Sexual abuse in private and religious schools

Legal accuracy check

Chris Schroeder, Esq.

Florida Bar #520381 · D.C. Bar

First published October 5, 2026 · Last checked October 5, 2026

How pages are checked

How claims against private and religious schools work

Private schools are not government bodies, so the federal civil rights statute used against public officials, 42 U.S.C. 1983, does not usually reach them. Claims against them rest mainly on state negligence law. Public schools follow different rules, covered on our page about public schools, and every institution type is listed on the institutions hub.

Negligent hiring, supervision and retention

These are state common-law claims, and their details vary by state. The questions are the same almost everywhere. What did the school know, or should it have known, about the teacher, coach, dorm parent or priest before the abuse? Did it check references and records when it hired the person? Did it act on complaints, rumors or rule-breaking, such as an adult spending time alone with one student off campus? The claim is that the school’s own failures made the abuse possible or let it continue. Boarding schools, where staff supervise students around the clock, raise these questions at every hour of the day. Our pages on child sexual abuse and grooming describe the warning signs that often appear in these records.

Title IX, where the school takes federal funds

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. 1681, applies to “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Many private schools take no such funds, and Title IX does not reach them. Where it does apply, the Supreme Court has set a high bar for money damages. In Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District, 524 U.S. 274 (June 22, 1998), the Court required that an official with authority to take corrective action had actual notice of the misconduct and was deliberately indifferent to it. Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, 526 U.S. 629 (May 24, 1999) applied the same deliberate indifference test to abuse by other students, for harassment “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” that it denied the student access to education. The statute also exempts an institution “controlled by a religious organization” where applying it “would not be consistent with the religious tenets of such organization.” How, or whether, that exemption bears on an abuse claim is a question for a lawyer.

Who can be held responsible

The school itself is the usual defendant, through the corporation or nonprofit that runs it. Beyond the school, the question is who controlled it.

A parish school may belong to a parish, a diocese, a religious order, or a separate corporation, and the answer matters most when a diocese is in bankruptcy. In the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Chapter 11 case, the parishes and schools are not debtors, and whether survivors can reach them is the central dispute. The Archdiocese’s position, reported in its own newspaper, the Catholic Review, on June 8, 2026, is that it, its parishes and its schools are separate entities under civil and canon law. A school run by a religious order rather than a diocese can be a separate defendant again. Our page on Catholic diocese lawsuits explains how diocesan structure works, and our page on churches and religious organizations covers other denominations.

The adult who committed the abuse can also be sued. A criminal case against that person is separate from the civil claim, and the two can run at the same time; our guide to civil and criminal cases explains the differences. Abuse by a coach in a school’s athletic program can also involve a club or governing body, covered on our page about youth and college sports, and abuse at a summer program run by a school may overlap with camps and youth programs.

Deadline issues for private and religious schools

Charitable immunity. Some states have protected nonprofit organizations from negligence suits under a doctrine called charitable immunity. New Jersey is one, and its law shows how far that protection has been cut back for abuse claims. A 2005 law, P.L.2005, c.264, approved January 5, 2006, provides that charitable immunity does not apply to a claim that negligent hiring, supervision or retention of an employee resulted in a sexual offense against a person under 18. P.L.2019, c.120, effective December 1, 2019, added that the immunity does not cover a nonprofit “causing damage by a willful, wanton or grossly negligent act of commission or omission, including sexual assault” or sexual abuse, and applied the 2005 rule to abuse that happened before 2019. Where a state’s immunity survives in another form, it can limit who is sued and for what.

Revival windows that have closed. Several states reopened expired childhood abuse claims for a fixed period, and private and religious schools were sued in each.

• New York’s Child Victims Act, signed February 14, 2019, revived claims “against any party” under CPLR 214-g. A 2020 amendment lengthened the window, which by the statute’s own count ran from August 14, 2019 to August 14, 2021.
• California’s AB 218, approved October 13, 2019, revived claims that could be filed “within three years of January 1, 2020.” That window closed on December 31, 2022.
• New Jersey’s 2019 law allowed revived claims for two years after December 1, 2019, which by calculation ended on November 30, 2021.

The rules now. The ordinary deadlines in these states are long, and they differ. New York’s 2019 act extended the civil deadline for childhood abuse to age 55. New Jersey allows 37 years after age 18 or seven years from discovery, whichever is later. California has no time limit for childhood sexual assault that occurred on or after January 1, 2024; earlier abuse falls under the 22-years-after-majority or five-years-from-discovery rule. In Maryland, the Child Victims Act of 2023 removed the time limit for childhood sexual abuse claims as of October 1, 2023. A 2025 amendment, 2025 Md. Laws ch. 104, caps noneconomic damages against private defendants on previously time-barred claims at $700,000 for suits filed on or after June 1, 2025, down from $1,500,000 before that date, so the filing date now changes the law that applies. The full picture by state is on our statute of limitations reference.

Bankruptcy bar dates. When a diocese files for Chapter 11, the bankruptcy court sets a deadline for abuse claims against it. That bar date can control even where state law has no time limit. In Baltimore it was May 31, 2024. Whether a claim against a diocesan school is caught by the diocese’s bar date turns on who owns and runs the school, which is exactly what is being litigated.

Active matters involving private and religious schools

Each line below is an allegation unless it says a court has ruled. Status is as of the date given.

Archdiocese of Baltimore

The Archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 on September 29, 2023 (Bankr. D. Md. No. 23-16969), two days before Maryland’s Child Victims Act took effect. Its amended disclosure statement of August 28, 2026 describes a plan providing about $283 million to survivor claimants, including about $20 million from what it calls co-insured entities. On October 5, 2026, the court authorized the mediator to include the Ad Hoc Committee of Parishes, Schools, and Affiliates in mediation. Hearings are set for November 19 and 20, 2026. The Archdiocese maintains that its parishes and schools are separate entities.

New York: parishes and schools in Ogdensburg and Buffalo

Two upstate dioceses plan to bring their parishes into bankruptcy briefly so the settlements can cover them. In Ogdensburg, WWNY reported on September 1, 2026 that the plan proposes an $83 million fund: $45 million from the diocese and parishes and $38 million from insurers, with $28.6 million of the total coming from parishes and schools. All 85 parishes are to file short “rapid prepackaged” cases just before the confirmation hearing, and the survivors’ committee has approved the plan, according to the same report. In Buffalo, the diocese said on June 2, 2026 that its parishes would file similar cases, each lasting about 48 hours, according to Catholic World Report and Catholic Culture.

Diocese of Burlington

In August 2026 a ruling allowed survivors to seek to include parishes and schools in the case, according to OSV News. On September 30, 2026 the diocese asked the court to dismiss its own Chapter 11 case. Bishop John McDermott said: “I believe the Diocese has made a good faith effort to resolve this process in a timely and just manner. Unfortunately, our best offer was not accepted.” Survivors’ lawyers oppose dismissal, according to WCAX. A hearing is set for December 8, 2026.

Named institutions with public litigation

The Key School, Inc., a private school in Annapolis, Maryland, was one of three defendants whose appeals the Supreme Court of Maryland decided together on February 3, 2025. The defendants argued that the old deadline had given them a vested right not to be sued. By a 4 to 3 vote, the court held that the earlier time bar was an ordinary statute of limitations, not a statute of repose, and that removing it did not violate the Maryland Constitution (Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington v. Doe, consolidated with The Key School, Inc. v. Bunker). The ruling decided only that question. It did not decide whether the claims are true, and the school’s position on the underlying allegations is not in the public record we reviewed.

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