• In Florida, the District Court of Appeal of Florida held that the school resource officer who was on duty during the campus shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was not immune from the lawsuit filed by parents under a state statute that allows a recovery of damages when an officer acts “in bad faith or with malicious purpose or in a manner exhibiting wanton and willful disregard of human rights or safety.” (Peterson v. Pollack)
• In New York, the Supreme Court, Appellate Division affirmed a finding of liability against school officials after a student was injured while rehearsing for an upcoming chorus recital when the auditorium stage riser upon which she was walking collapsed. The court ruled that where the actual or specific cause of an accident is unknown, a jury is permitted to infer from the very happening of the injurious event that the accident was the result of negligence by the school. (Elsawi v. Saratoga Springs City Sch. Dist)
• In Oregon, the United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit ruled that school officials did not violate the rights of straight students by enforcing a school safety policy of allowing transgender students to use restrooms, locker rooms, and showers that matched their gender identity, rather than their biological sex assigned at birth. The court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy did not apply, that the school policy did not discriminate on basis of sex, and that the Due Process Clause did not provide a fundamental parental right to determine bathroom policies of public schools. (Parents for Privacy v. Barr)
• In Florida, the District Court of Appeal of Florida reversed the dismissal of a criminal case filed against a student who sent a Snapchat photograph to another student, which depicted a scoped AR-15 rifle with an extended, large capacity magazine and had the caption, “Show and Tell @[the school] on Monday.” The court ruled that the threshold standard for a “threat,” was conduct “sufficient to cause alarm in reasonable persons.” Under that standard, the case was remanded back for trial because, “[t]he reasonableness of [the receiving student’s] perception of the post as a threat is a matter for a jury to determine.” (State v. Cowart)