This appeal arises from yet another tragic instance of a high school coach’s alleged sexual abuse of a student. It brings a difficult issue testing limits of federal judicial authority: whether a school teacher’s breach of a state-law duty to report child abuse can, by itself, give rise to a federal claim against the teacher under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The parents of Sarah Doe allege that Dana White, a school teacher, caused Sarah to be deprived of rights protected under state law and the federal constitution when White failed to report her discovery of Sarah’s sexual abuse within forty-eight hours as required by Texas law. See Tex.Fam.Code Ann. § 34.01-34.02. White appeals from the district court’s denial of her motion for summary judgment, in which she asserted qualified immunity. We do not reach the issue of qualified immunity. We conclude that because White’s breach of her duty under Texas law to report child abuse was not under color of state law, the Does failed to state a claim under § 1983 against White. We reverse and order dismissal of the suit against White.
I.
A.
The Does argue that the sole issue before us is the district court’s denial of White’s motion for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds, and that we therefore lack authority to review the ruling below that the Does have stated a claim against White. This argument is without merit. When reviewing a district court’s rejection of a defendant’s assertion of qualified immunity, we start by asking whether plaintiffs have alleged a violation of a clearly established constitutional right.
Blackwell v. Barton,
B.
In September 1990, David Siepert resigned from his teaching and coaching position with the Lake Dallas Independent School District, amid allegations that he was sexually involved with a student of his who had been babysitting for him. In August 1991, with the help of Arthur Talkington, a former Lake Dallas colleague who was employed with RISD, Siepert obtained a coaching position at Rains High School in RISD. From the start of his employment with RISD, Siepert developed a reputation for acting inappropriately toward female students. Reports of his misbehavior indicated, for example, that Sie-pert summoned female students from class early to wrap ankles or wrists for athletics, talked in front of students about dating high
During the fall of 1991, while fifteen-year-old Sarah Doe was a student in Siepert’s physical education class, Siepert contacted Sarah at school about babysitting for him. Not long after Sarah began babysitting for Siepert’s two children, Siepert began making sexual advances toward her. Siepert eventually began having sexual intercourse with Sarah on a regular basis throughout the 1991-1992 school year, typically at his home while Sarah was “babysitting.” 1 Siepert, though, did not limit his interaction with Sarah to his home. He often discussed babysitting arrangements with Sarah at school, drove Sarah from school to his home when she was scheduled to babysit, and gave gifts to her while in his car or at school. In addition, Siepert had physical contact with Sarah during his physical education class; for example, he would request Sarah’s assistance in putting away athletic equipment, then grab her hands and buttocks while they were alone in the equipment room. Although this in-school contact ended with the arrival of summer vacation, Siepert’s requests for babysitting assistance did not.
Dana White entered the scene during the summer of 1992. White was employed as a junior high school teacher with RISD from August 1982 until June 1993, during which time she was certified as a teacher in Texas and paid monthly pursuant to her teaching contract with RISD. On June 22, 1992, White found out that Siepert was having sexual relations with Sarah. On that date, Sarah called White from Siepert’s home, where Sarah was babysitting, to ask for advice about a condom leak. White suspected that Sarah might be having problems of a sexual nature with the adult for whom she was babysitting, but did not know his identity until Sarah indicated that she was babysitting for Siepert. White immediately went to Siepert’s home to talk with Sarah in person, at which time Sarah revealed the details of her ongoing sexual affair with Siepert. White chose not to report Siepert’s abuse of Sarah at that time. 2
Although Sarah made efforts to terminate her involvement with Siepert, she continued to babysit for him intermittently throughout the summer and into the fall of 1992. On November 5, 1992, Sarah visited White’s classroom to complain about her frustration with Siepert. Sarah told White that Siepert had been making Sarah feel guilty about turning down babysitting assignments, and that he had told Sarah that he was interested in dating her. White discussed Sarah’s problem with her brother, her husband, and an attorney, but again declined to report the abuse to the proper authorities. From November 5 through November 12,1992, White and other school teachers and officials had various conversations regarding Sarah’s abuse; however, a proper report was not made until November 12. 3
Jane and John Doe brought this civil rights suit asserting state and federal claims on behalf of Sarah against Siepert, White, RISD, and certain other RISD teachers and officials. The Does allege that the defendants violated,
inter alia,
the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by causing Sarah to be deprived of her liberty interest in bodily integrity. The Does sued White in her individual and official capacities, asserting that White, by exhibiting deliberate indifference to Sarah’s constitutional rights in breaching her duty under Texas law to report Sarah’s abuse, caused Sarah’s depri
II.
A.
To state a claim under § 1983, plaintiffs must allege two elements: first, that they were deprived of a right or interest secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and second, that the deprivation occurred under color of state law.
See West v. Atkins,
In light of our recent decision in
Doe v. Taylor,
we have little trouble concluding that the Does’ allegations are sufficient to establish that Sarah suffered an actionable deprivation of her liberty interest in freedom from sexual abuse by persons wielding state authority. In
Doe v. Taylor,
we held that “schoolchildren do have a liberty interest in their bodily integrity that is protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that physical sexual abuse by a school employee violates that right.”
Doe v. Taylor persuades us that the Does have stated a § 1983 claim against Siepert for depriving Sarah of her federal constitutional right to bodily integrity. Sarah was a student in Siepert’s class, and Siepert had considerable interaction with Sarah at school: He allegedly discussed babysitting arrangements with her, gave her rides from school, delivered personal notes to her, and gave gifts to her. Particularly since White herself concedes in her brief that Siepert can be held liable under § 1983 for Sarah’s injury, we find it appropriate to assume, for purposes of this appeal, that the Does have adequately alleged that Siepert acted under color of state law in causing Doe to be deprived of her liberty interest in bodily integrity. It is true that this reach of a constitutionally secured interest in personal liberty is fairly debatable as an original proposition. We were persuaded in Doe v. Taylor that Supreme Court precedent has ended that precise debate for this, an inferior court.
B.
That a deprivation has occurred at the hands of a state actor, however, does not answer the separate question of which other persons, apart from the immediate perpetrator, may be held liable under § 1983. To help focus this inquiry, our decision in
Bush v. Vitema,
The Does allege that the Texas Family Code, by imposing on teachers an affirmative duty to report child abuse in a timely manner, has encircled White as a state actor who can be held liable under § 1983 for Sarah’s deprivation. The Family Code provides generally that “[a]ny person having cause to believe that a child’s physical or mental health or welfare has been or may be adversely affected by abuse or neglect shall report in accordance with Section 34.02 of this code.” Tex.Fam.Code Ann. § 34.01. While Subsections (a) and (b) of § 34.02 prescribe the requisite method and content for a proper report, § 34.02(d) establishes a more stringent reporting requirement for “professionals”:
If a professional has cause to believe that a child has been or may be abused or neglected, the professional shall make an oral report as prescribed by Subsection (a) of this section not later than the 48th hour after the hour the professional first suspects that the child has been or may be abused or neglected- In this subsection, “professional” means an individual who is licensed or certified by the state, or who is an employee of a facility licensed, certified, or operated by the state, and who in the normal course of official duties, orduties for which a license or certification is required, has direct contact with children. “Professional” includes teachers, nurses, doctors, and day-care employees.
Hence, since a knowing failure to report in accordance with the applicable requirements is punishable as a misdemeanor, see Tex. Fam.Code Ann. § 34.07, the Family Code imposes on all teachers a criminally enforceable obligation to report child abuse within forty-eight hours of acquiring suspicion or knowledge of the abuse.
The Does argue that a teacher who waits longer than forty-eight hours to report state-occasioned child abuse subjects herself to liability under § 1983 if she was deliberately indifferent to the constitutional rights of the abused child. In particular, the Does rely on our holding in
Doe v. Taylor
that, where supervisory school officials were deliberately indifferent to a subordinate teacher’s sexual abuse of a grade-school student, the officials can be held responsible for the resulting deprivation of the student’s constitutional rights.
See
White does not dispute that she breached her duty under Texas law by not reporting Sarah’s abuse more promptly. Instead, she argues that her breach, standing alone, cannot give rise to a federal claim against her. Thus, White offers a contrary reading of Doe v. Taylor, pointing to a different statement in the concurrence: “Consider a classroom teacher in the same school as Coach Stroud who had full knowledge of Coach Stroud’s activities but looked the other way. Any moral duty aside, no one suggests that § 1983 imposes liability upon this silent teacher.” Id. at 464 (Higginbotham, J., concurring).
As the Does have pointed out, however, Wfiiite omitted a key sentence that immediately follows her quoted segment: “This conclusion is found in the role of state law.” Id. The Does thus argue that here, unlike Doe v. Taylor, state law does impose an affirmative duty on a fellow teacher not to remain silent, and that White’s breach of that duty therefore can serve as the basis for § 1983 liability. Hence, the precise question for this court is whether state law supports the conclusion that White’s breach of her state-law duty to report child abuse renders her responsible for Sarah’s constitutional injury at the hands of Siepert.
C.
The Does arguments, though logically enticing, are ultimately incomplete. As we explained in
Bush,
it is often difficult, but nevertheless essential, to “isolat[e] the appropriate inquiry into the identity of the state actors responsible for the violations from the
separate question
of whether particular defendants had breached some duty imposed on them by state law.”
It is important to keep in mind that we are not asking whether breach of a state-law duty constitutes a distinct constitutional violation. Since the Does have already asserted an actionable constitutional deprivation based on Siepert’s abusive conduct, the precise question remaining is whether there are persons in addition to Siepert whose responsibility under state law is sufficient to subject them to liability under § 1983 for that single deprivation — persons who, in the legal sense, are the participants. By supplying the requisite elements of a § 1983 claim — i.e., a constitutional deprivation, causation, and action under color of state law— Siepert’s alleged misconduct frees us to redirect our focus away from the requirements for a constitutional claim, which Siepert has met, and toward the lines of responsibility under state law. In short, once we determine that a constitutional violation has occurred, we are no longer barred from finding another person liable under § 1983 for committing a state-law breach that caused the constitutional injury, even if the breach itself does not independently satisfy the elements of a constitutional claim.
Taken to its extreme, such reliance on state law could allow states virtually unfettered latitude in prescribing the scope of federal liability. Subject only to due process limitations, a state conceivably could declare a person responsible for someone else’s unconstitutional conduct, through creation of state-law duties, no matter how attenuated the person’s relationship to the injurious conduct and regardless of whether the person otherwise had any affiliation with the state. But since the effect of state law in defining federal liability is ultimately an issue of federal law, and given our role in shaping federal law, we have seen fit to avoid such an outcome through interpretation of the elements of federal constitutional and statutory claims asserted via § 1983.
The Supreme Court has emphasized that “the Due Process Clause ‘does not purport to supplant traditional tort law in laying down rules of conduct to regulate liability for injuries that attend living together in society.’ ”
Collins,
As
the Court has explained, “permitting cases against cities for their ‘failure to train’ employees to go forward under § 1983 on a lesser standard of fault would result in de facto respondeat superior liability on municipalities — a result we rejected in
Monell.” City of Canton,
That a supervisory school official may be held liable under § 1983 for breaching his state-law duty to
stop or prevent
child abuse thus does not compel the conclusion that a nonsupervisory teacher is responsible for breaching a state-law duty to
report
the abuse. Instead, this conclusion depends on a relative analysis of state law’s treatment of supervisors and teachers. We must ask what it is about a supervisor’s duties and functions that renders a state supervisory official liable for a constitutional deprivation by a subordinate. Only when we learn this can we decide whether, despite her lack of supervisory powers, a teacher who breaches her duty to report child abuse nevertheless engages in conduct akin to that of a supervisor who flouts his responsibility to supervise. By focusing on the core elements of supervisory liability, we can avoid the “risk of applying state law rather than simply using state law to identify the persons responsible for an identified civil rights violation.”
Bush,
III.
The Does’ reliance on our analysis of supervisory liability in Doe v. Taylor begs a critical element of this final step in our Bush inquiry: Was White acting under color of state law when she breached this duty? Col- or of state law in this context does not implicate the state action requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment because we are not asking whether White is guilty of committing an independent constitutional violation. Rather, since the Does seek to hold White hable for damages under § 1983, the key question is whether she has met the statutory requirements of a § 1983 claim — whether she fairly can be said to have acted under color of state law in causing Sarah’s constitutional injury. As the Supreme Court has explained, even where state action is not necessary to state a claim under § 1983, the color of state law requirement of § 1983 still maintains its vitality as a statutory element:
[Although ... the under-eolor-of-state-law requirement does not add anything not already included within the state-action requirement of the Fourteenth Amendment, § 1983 is applicable to other constitutional provisions and statutory provisions that contain no state-action requirement. Where such a federal right is at issue, the statutory concept of action under color of state law would be a distinct element of the case not satisfied implicitly by a finding of a violation of the particular federal right.
Lugar,
While this case does not involve a federal right apart from the Does’ Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process claim, the Court’s analysis is nevertheless instructive as to the “distinct” nature of the statutory requirement of “action under color of state law.” That is, as Siepert’s alleged sexual misconduct has already supplied the requisite state action for purposes of asserting a Fourteenth Amendment violation, we need not ask about Fourteenth Amendment
As we will explain, “color of state law” demands a causal connection between the state-law breach and the constitutional injury, and satisfaction of this causation requirement in turn hinges on the presence of a right of legal control over the events culminating in the constitutional harm. Thus, while state law guides us in locating the constitutional actors responsible for causing a constitutional injury, we are still constrained in drawing the circle of federal liability; we must be satisfied that White’s failure to report Sarah’s abuse within forty-eight hours had the requisite causal relationship to Sarah’s constitutional wrong. Simply put, White is responsible under § 1983 for breaching her duty to report Siepert’s abuse of Sarah only if state law also empowered her with a right of legal control over Siepert.
A.
While state law imposes a panoply of legally enforceable obligations on both citizens and state employees, not every law creating a duty establishes that the obligated party is a state actor for purposes of fulfilling the duty. “A State may, through its courts and legislatures, impose such affirmative duties of care and protection upon its agents as it wishes. But not ‘all common-law duties owed by government actors were ... constitution-alized by the Fourteenth Amendment.’ ”
De-Shaney v. Winnebago County Dep’t of Social Servs.,
Liability attaches under § 1983 only where a defendant, acting under color of state law, causes a person to be deprived of a federally secured right or interest. This requirement that action be under color of state law is as essential as it is rigorous; a person does not act under color of state law solely by virtue of her relationship to the state, but depending on her function — i.e., the nature of her challenged conduct.
See Polk County v. Dodson,
Where the alleged official misconduct involves a breach of an affirmative duty to act, a two-party conceptual complexity arises from the fact that the act complained of is (1) unlawful, and (2) an act of omission, rather than commission. Ordinarily, the unlawfulness of official conduct does not preclude us from finding that the conduct was nevertheless action under color of state law. Thus, where a state official acted under a grant of authority by the state, she can be held liable under § 1983 for unlawful conduct on the ground that she exceeded her authority.
See, e.g., Monroe v. Pape,
This analysis cannot be easily extended, however, when the issue is a breach of an affirmative duty to act. In particular, the conceptual difficulty is in deciding when it can be said that there was a conferral of state authority making it possible for a defendant to wield state power in failing to act. Thus, when deciding whether the defendant exercised state power, the first question is, necessarily, whether the defendant possessed any state power to begin with — i.e., whether she was clothed with state authority with respect to her duty to act. This inquiry, in turn, requires an examination of our cases in which § 1983 liability has been based on a defendant’s failure act, with a particular focus on the nature of the duty breached. 5
B.
As we have held that state supervisors can be found liable under § 1983 for failing to comply with a state-law duty to act, we necessarily have determined that under certain circumstances, a guilty supervisor’s inaction may constitute action under color of state law. If a supervisor acted under color of state law, then he must have possessed and exercised state power in failing to act and thereby causing the constitutional injury perpetrated by his subordinate. Accordingly, we start by reviewing our supervisory liability cases in an effort to distill the proper meaning of “under color of state law” as applied in the context of a defendant’s inaction in the face of a duty to act.
In
Sims v. Adams,
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in
Monell,
we held that a supervisory official could not be held vicariously liable under § 1983 for the misconduct of a subordinate, even where state law did impose vicarious liability on the supervisor.
See Baskin v. Parker,
With this precedent in hand, we concluded in
Doe v. Taylor
that supervisory school officials can be held liable under § 1983 for a subordinate teacher’s sexual abuse of an elementary or secondary school student.
Although these cases did not discuss how an official who breached a state-law duty to act could be said to have been acting under color of state law, it is not difficult to see that they possessed state authority. State law imposes duties on supervisory officials while entrusting them with power to assure compliance with constitutional standards, typically by exercising direct control over subordinates. Failure to exercise control, if accompanied by the requisite level of indifference, may give rise to § 1983 liability.
See, e.g., Sims,
We have never suggested, however, that only supervisors can be held liable for a failure to act that results in a constitutional injury. Rather, it is state law’s grant of a right of legal control over the immediate perpetrator of an injury that establishes that a state supervisor possessed and exercised state authority. While supervisors frequently have a right of control by virtue of then-status, control can exist in other ways.
Judge Rubin’s opinion in
Howard v. For-tenberry,
Our analysis of the sanitarians in Howard, however, compelled a different result. We noted that the sanitarians had “stated in their depositions that, if they had seen and inspected the cells, they would have forbidden their use immediately; their failure to inspect thus had a clear causal connection to the deaths of [the plaintiffs].” Id. at 1213. Thus, even though the sanitarians were not positioned as supervisors, they acknowledged that they had a right of control over the persons who committed the deprivation, in that they could have forbidden the prison officials from using the hot boxes. In other words, the sanitarians had legal authority to control the prison personnel with respect to their usage of the hot box, and therefore their failure to inspect, together with their corresponding failure to prevent the constitutional harm, was action under color of state law.
This element of legal control is not confined to eases in which a state employee breached a duty to exert control over another state employee. Rather, the existence of a legal right of control is the linchpin in all cases in which we have found § 1983 liability based on breach of a duty to act, even where private actors committed the injurious harm. Consider, for example, our decision in
Lopez v. Houston Ind. School Dish,
In sum, our cases indicate that a right of legal control over the persons or events giv
C.
A right of control, as noted by our analysis in
Howard,
speaks most apparently to the issue of causation; absent a right of control, we concluded that the causal connection between the failure to act and the ultimate injury was too speculative to support a finding of § 1983 liability. Indeed, we suggested in
Bush
that the requisite causation under § 1983 could never exist unless a defendant had a duty to correct the constitutional violation: “[Accepting for now the concept that the breach of a state-imposed duty can cause a constitutional tort, we hold that the necessary causal relationship is absent when a state duty to regulate, monitor, inspect, or advise is not accompanied by an obligation to extirpate constitutionally substandard conditions or activities that may be encountered.”
We have cautioned, however, that causation under § 1983 is “not to be gauged by the standards of ordinary tort law.”
Gonzalez v. Ysleta Indep. Sch. Dist.,
This causal connection requirement may take shape as a stricter test of factual causation, but it is a more nuanced inquiry, particularly in the context of a failure to act. In demanding that a failure to supervise or train must be “closely related” to the constitutional injury,
see City of Canton,
When a claimant shows that there is both conduct under color of state law and causation of the injury — only then has he satisfied § 1983’s requirement of causation under col- or of state law. Put another way, the under color of state law requirement cannot be separated from the question of a causal connection between state authority and an alleged constitutional injury; rather, the notion of such a causal relationship is impounded in § 1983’s requirement of action under color of state law.
In the context of an alleged breach of a state-law duty to act, the causal connection becomes unsteady at the point of conduct unless there is a right of legal control over the persons or events giving rise to the injury. Absent such control, a person’s ability to abate the harm is too speculative to support § 1983 liability. At the same time, lack of legal control calls into question whether there is an exercise of state authority in failing to act. A right of control is authority conferred on a defendant by the State, and failure to utilize it properly can be said to constitute action under color of state law because the state actor is empowered by state law to take action that ordinary citizens cannot. If state law has imposed a duty to report, investigate, monitor, or regulate without granting a duty to exercise state-conferred legal control over the underlying persons or events, there is no conduit through which an exercise of state power can be said to have caused the constitutional injury. Because we find that the existence of a right of legal control is a compelling distinction in the question whether state law has located a person as a constitutional actor, we insist that a breach of a state-law duty to report cannot render a person liable under § 1983 as a responsible state actor unless that person also had a duty and power under state law to exercise state authority in controlling the events that produced the unreported injury.
IV.
Based on our analysis of the Texas Family Code, we conclude that White’s breach of her duty to report did not establish the requisite causal nexus between state authority and Sarah’s injury and therefore was not action under color of state law. The Family Code imposes a general duty on all citizens to report child abuse to the proper authorities. To supplement this citizen-wide duty, the statute establishes a stricter reporting requirement for “professionals,” defined to include teachers, doctors, day-care sitters, and other such persons who are licensed, certified, or employed by the state, and who have contact with children in the course of their official duties. See Tex.Fam. Code Ann. § 34.01-34.02. Yet despite the reference to state certification, licensing, or employment in identifying who bears the heightened reporting obligation, the statute nowhere distinguishes between public and private professionals. More important, since the statute does not empower either citizens or professionals with a right of control over the child abuser, a failure to report in the proper manner does not have the causal connection necessary to implicate an exercise of state power made possible only because the silent party is clothed with state authority.
Two illustrations expose the folly of suggesting that this Texas statute locates citizens or professionals as state actors who can be held responsible for constitutional injuries committed by persons whom they fail to report. First, suppose that White, while vacationing in Daingerfield, Texas, had told a privately employed research physician, who had no daily contact with children, about Sarah’s abuse. While this doctor would face state criminal penalties for waiting too long to report the abuse, it is difficult to see how the doctor, solely because she was licensed by the state to practice medicine, possessed and exercised state authority in not reporting the breach. Second, since the duty to report child abuse applies regardless of whether the
Even though the Family Code has not empowered White with control over Siepert, White still may be held liable under § 1983 for Sarah’s injury if she otherwise possessed authority under state law — e.g., as a teacher or a citizen — to exercise control over Siepert actions. Such control need not have been labeled as “supervisory,” but may have existed, for example, if she had legal power to prohibit Siepert from having contact with Sarah.
Cf. Howard,
Based on our review of the Does’ allegations, we find no basis for concluding that White had sufficient control over Siepert to render her liable under § 1983 for his abuse of Sarah. The Does concede that White did not have supervisory authority over Siepert. Although White and Siepert both worked in the same school district, White was a junior high school teacher at a different school than Siepert; even though White and Siepert were at neighboring schools, her nearby status did not give her any legal control over Siepert. Regardless of whether White had a generalized duty under state law to intervene on Sarah’s behalf, we find that White had no right of control over Siepert and hence conclude that she cannot be held responsible under § 1983 for causing Sarah’s constitutional injury at the hands of Siepert.
In short, we conclude that a failure to report child abuse as required by Texas Fam.Code Ann. §§ 34.01-34.02 is not action under color of state law. Since state law has not otherwise empowered White with a right of control over Siepert, we conclude that her breach did not have the requisite causal connection to Sarah’s constitutional injury, and that White’s delay in reporting was not action under color of state law. White therefore cannot be held responsible under § 1983 for Siepert’s sexual abuse of Sarah. Although White violated Texas law by breaching her duty to report Sarah’s abuse within forty-eight hours, White’s lack of control over Siepert means that she did not “exercise power ‘possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of state law.’”
Polk County,
REVERSED and REMANDED.
Notes
. Siepert has denied the allegations that he engaged in any misconduct of a sexual nature with Sarah.
. White insists that she remained silent to honor her promise of confidentiality to Sarah, which Sarah demanded before revealing Siepert’s identity, and also because White believed that Sarah was not in immediate danger since Siepert was out of town. Although White’s reasons for not reporting the abuse are not in the Does’ alleged facts and thus not relevant to our disposition, we mention them to facilitate a better understanding of the supposed circumstances of White’s inaction.
.On that date, White accompanied Sarah to Sarah’s home, where Sarah told her parents about her involvement with Siepert. While there are conflicting indications as to what happened immediately thereafter, there is no dispute that White subsequently went to the local sheriff’s office to file a report that included a discussion of Sarah’s sexual involvement with Siepert.
. § 1983 provides, in relevant part:
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.
. We are mindful of the Supreme Court’s ruling in
Collins
that § 1983 does not require "proof of an abuse of governmental power separate and apart from the proof of a constitutional violation."
.
Lopez
is not to be understood as recognizing a "special relationship” between schoolchildren and the state giving rise to a generalized federal constitutional duty to protect children from harm on school buses.
See Walton v. Alexander,
. Thus, a school supervisory official can be held liable for breaching his duty under the Family Code to report a subordinate’s abuse of a grade school student.
See Doe v. Taylor,