Raped Georgia Teen Loses Claim Against School

MACON, Ga. (CN) - Evidence of two unrelated assaults in a Georgia school district cannot buoy the civil claims of a gang-raped student, a federal judge ruled.

Jane Doe II, as she is described in the Jan. 28 decision, sued the Bibb County School District under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sexual discrimination in education.

The complaint alleges that Doe was a special education student at Northeast High School on the day of her attack, Jan. 19, 2012.

A male student allegedly came to Doe's classroom, explaining that another teacher needed to see her.

When Doe's teacher allowed her to leave the classroom with the student, he took her to the boys' restroom where he and at least five other male students raped and sodomized her, according to the complaint.

Doe says the male students belonged to a gang called MOB, short for "Money Over Bitches."

She, and her mother Jane Doe I, proposed two theories of liability to hold the district liable, but U.S. District Judge Marc Treadwell granted the district partial summary judgment on Jan. 28.

The Does failed to sway the court that it was liable based on its failure to properly address two previous sexual assaults that occurred in the school district in the decade before their claims arose.

In the first incident, a student was gang-raped in a classroom in 2002. The second attack occurred in an unsupervised classroom in 2008.

Treadwell found no indication, however, "that the 2002 and 2008 incidents were the result of a similar systematic failure that also contributed to Jane Doe's assault."

"Had the 2002 and 2008 incidents involved the same gang as Jane Doe II's assault or involved students being released to other students without verification, there might be a genuine issue on the defendant's actual knowledge," the ruling continues. It "misses the mark," however, for the Does to characterize the three incidents "as resulting from 'failure to maintain adult supervision in rooms accessible to students,'" the court found.

"Surely every student-on-student sexual assault results in part from a lack of adult supervision," Treadwell wrote. "As discussed above, general knowledge that student-on-student sexual assault may occur in the school setting is insufficient for Title IX liability.

The Does' other theory of liability, which remains intact after the court's ruling, involves Bibb's conduct after the alleged assault of Doe.

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