## Facts

- Melissa Jennings joined the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill women’s soccer team in 1996 as a 17-year-old goalkeeper; Anson Dorrance was the head coach.
- Jennings alleged Dorrance regularly made sexually charged comments and repeatedly questioned players about their sexual activity, including in public team settings during practice warm-ups.
- Jennings alleged Dorrance’s remarks were frequent, humiliating, and objectifying, and that she was personally targeted with graphic, demeaning questioning in front of teammates.
- Jennings complained to Susan Ehringhaus, an assistant to the chancellor and university legal counsel, asserting that Dorrance’s conduct created a hostile environment.
- Viewing the evidence in Jennings’s favor, Ehringhaus did not initiate effective corrective measures and instead advised Jennings to work the matter out with Dorrance.
- Jennings was cut from the team in May 1998.
- Jennings sued UNC and multiple officials under Title IX, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and state law; the district court granted summary judgment to all defendants on all claims.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence could permit a jury to find actionable sex-based hostile-environment harassment (severe or pervasive) affecting participation in an educational program.
2. Whether UNC could be liable under Title IX based on actual notice to an official with corrective authority and a clearly unreasonable response amounting to deliberate indifference.
3. Whether Dorrance, acting under color of state law, could be liable under § 1983 for sex discrimination in violation of the Equal Protection Clause based on sexual harassment.
4. Whether Ehringhaus could be liable under § 1983 on a supervisory-liability theory for deliberate indifference or tacit authorization after receiving Jennings’s complaint.
5. Whether summary judgment was proper on Jennings’s remaining federal and state claims against other defendants.

## Decision

- The en banc Fourth Circuit affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded.
- The court vacated summary judgment on Jennings’s Title IX hostile-environment claim against UNC and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court vacated summary judgment on Jennings’s § 1983 equal-protection sexual-harassment claim against Dorrance and remanded.
- The court vacated summary judgment on Jennings’s § 1983 supervisory-liability claim against Ehringhaus and remanded.
- The court affirmed summary judgment on all other claims and rulings.

## Legal Principles

- Hostile-environment sexual harassment in education is actionable when sex-based conduct is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of participation and create an abusive environment; frequency, severity, humiliation, and public context are relevant.
- Title IX institutional liability for damages requires actual notice to an appropriate official with authority to take corrective action and a response that is clearly unreasonable in light of known circumstances (deliberate indifference).
- A state-university coach acts under color of state law; sex-based harassment by a state actor may constitute intentional sex discrimination actionable under § 1983 and the Equal Protection Clause.
- § 1983 supervisory liability is not respondeat superior; a supervisor may be liable where she knew or should have known of a pervasive risk of constitutional injury, responded with deliberate indifference or tacit authorization, and her inaction causally contributed to the injury.

## Conclusion

The en banc court held that a reasonable jury could find that the coach’s repeated sexual comments and questioning created a sex-based hostile environment and that the university, after receiving an internal complaint through a high-level official, responded so inadequately as to support Title IX deliberate-indifference liability and related § 1983 claims against the coach and the official on a supervisory theory, while leaving other claims dismissed.


Jennings v. Univ. of N.C., 482 F.3d 686 (4th Cir. 2007) (en banc)