Sean Ouellette

Sean Ouellette

Senior Attorney

Sean Ouellette is a senior attorney at Public Justice. He litigates cases about sex and race discrimination in schools, among other civil rights issues. Sean’s ongoing cases include:

• Czerwienski v. Harvard University: Argued and defeated Harvard’s motion to dismiss the case, which challenges Harvard’s decade-long failure to protect students from sexual harassment and retaliation by a prominent professor.
• Moss v. The Pennsylvania State University: Briefed and 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.
• Whitson v. Hanna: Argued appeal before the Tenth Circuit seeking to hold a county liable for the county sheriff’s rape of a pretrial detainee.
• Buettner-Hartsoe v. Baltimore Lutheran High School Association: Lead counsel for amicus brief filed in Fourth Circuit for Public Justice and other organizations, arguing that schools that receive federal tax benefits receive “federal financial assistance” and must comply with Title IX.
• Pike v. Budd: Lead counsel on appeal to the First Circuit about whether private contractors can bring constitutional claims for sexual harassment against state officials.
• 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, alleging that Ohio State covered up years of sexual abuse by a campus doctor.
• Doe v. University of Kentucky: Lead counsel for amicus brief filed in Sixth Circuit for Public Justice and other organizations, arguing that Title IX protects former students from retaliation.

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 to the bars of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts and U.S. Courts of Appeals for the First, Fourth, Sixth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits.