power song” in the cafeteria and on the school bus; was called names such as “dirty Jew” and “Jew faggot;” was told he was “just ashes”; saw students perform “Hitler salutes”; and saw and reported swastikas in textbooks. D.C.’s father allegedly reported to the middle-school principal that a girl yelled “f’ing Jew” on the bus, D.C. was being harassed and hearing Jewish jokes on the bus, and the problem was “systemic.” The complaint alleged that the principal did not follow up to address anti-Semitism in the school, the harassment led D.C. to contemplate suicide, D.C. believed that the school district was apathetic and he was fighting a losing battle, and T.E. and O.C. experienced similar harassment. PBCSD moved for partial summary judgment, arguing that (1) the students could not bring a Title VI claim on grounds of deliberate indifference to anti-Semitic harassment because no caselaw held that discrimination claims based on a plaintiff’s identification as Jewish came within Title VI’s protection and (2) a reasonable jury could not find that the school officials responded with the deliberate indifference to student-on-student harassment required to establish a violation of the right to equal protection.