## Facts

- Kathleen Stoneking, a former high school student, alleged that the school band director sexually abused and harassed her from 1980 through her graduation in 1983 and afterward.
- She did not claim the principal, assistant principal, or superintendent committed the assaults; she alleged they maintained practices that permitted abuse by discouraging reports and failing to respond to complaints.
- The complaint alleged administrators knew, or recklessly failed to discover, that the band director was assaulting female students and that the district had a practice of not responding appropriately to student complaints of teacher sexual abuse and harassment.
- Evidence described prior student complaints about the band director, after which the principal announced the director should not be alone with female students but took no further meaningful action.
- Evidence also described repeated complaints about sexual assault by another teacher; the principal and assistant principal allegedly discouraged reporting by discrediting students and suggesting a student’s report would not be credited over a teacher’s denial.
- A former student testified that after reporting an assault by the band director, administrators blamed her and attempted to pressure her to recant in front of the band.
- Stoneking brought claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the school district and the officials in their individual and official capacities, alleging deprivation of her Fourteenth Amendment liberty interest in bodily integrity.
- The district court denied summary judgment, including denial of qualified immunity to the individual defendants; the officials took an interlocutory appeal limited to qualified immunity after the case was remanded for reconsideration in light of intervening Supreme Court precedent.

## Issues

1. Whether school supervisory officials can be liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for a student’s sexual abuse by a teacher when officials allegedly maintained policies or customs, and acted with deliberate indifference, that permitted and encouraged the abuse.
2. Whether the officials were entitled to qualified immunity because the asserted Fourteenth Amendment right and theory of supervisory liability were not clearly established in the early 1980s.
3. Whether due process doctrine limiting affirmative duties to protect individuals from private violence barred the claim where the abuse was committed by a teacher rather than by the supervisory officials.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit affirmed the denial of summary judgment on qualified immunity.
- The court held the claim was not barred by due process limits on affirmative duties to protect because the allegations were that officials’ own conduct and practices created or increased the risk of harm.
- Accepting plaintiff’s allegations and supporting evidence for immunity purposes, the court held the officials’ alleged deliberate indifference and affirmative discouragement or concealment of complaints could amount to a deprivation of the student’s liberty interest in bodily integrity.
- The court concluded the right to bodily integrity and the potential for supervisory liability under § 1983 were clearly established at the relevant time, so reasonable officials would have understood that maintaining practices that condoned or encouraged sexual abuse was unlawful.
- The court emphasized that factual disputes about what the officials knew and did precluded immunity as a matter of law at the summary-judgment stage.

## Legal Principles

- A student has a clearly established Fourteenth Amendment liberty interest in bodily integrity; sexual abuse by a state actor under color of law can violate substantive due process.
- Supervisory or policymaking officials may be liable under § 1983 when their policies, customs, or deliberate indifference cause constitutional violations, including by creating or substantially increasing the risk of harm.
- Due process limits on affirmative duties to protect do not foreclose § 1983 liability where the plaintiff alleges state officials’ own actions (including deliberate practices that discourage reporting or conceal misconduct) materially contributed to the deprivation.
- Qualified immunity is unavailable at summary judgment when, under the plaintiff’s version of disputed facts, the conduct would violate clearly established law such that a reasonable official would have understood it was unconstitutional.

## Conclusion

The court held the officials were not entitled to qualified immunity at summary judgment because the allegations, if proven, described clearly unlawful state conduct—through deliberate indifference and practices that discouraged or concealed complaints—that could have enabled a teacher’s sexual abuse and violated the student’s substantive due process right to bodily integrity.


Stoneking v. Bradford Area Sch. Dist., 882 F.2d 720 (3d Cir. 1989)