Wilson v. Stoltenberg.
No. 25-3139. 7/17/2026. D.Kan. Judge Rossman. Student-on-Student Racial Harassment—Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Claim—Qualified Immunity—Clearly Established Law—Particularized Allegations.
July 17, 2026
W.B., a Black student, attended elementary school and middle school in the Ottawa School District. From 2018 through 2023, he experienced ongoing racial harassment by his schoolmates. Beginning in 2020, W.B. and his mother, Wilson, reported the harassment to school employees. The bullying continued, and in 2023 Wilson removed W.B. from the Ottawa schools and enrolled him at a different school. Wilson then filed a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of W.B., alleging claims against various school district employees in their individual capacities (defendants) under state and federal law. Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint and asserted a qualified immunity defense to Wilson’s Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claim. The district court granted the motion to dismiss in part. In denying qualified immunity, it found that the complaint (1) plausibly pleaded W.B.’s right to equal protection through defendants’ deliberate indifference to racial harassment and (2) plausibly alleged that the constitutional right to be free from deliberate indifference to racial harassment was clearly established when the alleged unlawful conduct occurred.
On appeal, defendants did not challenge that Wilson plausibly alleged an equal protection violation. Defendants argued that they are entitled to qualified immunity because when W.B. was racially harassed by his schoolmates, it was not clearly established that a school official’s deliberate indifference to such conduct would violate the Fourteenth Amendment. However, pursuant to Ryan v. City of Shawnee, 13 F.3d 345 (10th Cir. 1993), and Murrell v. School District No. 1, Denver, 186 F.3d 1238 (10th Cir. 1999), when W.B. experienced racial bullying, it was clearly established that a school official’s deliberate indifference to racial harassment would violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Further, the Second and Fourth Circuits also recognize an equal protection claim against school officials in their individual capacity where the allegation is deliberate indifference to discriminatory student-on-student racial harassment. Defendants are thus not entitled to qualified immunity.
Defendants also argued that the complaint fails to state particularized allegations against the school board member defendants about their participation in the alleged equal protection violation. However, Wilson’s complaint adequately stated that the school board members participated in the alleged equal protection violation.
The order denying qualified immunity and denying the motion to dismiss Wilson’s Fourteenth Amendment claim were affirmed.