When a church in Delaware retained a pastor who had sexually abused two minor girls at prior churches, a jury found the organization liable after he committed a third assault at the new church. The decision illustrates the central question every youth-serving organization faces: what does adequate staff supervision actually require, and where does falling short become…
On May 21, 2026, a federal district court allowed a former Virginia Tech student’s Title IX claims to proceed, after cataloguing a series of investigative and procedural failures that the court found raised a plausible inference of sex discrimination. The order is not a verdict. Virginia Tech may yet prevail. But the court’s detailed account of what…
What the Government Owes a Six-Year-Old: B.B. v. Capistrano and the Constitutional Obligations of Public Institutions A March 2026 Ninth Circuit ruling clarifies that government entities cannot use age as a shield against First Amendment accountability — and that the burden of justifying speech restrictions rests squarely on the state. In March 2021, a first-grade…
In early March, the Georgia Court of Appeals issued a ruling that youth-serving organizations should note. The case — Darlington School v. Philadelphia Indemnity et al. — reversed a $345 million judgment against five insurance carriers, finding that policies written decades after abuse occurred cannot be stretched to cover that historic harm. The decision makes…
A federal appellate court opinion held that a state association violated the constitutional rights of a religious school by expelling it from all intramural activities after the school forfeited a basketball game against a team with a transgender athlete. The district court had ruled against the school, finding that the association’s enforcement of its rules…
One area that all youth-serving organizations must address is how to accommodate children with disabilities. It can be a complicated question, such as when a child’s disability harms other children or when your program simply cannot accommodate a disability without completely changing the program. Youth programs must find a way to balance and care for…
A recent court case from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals dives into the tricky intersection of religious accommodations and workplace policies. Although this particular case involved a public school, the principles that the court reviewed will apply to all youth organizations balancing competing concerns of staff and client rights. Where The Case Started Brownsburg…
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has reaffirmed the ministerial exception to employment laws as applied to religious schools. A private Christian elementary school fired an assistant principal, who sued, claiming that his termination was retaliation for complaining about race and sex discrimination and for raising concerns that the school’s main funder might be a…
We appear to have another illustration of the many reasons I strongly advise my clients against zero tolerance policies. A student has sued a school in Missouri after it suspended him for posting a picture of soda cans that he had glued together in the form of an AK-47. With all the usual caveats that…
The beginning of a new year is a traditional time to make new plans. For youth organizations, it is a good time to take a close look at your policies and records to determine which ones to keep going forward. Not only will the process make your program more efficient, but it will help you…