Cleveland Heights School District Failed to Address Student Sexual Harassment and Assault Incidents, Lawsuit Claims

Superintendents, principals and student coordinators at the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District failed to handle multiple instances of sexual harassment and assaults going back at least 14 years, a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday afternoon alleges.

The complaint, filed in the Northern District of Ohio Court by parents of students and former students who are now adults, accuses the district and employees of Fairfax Elementary, Roxboro Middle School and Cleveland Heights High of ignoring clear violations of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a federal statute that protects students from any major discrimination on the basis of sex or gender.

CHUH and the nine other defendants listed “failed to take prompt and effective steps to end the harassment and assaults,” the complaint reads, “once notice of the misconduct had become sufficiently severe.”

The allegations, compiled over the past year by attorneys Eric Long, Karen Truszkowski and Antoinette Frazho in the 36-page suit, cover a wide range of sexual misbehavior by male teenagers that were, lawyers say, mismanaged by a string of teachers and principals.

At least five former female students, titled as Jane Does 1 through 5 due to them being minors at the time, are involved. In one incident, a Heights High freshman was raped by a member of the varsity soccer team, and was later denied a transfer to a separate building after admins chose not to punish the assailant, the lawsuit alleges. In another, a mother named “E.K.” was unable to pull her daughter out of a kindergarten class at Fairfax Elementary after a boy placed “his hand up her shirt and down her pants.”

And in one of the extreme cases, an 11-year-old girl was allegedly assaulted by an eighth grader in a production closet behind the Roxboro Elementary Auditorium. She was, the complaint claims, later coerced by a Roxboro counselor into admitting the closet sex was “consensual.”

“At the time, Jane Doe 1 was 11 years old, and did not know what ‘consensual’ meant,” the lawsuit reads, “nor did she have the legal ability to ‘consent’ to sexual contact.” Though the boy had charges brought against him eventually, the girl was initially suspended for “engaging in sexual conduct while on school property.”

In an interview Wednesday, Long told Scene that he and the plaintiffs had waited so long to file—about a year—due to the nature of formulating a sound Title IX case, along with the obvious sensitivities that go into matters of sexual assault.

“I think part of that answer is that it takes time to realize that you’re not the only one. Right?” he said. “When we’re talking about systemic problems and actively trying to avoid doing what needs to be done under the law, it takes time for this stuff to come forward.”

Long said that he and his team had attempted to mediate a settlement outside of court with CHUH’s legal team but those talks had failed. He declined to reveal the dollar amount the litigants were seeking.

The suit filed brings ten counts of charges against the district, from three involving the Title IX sex discriminatio, to those of negligent hiring, retention and supervision of school staff. But the bulk of the claims, Long said, are straight-forward: CHUH failed to protect at least five female students from assault “because of their gender.”

Which, to Long, is a relatively unique case in Northeast Ohio courts.

“I’m not aware of kind of a multi plaintiff case that kind of fits the same pattern where over a course of a decade plus, the school has continuously failed to take the steps they need to take under Title IX,” he said. “So I think this is somewhat unique in that way. But I would venture to guess this will not be the last case like that.”

In a statement to Scene, Elizabeth Kirby, CHUH’s superintendent, backed up the school system’s ability to both handle Title IX issues and prevent them.

CHUH, after all, she said, has a “full-time Title IX Coordinator” to provide “education sessions” to students; teachers and staff regularly attend Title IX seminars; and, following a particular case in 2022, the school beefed up its support staff to combat sexual harassment.

“We take all allegations of this nature seriously, including the District’s obligations to report and investigate,” Kirby wrote in a statement. “We are aware that a number of parents are dissatisfied with the District’s Title IX response. We respect their right to voice their opinion.”

CHUH and their legal team have 60 days to respond to the complaint.

Subscribe to Cleveland Scene newsletters.

Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed