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You have two years for the main claim, not thirty. A Title IX claim against a university borrows the general two-year personal injury period in Section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. The Fifth Circuit has held that the longer Texas sexual assault periods do not apply to it. Schiffer Law Firm in Houston represents survivors in civil claims arising from campus sexual assault across Texas.
A campus sexual assault produces up to three separate processes, and they run on different tracks with different rules. There is the criminal case, if there is one. There is the university’s own Title IX investigation. That is an internal administrative process that can suspend or expel a student but cannot pay you anything. And there is a civil lawsuit, which is the only one of the three that can compensate you.
This page is about the third.
The step that cannot wait is the calendar. Many survivors finish the campus process, take a year to recover, and then start looking for a lawyer. By then you can be out of time on the federal claim without ever having been told there was a clock. Write down the date of the assault and the date you first reported it, and call us at 713-521-0059.
Title IX, 20 U.S.C. § 1681, prohibits sex discrimination by an education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. The Supreme Court has held that a private damages action lies against the funding recipient, which means you can sue the university itself.
For student-on-student assault, Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629 (1999), sets the test. You must show that the school was deliberately indifferent to harassment “of which they have actual knowledge.” The harassment must have been “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” that you were “effectively denied equal access” to the institution’s education program.
For assault by a professor, coach or employee, Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District, 524 U.S. 274 (1998), applies. It requires actual knowledge by an official with authority to address the discrimination and institute corrective measures, and a response amounting to deliberate indifference.
Two practical consequences follow. The claim is against the institution, not against the person who assaulted you. That is a separate claim. And the claim is about the institution’s response, not about the assault itself.
Your case lives or dies on what the university knew, who knew it, and what they did next. A university that received a report and sat on it is the case. So is one that had prior complaints about the same person, or that ran a process so slow it functioned as no process. A university that acted promptly usually is not.
It matters for which claims you have, not for whether Title IX applies. Public universities are governmental units. Your state-law negligence claims for negligent hiring or supervision fail, because the Tort Claims Act waives immunity only for motor vehicles and tangible property. Section 101.057(2) separately bars claims arising out of assault, battery or any other intentional tort.
The Texas Supreme Court foreclosed repleading an assault as negligence in City of Watauga v. Gordon, 434 S.W.3d 586 (Tex. 2014).
Title IX still applies to a public university with full force. Congress expressly abrogated Eleventh Amendment immunity for it in 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-7(a)(1). That section provides that a State “shall not be immune under the Eleventh Amendment” from suit in federal court for a Title IX violation. That is why Title IX is the workhorse claim against a Texas public university rather than a supplement to a negligence claim.
Private universities have no immunity at all. Ordinary Texas negligence claims are available to you, and Title IX generally applies as well, because almost all private universities receive federal financial assistance through student aid. A private nonprofit university may separately assert the Charitable Immunity Act caps in Chapter 84 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Section 84.007(a) excludes from those caps conduct that is intentional, wilfully negligent, or done with conscious indifference or reckless disregard for the safety of others.
Note also that Title IX contains an exemption that may affect you at a religious school. It exempts the operations of an entity controlled by a religious organization where application would conflict with its religious tenets.
Because a Title IX claim borrows the state’s general personal injury limitations period, and that period runs against you from the day of the assault or the day you turn 18. In Texas that is the two years in Section 16.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. This is where cases die.
The Fifth Circuit held this directly in King-White v. Humble Independent School District, 803 F.3d 754 (5th Cir. 2015). It reaffirmed the rule on 4 September 2025 in Jane Doe 1 v. City View Independent School District, No. 24-10592 (5th Cir. 2025). In that case the survivor’s Title IX claims were dismissed as time barred. In King-White the court held that the argument that “Section 16.0045’s specific limitations period for sexual assault claims should apply over the general two-year period in Section 16.003 is foreclosed” by earlier Fifth Circuit precedent.
So the thirty-year and five-year periods Texas provides for sexual abuse claims do not extend a Title IX claim. If you were a minor, the period is tolled until you turn 18, but it is still two years after that. The two-year federal deadline is short and unforgiving.
Probably not, and that is why the state law claims matter. In Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C., 596 U.S. 212 (2022), the Supreme Court held that emotional distress damages are not recoverable in private actions to enforce two other statutes enacted under the Spending Clause. Its reasoning groups Title IX with them. Title IX is a Spending Clause statute.
The Fifth Circuit has not yet issued a controlling decision applying Cummings to Title IX. Texas federal district courts already have. In Bonnewitz v. Baylor University, No. 6:21-cv-00491 (W.D. Tex. July 11, 2024), a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation held that the plaintiff’s emotional distress damages “are not recoverable under Title IX.” The district court adopted it on July 26, 2024.
The Fifth Circuit’s closest signal is Lartigue v. Northside Independent School District, No. 22-50854 (5th Cir. Mar. 26, 2024). That opinion noted that Title II of the ADA, unlike the statutes at issue in Cummings, is not a Spending Clause statute. It left open whether Cummings reaches Title II.
Anyone who tells you the question is settled in the Fifth Circuit is overstating it. What you can realistically recover under Title IX is economic: your tuition, medical and counseling costs, lost earnings and lost educational opportunity, together with injunctive relief and, subject to litigation, nominal damages. That is a reason to look hard at your state law claims alongside Title IX. It is not a reason to skip the federal claim, and we plead both where the facts allow.
That is contested nationally, and we will tell you where your facts fall. Federal circuits are split on whether a single severe incident can support Title IX liability or whether further harassment after notice is required. The Supreme Court has not resolved it.
Every statute and case linked above was read at its primary source. Texas statutes change every legislative session and case law is constantly changing.
This page is general information about Texas law. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
You have a claim against the person who assaulted you, for the assault itself. Under Section 16.0045(b) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, a claim arising from conduct violating the adult sexual assault provisions carries a five-year period. The period is thirty years where you were a child.
You may also have a claim against a fraternity, a landlord, an off-campus apartment complex or a bar. That claim exists where the assault happened on their property and the negligent security requirements are met. Our page on who is responsible for a sexual assault on property explains those requirements.
We start with the dates, because the federal deadline decides what is still possible for you, and we calendar it the day we speak. Then we obtain the university’s Title IX file, the reports it received and the record of what it did. We identify every claim you have against the institution, the individual and any property owner.
Schiffer Law Firm is a Houston personal injury firm with 50 plus years of combined experience representing injured people and survivors across Texas. We represent survivors in civil claims arising from campus sexual assault in Houston and across the state.
There is no charge to talk, and no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery.
Written by Jacob Schiffer, Attorney, Schiffer Law Firm. State Bar of Texas No. 24105175.
Call 713-521-0059.
Two years. The Fifth Circuit held so in King-White v. Humble ISD. It reaffirmed the rule on 4 September 2025 in Jane Doe 1 v. City View ISD, where the claims were dismissed as time barred. If you were a minor, the period is tolled until you turn 18.
It does not. Federal claims borrow the general personal injury period in Section 16.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. The Fifth Circuit has held that the argument for applying Section 16.0045 to those claims is foreclosed by its earlier decisions.
Probably not. After Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, Texas federal district courts have struck emotional distress damages under Title IX, and the Fifth Circuit has not yet ruled. What is realistically recoverable is economic, which is why your state law claims matter.
It matters for which claims are available, not for whether Title IX applies. Title IX reaches any institution receiving federal financial assistance. State negligence claims generally fail against a public university and are available against a private one.
Yes. That is a separate claim with its own deadline. Under Section 16.0045(b) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, a claim arising from adult sexual assault carries a five-year period, and thirty years where you were a child.