J.H.C. v. District of Columbia

MEMORANDUM OPINION

CHRISTOPHER R. COOPER United States District Judge

While an eighth-grader at a local public school, plaintiff J.H.C. was scolded by his theater teacher for making what she perceived to be a racially insensitive remark during class. The following day, the school informed J.H.C. that the parent of a fellow student had also accused him of making racist comments. A subsequent investigation by the D.C. public school system found the accusations against J.H.C. credible.

Seeking to turn the tables, J.H.C.'s father, an attorney, filed this lawsuit on his son's behalf. The suit alleges that the investigation of J.H.C. was in fact a procedurally flawed “coverup” orchestrated by a cabal of administrators, teachers, and students to punish J.H.C. for exposing supposed misconduct on the part of the theater teacher. In a four-count amended complaint, J.H.C. alleges direct constitutional violations under the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments; charges the defendants with engaging in a civil conspiracy; and asks the Court to set aside the investigation's findings as “void for vagueness.”

Finding that J.H.C. lacks standing to assert the alleged constitutional violations and has otherwise failed to state a claim, the Court will grant defendants' motion to dismiss.

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I. Background

A. Factual Background

The Court assumes the truth of the facts alleged in the complaint for purposes of resolving the motion to dismiss. See, e.g., Int'l Bhd. of Teamsters v. Atlas Air, Inc., 435 F.Supp.3d 128, 135 (D.D.C. 2020) (Cooper, J.).

At the time of the complaint, J.H.C. was an eighth grader at School Without Walls, a public school in Washington, D.C. Am. Compl. ¶ 4. On February 4, 2020, J.H.C. was in theater class when he told another student, D.E., that he “look[ed] very woke, ” which J.H.C. believed to mean “pretentious” or “politically correct.” Id. ¶ 10. Naelis Ervin, ^[1]J.H.C.'s theater teacher and a defendant in this case, demanded to know whether J.H.C. made that comment “because [D.E.] was sitting next to two black people[.]” Id. ¶ 11. “Stunned” by this response, J.H.C. responded in the negative. Id. According to J.H.C., he called D.E. “woke” because he was “wearing a scarf . . . indoors[.]” Id. In fact, J.H.C. claims that he was “unaware of who [D.E.] had been sitting next to” when he commented on his appearance. Id. Unconvinced, Ms. Ervin purportedly berated J.H.C. for what she perceived to be “[r]acist rhetoric.” Id. During this interaction, J.H.C. claims that his “heart was thumping and racing, ” and he alleges that a friend later told him that he appeared to be near tears. Id.

Two days later, a substitute teacher had some of the eighth graders play the game “telephone, ” id. ¶ 12, in which a phrase is whispered from one student to another in order to illustrate how messages can become distorted after being passed on repeatedly. At the end of the

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game, the initial phrase had somehow morphed into “[D.E.] is woke, ” prompting several students to laugh. Id. Later in the day, Ms. Ervin encountered J.H.C. and a few of his classmates in the hallway and demanded to know “what had happened . . . with the substitute teacher.” Id. ¶ 13. J.H.C. claims that, upon learning what occurred during the telephone game, Ms. Ervin told the students that “if something like [that] happened again” she would give them “zeros, ” place the incident on their “permanent records, ” and “call the police for hate speech[.]” Id.

Later that day, J.H.C. “inquired in the [s]chool's office whether teachers were permitted to threaten students.” Id. ¶ 15. Thereafter, J.H.C. and two of his classmates reported that Ms. Ervin had threatened them. Id. Richard Trogisch, the principal at the time and also a defendant in this lawsuit, asked the students to put their accusations against Ms. Ervin in writing. Id. ¶ 16. The next morning, J.H.C. and two fellow students came to school with written statements alleging that Ms. Ervin had engaged in extensive misconduct. Id. ¶ 17. Among the accusations were claims that Ms. Ervin violently threatened her students, was prone “outbursts, ” and tended to “exaggerate] the term ‘racist'” and “throw[] [the] term out of proportion.” Id. ¶¶ 18-25.

Forty-five minutes after the students submitted their statements, Mr. Trogisch called J.H.C.'s father and informed him that he had received an email from a parent of one of J.H.C.'s classmates accusing J.H.C. of making racist remarks. Id. ¶ 29. Mr. Trogisch then read the email message to J.H.C.'s father. It stated that J.H.C. uses the n-word “all the time, says that slavery is the best thing that ever happened to this country and that it should be brought back, and says his black classmates look like monkeys.” Id. Mr. Trogisch informed J.H.C.'s father that the school would be conducting an investigation into the accusations regarding both J.H.C. and Ms. Ervin. Id.

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Later that afternoon, four school administrators-including Ms. Ervin's mother, Silean Eaves, who was the school's assistant principal and is another defendant in this case-questioned J.H.C. for approximately one hour. Id. ¶ 36. J.H.C. alleges that, over the course of the interview, he became emotional as the administrators informed him that his friends and classmates had accused him of racist behavior. Id. He further alleges that Mr. Trogisch knew that these accusations were baseless but nonetheless “announced his intention to suspend J.H.C., feigning to believe the accusations of racist misconduct.” Id. ¶ 37. That same afternoon, J.H.C. claims that Ms. Ervin told her class that J.H.C. was “against the school's celebration of Black History Month.” Id. ¶ 38.

The following Monday, J.H.C.'s father contacted the District of Columbia Public Schools (“DCPS”) Office of General Counsel to request that an independent factfinder investigate the incident. Id. ¶ 40; see Am. Compl. Ex. 1. The General Counsel acceded to the request, and two investigators from the DCPS Comprehensive Alternative Resolution & Equity (“CARE”) team began an inquiry. Id. ¶ 41; see Am. Compl. Ex 2. Over the course of the next eleven weeks, the investigators interviewed fourteen students, four parents, three school administrators, two teachers, J.H.C., and J.H.C.'s father. See Am. Compl. Ex. 2 at 1-2. “At least three students” and one teacher reported that J.H.C. had “made comments along the lines of ‘slavery was good for America and should be brought back.'” Id. at 3. All three students indicated that the comments were made during an English Language course. Id. Additionally, “[a]t least two students” stated that J.H.C. made “comments along the lines of ‘Trayvon Martin was a disappointment,' or ‘Trayvon Martin was a thug and that he should have been shot[.]'” Id. Two students also said that J.H.C. had “outwardly questioned why there is a Black History Month.” Id. While one student reported that J.H.C. used the “‘n-word,' on multiple occasions[, ]” ten

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other students stated that they had not personally heard J.H.C. use that word. Id. J.H.C. denied ever using the n-word and having made the remarks about slavery and Trayvon Martin. Id.

DCPS concluded that the claims against J.H.C. were “valid and reliable” and stated that it would “implement a progressive discipline approach . . . if [it] find[s] future evidence of [J.H.C.] communicating slurs based on actual or perceived race or color.” Am. Compl. Ex. 2 at 3; see also Am. Compl. ¶ 46. J.H.C. does not allege, however, that any disciplinary action was ultimately taken. On May 6, 2020, J.H.C. filed an administrative appeal challenging the DCPS investigation, which he says remains pending although the deadline for DCPS to respond has long since passed. Id. ¶¶ 86-88.

B. Procedural Background

J.H.C.'s father initiated this lawsuit on his son's behalf on June 29, 2020, see Notice of Removal, and filed the operative amended complaint on October 21, 2020, see Am. Compl. The complaint names as defendants the District of Columbia, former School Without Walls Principal Richard Trogisch, Assistant Principal Silean Eaves, teacher Naelis Ervin, and an unspecified number of “Jane Does.” Id. The complaint's first two counts allege that DCPS's investigation of J.H.C. violated his rights under the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Count III contends that defendants committed civil conspiracy by orchestrating a baseless investigation of J.H.C. as retaliation for his “whistleblow[ing]” regarding Ms. Ervin's misconduct. Id. ¶ 44, 106111. And Count IV seeks “a declaratory judgment or Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, determining which of DCPS's Findings of Fact are void for vagueness.” Id. ¶ 113. Defendants moved to dismiss for lack of standing and failure to state a claim. The motion is ripe for the Court's resolution.

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II. Legal Standards

To survive a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss for lack of standing, the complaint “must state a plausible claim that the plaintiff has suffered an injury in fact fairly traceable to the actions of the defendant that is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision on the merits.” Humane Soc'y of the U.S. v. Vilsack, 797 F.3d 4, 8 (D.C. Cir. 2015). “While the Court must accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true, the plaintiff's factual allegations in the complaint will bear closer scrutiny in resolving a 12(b)(1) motion than in resolving a 12(b)(6) motion for failure to state a claim[.]” Smallwood v. U.S. Dep't of Just., 266 F.Supp.3d 217, 219 (D.D.C. 2017) (Cooper, J.) (cleaned up).^[2]

To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the complaint “must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief...