Sex attack nets suspension, for victim
MPS fails to protect victims from additional harm, insiders say
A female senior at Rufus King High School was forced to perform oral sex on a male student. When she reported the sexual assault she was promptly suspended without explanation.
An assistant district attorney sent a sharply worded letter to the school district asking that her record be cleared. Her mother has spoken out on the case, demanding action. News coverage prompted an internal investigation.
So far, nothing has changed.
I think they’re using the same logic here that they use to punish students who refuse to be beaten. You are participating in a prohibited act. It does not matter that you are being forced to do it. You are involved so you will be punished.
This is particularly frightening though. A few weeks ago there was a conversation in a comment thread here about what would happen if a girl was being raped in a stairwell and tried to fight back. At Rufus King High School the fighting back would be academic - she would be suspended anyway for committing a sex act at school.
(Tip credit to Bettina)
I would have to argue that imposing this punishment makes the district and the involved administrators “accessories after the fact”. They are full-fledged participants in the sexual assault and victimization of this poor girl.
No… they are not “full-fledged participants in the sexual assault”. They are stupid stupid stupid!
But once again we were not there. That is the problem with this forum. We hear only part of the story. If she was caught in the act of performing oral sex and claimed to have been forced so as not to be disciplined or reported to home (believe me — that is not unbelievable — in 33 years of teaching I think I have seen everything imaginable that adolescent kids do) it would be very believable that the school would suspend her. Remember — it is probably her word against his. Only the background of the two involved students would help the authorities determine who is lying. And that backbround is private (thank goodness!)
barry
Assuming the report is factual she was not caught in flagrante. She reported the assault and was then suspended.
Bullshit, Barry. Bullshit! BULLSHIT! BULLSHIT!
Those who would punish the victim of a sexual assault for being a participant in it are most certainly full-gfledged participants, and accessories after the fact. I don’t care if it is a school administrator with his head up his posterior, or a sharia court in some half-civilized Muslim cesspool. They are participants, every bit as much as the rapist, on a moral level if not a legal one.
Sorry for anyone offended (except the administrators involved, members of sharia courts, and Barry).
Try living with someone who was told that it was her fault that she was sexually assaulted. Someone who was threatened with federal criminal charges by her attacker’s CO if she attempted to press charges against her attacker (while still having her lip stitched up and other injuries cared for in the ER) because he was scheduled to deploy to a combat zone the next day. Someone whose only crime was going to see an old high school friend off the night before he deployed and allowing him to take her up to her room because the motel wasn’t in the best of neighborhoods.
Then tell me that the actions of these administrators are not morally reprehensible, and that their actions are not every bit as indefensible and as much a part of the assault as the actual attack by the rapist.
We didn’t have to be there Barry. The district attorney sent a “sharply worded” letter to the school asking that her record be cleared. That says it all as far as I’m concerned.
“Remember — it is probably her word agains his.”
What the heck kind of comment is that? Sexist, or just the mantra of the NEA?
“But once again we were not there. That is the problem with this forum. We hear only part of the story. …in 33 years of teaching…”
Obviously, your opinion, as a teacher, is biased. Trust me, Barry, this goes on all the time. Reports of sexual harassment come out of my local high school regularly. The police are called, but it is all swept under the rug. After all, reputation, tax dollars and tenure are all at stake here.
I hate to admitt y’all but Barry Dose have a point we really only do hear one side of the story. But that is the only point that I will concede him.
If this is any thing like the article said and the school pulled the krap that the are accused of pulling I would have no problem with them being hung(In a leagle and state sanctioned execution of course). I say do it to set an example to the rest of the Zero Tolerance supporting fools. Send them a Message, “We Will Not let you destroy the future of our children, you will not hurt them any more.”
Lets Get real there is only one reason to keep these rules on the books To Intimidate and threaten the youth of our nation so that they can be turned into cattle.
If this kind of stupidity keeps on, The only outcome is Disaster; For every one.
That’s just wrong. I don’t understand these new rules, punishing victims along with attackers. When I was a kid, only the instigator was punished. If you could prove you were just defending yourself with witnesses, you were left alone.
If an adult woman is raped, does she go to prison? I didn’t think so.
Barry - “If she was caught in the act of performing oral sex and claimed to have been forced so as not to be disciplined or reported to home”
The incident as reported seems entirely plausible, not farfetched. Therefore, we should consider for the present that the report is accurate, not speculate on hypothetical alternatives, and so it is not fair that your speculation should even be mentioned.
If new info arises, then that should be dealt with at that time.
Barry… what does this mean?
”Only the background of the two involved students would help the authorities determine who is lying. And that background is private (thank goodness!)”
It certainly seems like a logical quandary that you have set up there. If only we had the unknowable, we could crack this case!
Perhaps you mean that only the school administrators could solve this case? Of course, this is a criminal charge and ought to be handled by people that know how to deal with these things, not school admins.
You seem awfully callous, and perhaps you have seen it all. But these students haven’t seen it all and certainly any serious charge ought to be taken seriously, wouldn’t you think?
We have certainly seen enough of the schools taking a fishstick or a trophy baseball bat seriously. Why not this?
In fairness to Barry, what happened to innocent until proven guilty? In the absence of forensic evidence, this comes down to the credibility of two conflicting witnesses. We know nothing about the records of these two students, and there are a number of reasons why someone might falsely accuse someone of rape, both when nothing happened and when something consentual happened. Neither this blog nor the referenced news article provides sufficient basis for judging what actually happened. The DA’s letter could merely be motivated by the damage the suspension did to the prosecution’s case - it supported the defendant’s claim that the act was consentual, and it appears the case was plea bargained. No DA likes to lose. I’m not saying it didn’t happen like she said, but we simply don’t have a basis for deciding either way. What I’d like to know is something about the two students’ records, and also, what was the alleged means of force. Absent a weapon, forcing the act in question seems logistically problematic, for reasons best left to the reader’s imagination. What if we found out the girl was caught three times doing this consentually on school grounds, and the boy was a squeaky clean honor student? What if there were other allegations of rape against him and she was the one above reproach? What about any number of the possible scenarios in between? Did she have some reason to hold a grudge against him? We don’t know any of this. In my opinion, the school should withhold any action against EITHER of them until the criminal case is resolved, but I can’t say if doing so would have changed the school’s ultimate actions.
That still doesn’t work for me. Something happened in the stairwell between a girl and a boy. The girl reports that she was molested. She gets in trouble for performing a sexual act.
There’s no way to slice that in a nice way.
Something happened between two parties.
They told differing stories. We lack sufficient
basis for knowing which one was more accurate.
You make a statement - there’s no way to slice that in a nice way, but offer nothing to support it. How you FEEL about it isn’t a valid piece of evidence.
Well, lets slice this two ways (assuming of course the article was accurate and she was not caught in the act and reported later; if we assume everything we read is false without finding other evidence one way or another, the world would probably fall apart).
Scenario 1: Girl meets boy. Boy rapes girl. Girl must decide between letting it go, or reporting it and getting suspended.
Scenario 2: Girl meets boy. Girl fellates boy willingly. Girl considers crying rape out of spite, because she is unstable, whatever, but realizes she would be suspended.
So, since the girl wasnt “caught” in a sex act, unwillingly or otherwise, she would not have been suspended before coming forward. So we can have a Zero Tolerance policy where the girl is automatically suspended to weed out false accusations, and if she was really raped, well, that’ll all sort itself out in the end.
Or we can have the Zero Stupidity policy, which doesnt mandate automatic suspensions (unless of course a girl, through either stupidity or guilt, turns herself in for a consensual act). It would not mandate any automatic punishment of the accused without proof, as that would be another injustice. Instead, it directs the girl to conseling, and the case to the authorities who handle this kind of thing every day. (So far they havent felt the need to ask to schools for help weeding false accusations in other case, but if they do, they call witnesses).
Barry, I have much respect for you for being a dedicated teacher despite less pay than you deserve and honestly crappy decisions. But if you’ve really seen it all, I would think that actual rape wouldnt be any less likely than false accusation in your mind.