Harassment, or "petty squabble"?

Parents filed a lawsuit regarding the fact that their daughter did not make the cheerleading squad. They alleged that their daughter was sexually harassed during her junior year by another student who was a senior and a cheerleader.

The older girl was suspended from the cheerleading squad for posting inappropriate pictures on Facebook and believed that the complaining parents had turned her in to the district. She and two other cheerleaders exchanged emails in which they said that they would make cheerleader tryouts “as hard as possible so the juniors won’t make it.” The parents became concerned at what they perceived to be preferential treatment by administration for cheerleaders over their daughter and sent a letter to the district, in which they requested that their daughter be permitted to skip tryouts and automatically be placed on the squad. The district denied the request and the daughter did not make the squad.

At that point the daughter made further complaints against the cheerleader, including claims that the cheerleader had started a rumor alleging that the daughter was having sex with another student and was pregnant, and had physically touched the daughter (to wipe a tear from her eye). The district investigated these allegations and declined to take any action, whereupon the parents initiated a complaint with the district, requesting that their daughter be placed on the varsity cheerleading squad immediately. The daughter was diagnosed with depression, her grades fell, she did not want to participate in senior activities and had passive suicidal thoughts, all of which she attributed to the alleged harassment by the cheerleader and the fact that she did not make the cheerleading squad.

The parents alleged in their lawsuit that their daughter had been subject to sexual harassment and that the district had been deliberately indifferent to that harassment. They also claimed that their daughter had been the subject of retaliation for complaining about the harassment.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the lawsuit, saying that “this is nothing more than a dispute, fueled by a disgruntled cheerleader mom, over whether her daughter should have made the squad. It is a petty squabble, masquerading as a civil rights matter, that has no place in federal court or any other court.”