From: AlterNet
by Jessica Mason Pieklo
April 23, 2013
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Last week the National Women’s Law Center, along with a local law firm in Michigan filed a complaint in federal district court on
behalf a high school student who was sexually assaulted at school by a
fellow student and star basketball player. In many ways the story echoes
the tragic high school rape story from Steubenville, Ohio,which
should lead all of us to ask just what kind of culture are we raising
our children in, and what kind of culture is being cultivated at our
high schools?
According to the complaint, in 2010 the victim was sexually assaulted
by a star player on the school’s basketball team. The assault took
place on campus in a sound proof band room at Forest Hills Central High
School. The victim notified a teacher who in turn reported the assault
to the principal. But rather than open an investigation into the
allegations, the principal discouraged the student and her parents from
filing charges, telling them that doing so could ruin the assailant’s
prospects at being recruited to play basketball for a Division 1 school.
The victim and her parents ignored the principal’s request not to
file charges because they were concerned that this student might attack
other girls. Instead, the student and her parents filed a police report,
and the Kent County Sheriff’s Department began a criminal
investigation. Meanwhile, the school did nothing.
As alleged in the complaint, two weeks later another female student
was sexually assaulted by the same attacker. Despite a legal obligation
under Title IX to
investigate the assault and protect the student, the high school
officials never interviewed the girl or her parents again, failed to
conduct an investigation, and for two and a half weeks left the attacker
in one of her classes.
It gets worse. As word of the sexual assault spread among the student
body, the female victim became the target of an intensive
cyber-bullying and harassment campaign—both at school and online—that
depicted her as a liar and a “whore” who was trying to bring down an
innocent athlete. These cyber-attacks were only reinforced by the fact
that the school continued to take no action to reprimand the male
student. Not only did fellow students harass the victim, the attacker
and his friends verbally and physically harassed the girl as well. They
followed her around as she moved in and out of classrooms, through
hallways, and around the school campus. The attacker sometimes pushed
her into other students as she walked down the hallway, causing her to
slam into lockers. Despite repeated efforts by the victim’s parents and
other students to alert the principal and the school’s Title IX
Coordinator about the viciousness of the harassment by the attacker and
other students, school administrators took no action.
Thankfully law enforcement did. Five weeks after the sexual assault,
the Kent County Prosecutor’s office authorized two felony counts of
criminal sexual conduct against the attacker for his assaults on NWLC’s
client and the second female victim at the school. The attacker later
pled guilty to a single count of misdemeanor assault and battery. He was
sentenced to attend Kent County’s Adolescent Sexual Offender Treatment
Program for a second time. The only sanction the school imposed upon the
student assailant was to temporarily bench him on the basketball court.
“Title IX requires schools to ensure that the educational environment
is free from sex-based discrimination,” said NWLC Vice-President of
Education and Employment Fatima Goss Graves said in a statement.
“This school completely ignored its legal responsibility to address student-on-student sexual harassment and failed to take reasonable steps to protect the victim. The school’s failure to address the harassment sends a chilling message to students that they should remain silent in the face of sexual assault and cannot count on their school to provide a safe learning environment.”
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