Tamaqua Area School District wants a judge to dismiss a lawsuit over the district’s handling of alleged assaults by football team members.

The families of two freshman football players brought a federal lawsuit against the district in April. They allege that incidents were sexual assault, and that the district violated their constitutional rights by treating them as hazing.

The suit says the district failed to take steps, which are required of schools following a reported sexual assault.

Attorneys for the families allege that the district denied the students the right to a hearing with an attorney present, and made one attend class with his alleged attacker. They said that in private, Superintendent Ray Kinder accused them of making up the sexual assault.

School board President Larry Wittig publicly denied that the incidents were sexual, calling them horseplay or hazing.

The filing names as defendants Superintendent Raymond Kinder, Assistant Superintendent Steven Toth, High School Principal Thomas McCabe, school board President Larry A. Wittig, and board members Nicholas Boyle, Melanie Dillman, Thomas Bartasavage, Bryan Miller, Mark Rother, Thomas Rottet, Daniel Schoener, and Trina Schellhammer.

In asking the court to dismiss the case, the district’s lawyers say that officials responded in a reasonable manner by cooperating with police, holding a district disciplinary hearing, and reviewing written statements which the victims provided to police.

They say that the suit fails to show that the school board members and administrators violated the students’ rights.

The 45-page suit includes 14 counts. Counts one and two: Deliberate indifference to report of sexual assault/harassment; retaliation following report of sexual assault; deliberate indifference to reports of retaliatory harassment; deliberate indifference to reports of retaliatory harassment resulting in second attempted sexual assault; counts six and seven: deliberate indifference to the right to unbiased treatment; counts eight, nine, 10 and 11: equal protection; negligence: the first sexual assault; negligence: the second sexual assault; negligence.

In the suit, the fathers contend that their sons were assaulted in the “football house,” a building across the street from the high school/middle school where players store equipment and change for practices and games. They are unsupervised in the building.

The suit, which asks for a jury trial, says district officials and employees, including coaches, knew that while unsupervised, the players “behaved in a manner which resulted in their causing physical harm to each other.”

The families’ attorneys say that the district would have treated the allegations differently if the victims weren’t males. They argue that the district’s handling resulted in further bullying, which caused one of the victims to withdraw from school.

Police investigated the incident and charged at least one player with simple assault - 18-year-old Zachary McGlinchey. If any juveniles were charged, their arrest records would not be public.