Last month, the First Circuit decided Wadsworth v. Nguyen et. al., a case alleging Title IX and Equal Protection claims against a school district and some of its administrators for sexual harassment by a school principal against a high school student. The First Circuit reversed in part the District Court’s grant of summary judgment to the district and its employees, allowing the plaintiff’s equal protection claim against the principal and Title IX claim against the school could proceed. Attorney Naomi Shatz spoke to Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly about the First Circuit’s holding that the principal, who had repeatedly made sexual comments to a vulnerable sixteen year old student, threatened her with assault if she didn’t respond to his texts quickly enough, bought her gifts, and pulled her out of class every day to make her spend time with him, was not entitled to qualified immunity. “The defendant’s argument that a right is not clearly established unless there is an in-circuit appellate case that has already addressed the exact same factual scenario is nonsensical, contrary to 1st Circuit precedent, and I’m surprised the District Court adopted that artificially narrow reading of what ‘clearly established law’ means,” Shatz told the publication.
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