Anyssa Sanchez v. Brawley Elementary Sch. Dist. ( 2018 )

FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
APR 20 2018
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
ANYSSA A. SANCHEZ, a minor; No. 16-55892
LORENTINA SANCHEZ, Guardian Ad
Litem of A.S., a minor, D.C. No.
3:14-cv-00564-GPC-PCL
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v. MEMORANDUM*
BRAWLEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
DISTRICT,
Defendant-Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of California
Gonzalo P. Curiel, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted April 10, 2018**
Pasadena, California
Before: BOGGS,*** BYBEE, and WATFORD, Circuit Judges.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
***
The Honorable Danny J. Boggs, United States Circuit Judge for the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation.
Page 2 of 3
The district court properly granted summary judgment to Brawley
Elementary School District on Anyssa Sanchez’s Title IX claims.
1. The district court did not err in holding that, as presented here, the
harassment Sanchez endured was not “so severe, pervasive, and objectively
offensive that it effectively bar[red] [Sanchez’s] access to an educational
opportunity or benefit.” LaShonda D. ex rel. Davis v. Monroe Cty. Bd. of Educ.,
526 U.S. 629, 633 (1999). The only potential denial of “equal access” that
Sanchez identified was her one-day suspension and brief removal from honor roll;
she did not identify any ongoing impediment to her education, such as lowered
grades. Id. at 651–52. The only harassment she “link[ed]” to that denial was one
physical incident in which a male student briefly flicked her chest (and she kneed
him in the groin in response). Id. at 652. That one incident, standing alone, is
insufficiently “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” to be considered
actionable peer-to-peer harassment under Title IX.
2. The district court also properly held that Sanchez failed to establish a
prima facie case of retaliation under Title IX. See Ollier v. Sweetwater Union High
Sch. Dist., 768 F.3d 843, 867 (9th Cir. 2014). Here, too, Sanchez alleged just one
“adverse action”: her one-day suspension and brief removal from honor roll. Id.Page 3 of 3
Before the physical incident, Sanchez reported to a teacher that her friend
had been harassed. That report was a protected activity even though Sanchez was
not the “subject” of the report. Jackson v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ., 544 U.S. 167,
179 (2005). But there was no “causal link” between that report and the adverse
action because Sanchez never disputed that she was suspended and removed from
honor roll only because she kneed the male student. Ollier, 768 F.3d at 867.
Nor was Sanchez’s kneeing of the male student itself a protected activity.
We need not decide whether physical force used to defend against a Title IX-
prohibited behavior could be protected in certain circumstances because Sanchez
did not use force here in order to defend herself. See Cruz v. Coach Stores, Inc.,
202 F.3d 560, 566–67 (2d Cir. 2000). Sanchez admitted that when she kneed the
student, she did not think that he was going to touch her again and she could have
walked away. These admissions reveal that Sanchez did not act in self-defense and
thus that her act was not a protected activity.
AFFIRMED.