Sean Ouellette

Sean Ouellette is a senior attorney at Public Justice. He litigates cases about civil rights in schools and constitutional violations by government officials. Some recent cases include:

• Pike v. Budd: Won First Circuit appeal holding that the Constitution’s equal protection clause prohibited a state judge’s sexual harassment of private contractor, reversing a district court ruling that had granted the judge qualified immunity.
• E.R. v. Beaufort County School District: Won Fourth Circuit appeal reversing district court’s ruling that an especially short statute of limitations applied to Title IX claims against public schools in South Carolina. The Court held that our client’s claim, based on the repeated sexual abuse she experienced in high school, could proceed.
• Whitson v. Hanna: Won Tenth Circuit appeal holding that a county was liable for the county sheriff’s rape of a pretrial detainee.
• Victim Rights Law Center v. U.S. Department of Education: Obtained preliminary injunction requiring Department of Education to restore staff at the Office for Civil Rights so that OCR can continue to protect students’ civil rights in schools.
• Doe v. South Carolina: Co-authored briefs in case in which Fourth Circuit enjoined South Carolina’s ban on transgender student’s use of gender-aligned restrooms, and the Supreme Court denied the government’s motion to stay the injunction.
• · Snyder-Hill v. The Ohio State University: Co-authored brief that defeated Ohio State University’s request for the United States Supreme Court to review a favorable Sixth Circuit decision obtained by Public Justice, which allowed hundreds of student-athletes and other abuse survivors to proceed with their case alleging that Ohio State covered up years of sexual abuse by a campus doctor.
• Czerwienski v. Harvard University: Defeated Harvard’s motion to dismiss federal and state claims challenging Harvard’s decade-long failure to protect students from sexual harassment and retaliation by a prominent professor.
• Moss v. The Pennsylvania State University: Defeated Pennsylvania State University’s motion to dismiss federal claims brought by a former Penn State collegiate fencer who endured years of gender-based harassment from her coach.
• Doe v. University of Kentucky: Authored amicus brief cited by the Sixth Circuit in holding that Title IX protected former student from retaliation.
• West Contra Costa Unified School District v. Superior Court: Authored amicus brief cited by California Court of Appeal in upholding state law that revived childhood sexual abuse claims that were previously barred by legal deadlines.

Before joining Public Justice, Sean was a senior litigation counsel at a leading national law firm, where he litigated class actions and civil rights cases on behalf of workers and students. Sean clerked for the Honorable O. Rogeriee Thompson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, the Honorable Mark L. Wolf of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and the Honorable Lawrence E. Kahn of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.

Sean received his B.A. from Harvard College and his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he worked as a student attorney in the Post-Foreclosure Eviction Defense Clinic and the Criminal Justice Institute and interned at the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. He was an editor on the Harvard Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review, a teaching assistant for Professor Diane Rosenfeld in her course on sex discrimination in education, and a research assistant to Professor Catharine A. MacKinnon.

Sean is admitted to practice law in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. He is also admitted

Sean is admitted to practice law in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. He is also admitted to the bars of the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits and the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.