Sexual Assault at a College or University

What does Title IX require, and what is the deadline?

Title IX is the main claim

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.

For student-on-student assault, Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629 (1999), requires that the school was deliberately indifferent to harassment “of which they have actual knowledge,” and that the harassment was “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” that the survivor was “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), 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 individual who committed the assault. That is a separate claim.

The claim is about the institution’s response, not about the assault itself. It 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, that had prior complaints about the same person, or that ran a process so slow it functioned as no process, is the case. A university that acted promptly usually is not.

Public versus private matters, but not the way people assume

Public universities are governmental units. State-law negligence claims for negligent hiring or supervision fail, because the Tort Claims Act waives immunity only for motor vehicles and tangible property, and 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).

But Title IX still applies with full force. Congress expressly abrogated Eleventh Amendment immunity for it in 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-7(a)(1), which 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, 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, subject to the exclusion in Section 84.007(a) for 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 for the operations of an entity controlled by a religious organization where application would conflict with its religious tenets.

The deadline is two years, and this is where cases die

A Title IX claim borrows the state’s general personal injury limitations period. In Texas that is the two years in Section 16.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code.

The Fifth Circuit held this directly in King-White v. Humble Independent School District, 803 F.3d 754 (5th Cir. 2015), and reaffirmed it on 4 September 2025 in Jane Doe 1 v. City View Independent School District, No. 24-10592 (5th Cir. 2025), where 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. Where the survivor was a minor the period is tolled until eighteen, but it is still two years after that.

A survivor who finishes a campus process, takes a year to recover, and then starts looking for a lawyer can be out of time on the federal claim without ever having been told there was a clock.

Two more things worth knowing

Emotional distress damages are probably not recoverable, and that changes what a case is worth. 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, and its reasoning groups Title IX with them. 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) (magistrate judge’s report and recommendation, adopted by the district court July 26, 2024), the court held that the plaintiff’s emotional distress damages “are not recoverable under Title IX.” The Fifth Circuit’s closest signal is Lartigue v. Northside Independent School District, No. 22-50854 (5th Cir. Mar. 26, 2024), which noted that Title II of the ADA, unlike the statutes at issue in Cummings, is not a Spending Clause statute, and left the question whether Cummings reaches Title II open. Title IX is a Spending Clause statute.

Anyone who tells you the question is settled in the Fifth Circuit is overstating it. Anyone who tells you a Title IX case will pay for what the assault did to you emotionally is overstating it a great deal more. What is realistically recoverable under Title IX is economic: tuition, medical and counseling costs, lost earnings, lost educational opportunity, together with injunctive relief and, subject to litigation, nominal damages. That is a reason to look hard at the state law claims alongside Title IX. It is not a reason to skip the federal claim.

Whether one incident is enough is contested nationally. 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.

Primary sources

• Gebser v. Lago Vista Indep. Sch. Dist., 524 U.S. 274 (1998)
• Davis v. Monroe Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 526 U.S. 629 (1999)
• Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller, P.L.L.C., 596 U.S. 212 (2022)
• King-White v. Humble Indep. Sch. Dist., 803 F.3d 754 (5th Cir. 2015)
• Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 101 (Tort Claims Act)
• City of Watauga v. Gordon, 434 S.W.3d 586 (Tex. 2014)
• Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 84 (charitable immunity)
• Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 16 (limitations)

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.