photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World File Photo

Liberty Memorial Central Middle School is pictured in September 2018.

A dispute over whether a Lawrence middle school student was the victim of sexual harassment by a teacher — and whether the district properly investigated the allegations — is now the subject of a federal lawsuit.

An attorney for Douglas County resident James Killian has filed a lawsuit against USD 497 in federal court alleging that a daughter of Killian had her civil rights violated by the district while she was a student at Liberty Memorial Central Middle School.

Killian — who for years has made frequent allegations against the district on social media, and has been warned by the district that he may be sued for defamation — is seeking a jury trial to determine whether the district followed federal civil rights law in investigating complaints that a teacher had inappropriately touched and “leered” at his daughter multiple times while in class at Liberty Memorial Central Middle School. The Journal-World reached out to the school district for comment, but had received no response as of Monday afternoon.

In the lawsuit, Killian alleges that a teacher on two separate occasions sexually harassed his daughter, once in October 2023 and another time in February 2024. The lawsuit, however, doesn’t name the teacher as a defendant and isn’t seeking damages against the educator. Rather, the school district is the only defendant in the case, and the lawsuit centers on whether the district properly followed federal law in how it investigated four Title IX civil rights complaints that Killian filed as a result of the alleged sexual harassment incidents.

Title IX is a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any public school. The federal law requires that a school district take several steps after receiving a Title IX complaint, and Killian is alleging the district failed to take many of those steps.

In the 48-page federal lawsuit filed by Overland Park attorney Connor Pace, Killian alleges the district initially failed to make the district’s Title IX coordinator aware of the October 2023 incident, did not fully investigate the incident, did not offer Killian’s daughter “supportive measures,” and improperly dismissed the case by not seeking to clarify the allegations and by allowing an official other than the Title IX coordinator to close the case.

The lawsuit makes a similar set of allegations regarding the February 2024 incident. Killian ultimately filed two other Title IX complaints against the district, and the lawsuit alleges the district did not follow federal law in dismissing those complaints either.

While the lawsuit was just filed on Friday, there have been public signs of the dispute between Killian and the school district for months. Killian became a frequent social media poster about the alleged incidents. The lawsuit notes the district often responded to those posts by saying Killian was spreading disinformation.

According to the lawsuit, the district responded in February 2024 to a comment that Killian made in a Facebook group for parents of Liberty Memorial Central Middle School students that “the sharing of false information is being forwarded to legal counsel for investigation of defamation.”

The lawsuit states that the following day the school district sent an email to 743 families that have children at the middle school. That email said allegations made on social media were false, and that specifically the school district had not received any “allegations of inappropriate touching by an LMCMS staff member.”

“There have been no such allegations made at our school,” the email read, according to lawsuit. “We did conduct an investigation last week of concerns reported by three students. These concerns were not allegations of inappropriate contact. We communicated with the families of these students about this investigation, in which it was determined there was no safety issue.”

The lawsuit notes that the district never has filed a defamation suit against Killian for the comments he has made regarding the alleged incidents.

Killian, however, has received a criminal trespass warning in relation to the matter. The lawsuit discloses that Killian was issued a criminal trespass warning following a “heated exchange” on Feb. 2, 2024, with a Lawrence police officer on the grounds of the middle school.

The lawsuit contends that “tensions rose,” in part, because Killian on Feb. 2, 2024, was first made aware that his daughter had made allegations of sexual harassment against the same teacher in October 2023. Killian said his daughter had not made him aware of the October 2023 allegations until he came to the school on Feb. 2, 2024, in response to receiving a phone call from a district administrator about that day’s allegations. Killian was upset that neither the district nor the police department had notified him of the October allegations.

As result, the lawsuit said, Killian and the Lawrence police officer “engaged in a heated exchange regarding the safety of (the student) and the response to (the student’s) prior report of sexual harassment and discrimination in Fall 2023.”

The lawsuit is asking for a jury trial, and is seeking monetary damages in excess of $75,000 for various costs, including therapy for the student, who no longer is a student in the Lawrence district.

The next step will involve the district filing a formal response to the lawsuit.