In a sharply worded ruling, a federal judge has deemed that a female student who credibly alleged pervasive sexual harassment may sue the assistant principal of Glenwood Springs High School for his indifference to her mistreatment.

“The question here is whether this verbal and physical harassment can constitute sexual harassment sufficient to put defendant [Patrick] Engle on notice. I find that it does,” wrote U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson in a Dec. 29 order. “In fact, it is absurd to paint these allegations as anything other than predominantly sexual harassment, particularly when plaintiff has alleged that they all relate directly to the sexual assault she underwent, an extreme form of sexual harassment itself.”

John Clune, an attorney with Hutchinson Black and Cook who represents the plaintiff, said he was pleased with the ruling and that his client is “doing as well as to be expected – just going to college and taking it one day at a time.”

In October 2016, a male student at Glenwood Springs High School reportedly raped a sophomore, identified as Jane Doe. She became depressed, her performance at school declined and teachers worried about her potential risk for suicide. Doe told her parents, a therapist and a teacher about the assault.

During the fall of 2017, Doe had to interact at school with the perpetrator, identified by the pseudonym John Smith. Smith allegedly followed her to and from class, his friends pulled on her backpack and they made derogatory comments about her.

In October of that year, Doe reportedly spoke to Engle about the assault and the harassment, expressing she felt unsafe. According to the plaintiff’s complaint, Engle did nothing in response. Doe continued to experience bullying and online harassment, but Engle allegedly declined to discipline Smith or the other harassers.

In March 2018, Engle sent an email to Doe’s mother acknowledging: “Unfortunately for this situation as it pertains directly to [Doe] as we had talked about, the school has taken no actions.”

After Smith pleaded guilty in his sexual assault case, the school district explled him, but shortly thereafter reversed its decision. The “sole disciplinary measure” against Smith, according to the court’s narrative, was that the district barred him from attending prom. Doe transferred to another school.

She filed a lawsuit in January of 2020, alleging under Section 1983 of the U.S. Code that the Roaring Fork School District and Engle violated her rights by showing deliberate indifference to the sexual harassment she experienced.

Arguing that the continued presence of Smith at the school did not constitute a violation of Doe’s rights, Engle’s attorneys wrote that the allegations of harassment “are general in nature and do not show that Mr. Engle was told anything specific about the nature of the harassment or intimidation, much less that the harassment or intimidation constituted ‘sexual harassment.'”

Jackson criticized Engle’s characterization of Doe’s bullying as unrelated to her assault.

“I disagree. Plaintiff has alleged that Mr. Smith’s friends launched gender-based comments at her like she was always ‘causing drama’ and ‘just trying to get attention’,” the judge recited. “She was called a ‘crazy bitch’ and a ‘pornstar.’ She was subject to photos of a prank that involved a sex toy, orchestrated by her sexual assailant on the same day that he was in court on his criminal case for sexually assaulting her.”

The school district supported Engle’s attempt to dismiss the case based on qualified immunity, a judicial doctrine that shields public employees from liability absent a violation of clearly established constitutional rights. Engle “would not have known that by failing to respond to the comments reported to him that he would violate” Doe’s rights, the district wrote in a brief. 

Jackson sharply rejected the contention that Engle had no legal obligation to address the concerns Doe brought to him.

“Under Engle’s approach, defendants such as him could avoid liability for deliberate indifference to sexual harassment merely by pointing to details of incidents that a victim did not provide,” the judge wrote. “Instead of spurring school officials, supervisors, and others to investigate or otherwise respond upon learning about alleged sexual harassment and assault, these government officials could sit back and ignore every instance of such harmful conduct that was not reported to them in great detail.”

Attorneys for Engle and the school district did not respond to a request for comment. The high school’s website still lists Engle as the assistant principal.

“We don’t have any sense about Mr. Engle’s employment but we would just hope that whomever is in these positions, they get better training on harassment and retaliation issues at school,” said Clune, Doe’s attorney.

The Post Independent reported last year that the school district hired a third party investigator to review the handling of Doe’s case. A report to the board of education in May 2019 noted the school district had made policies “more user-friendly” for reporting conduct violations, with money made available for training staff and parents on restorative justice practices.

The case is Doe v. Roaring Fork School District et al.