The Springfield News-Leader reports that a lawsuit has been filed against the district, alleging that the schools' administrators failed to protect the girl from a boy "who harassed her, sexually assaulted her and raped her."
The lawsuit says the girl was raped during the 2008-09 school year, but district officials didn't believe the girl. So she recanted (more on this in a second), and school administrators allegedly made the girl write a letter of apology to the boy and deliver it to him. Then the school expelled the girl for the rest of the school year and referred the case to juvenile authorities for filing a false report. It gets worse.
About the girl recanting, check this bit of info in her school file: The girl is "conflict adverse, behaviorally passive and ‘would forgo her own needs and wishes to satisfy the request of others around so she can be accepted.'"
The lawsuit contends that school officials didn't report the girl's claims to the Division of Family Services or to juvenile authorities, despite being mandatory reports.
Jump to 2009-10, and the girl is back in school. The boy continues harassing her and assaulting her. The lawsuit reportedly says the girl didn't report him because she didn't want to be called a liar. She also didn't want to get kicked out of school.
Then in February 2010, the boy allegedly rapes her in the school library. School officials again doubt the reported rape. They were wrong. From the News-Leader:
While school officials allegedly expressed skepticism of the girl, her mother took her to the Child Advocacy Center and an exam showed a sexual assault had occurred. DNA in semen found on the girl matched the DNA of the boy she accused, the suit says.The boy was taken into custody in Juvenile Court and pleaded guilty to charges, the suit says. The specific charges are not stated in the suit.
“School Officials acted recklessly in conscious disregard of and with deliberate indifference to the risk of [the girl’s] safety by failing to conduct an investigation into her allegations of rape and sexual assault, by suspending her from school, and by failing to provide her with any protection from her rapist,” the suit says.
The district is denying the claims, calling them "frivolous" and with "no basis in fact or law." Oh, and the district is seeking "reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs.” That would be bad enough, but the district went on to blame the victim. From the News-Leader:
The girl failed and neglected to use reasonable means to protect her self, the response says. Any damages the girl may have sustained, “were as a result of the negligence, carelessness, or conduct of third parties over whom the District Defendants had neither control nor the right to control,” according to the school district response.
Worst. District. Ev... oh, wait. I guess it does make some sense.
H/t: Nerdy Applebottom and Jezebel.
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Need to double check to see if the rapist got any real punishment, might need a fed/civil rights charge to get justice, something tells me Justice wont be done locally, is he registered?
I notice that the people who are claiming that the lawsuit is trumped up and that "kids lie" obviously didn't read the article beyond the first sentence. Hello....her attacker plead GUILTY to the charges of rape and the DNA sample taken from the victim clearly proves that it came from the same individual. Pretty scary to think that folks like you may one day serve on a jury. God help the next victim if she has to contend with your kind of stupidity on top of everything else. Let's hope your own daughter may never be the victim of rape.
This is going on all over this country. Special needs children are being raped, restrained, secluded, abused, and killed. Missouri is 6th in the nation for corporal punishment in schools. Want change? Elect new legislators. It all starts in Jefferson City.
What the F@*% is up with this ? This is the most ass-a-nign thing I've heard since Rachel Perez recieved an 81/2yr sentence for starving her child and locking him in the attic. He was within a few hours of being DEAD when officials found him. The message being sent here is "go ahead rape a defenseless person or hell, lock em' up in your attic you don't have to feed em' or clean em' up. Then we will even make them apologize to you for all the mean ass shit YOU PUT THEM THREW. How can they believe in any way that this is the right and honorable response to horrific crimes. Blaming the ones who cannot defend themselves. HELL YES !! WORST SCHOOL DISTRICT.
tonysam, you are a disgusting individual. Yes, kids lie. DNA does not. And if the school had followed the law, made the report, and it had shown to be a lie the family would be in court, not the school and a serial child rapist.
Agreed Earline. I personally believe we are more like Rome right before its fall.
I graduated from Republic and it truly is a redneck sh**hole. The whole icthys debacle went down when I was a junior even though my friends and I spraypainted that part of the insignia black on every "Welcome To Republic" road sign before they took it off officially...being 16 and all that. In junior high, a group of guys prided themselves on "running out" the lone black family that lived there at the time. Haven't been back since 1997 and won't either.
Sorry, you are an idiot if you believe one word of the claim. It's a civil case designed to extort money from a school district's insurance company.
"Feminists" can be idiots. Kids can and do lie all the time.
Sadly people are saying "don't jump to conclusions." What other conclusion can we jump to? She was examined, the professional said she was raped (consensual sex does not cause the physical trauma that rape does), the professionals found semen on her, the DNA of the semen is 99.9% likely to that of the attacker (the same one she accused the year before). Her attacker pled guilty, he did not plead to an Alford admission (Google it if you don't know what that is). So are we to say "perhaps he didn't do it"?
The rapist has not been identified because he is a minor. I can't help but feel there is some kind of familial, political connection. Either that or he's a football star or both.
Republic isn't known for it's use of common sense. Sometimes I wonder why I live here. I am thankful I home schooled my daughter!
I hope the girl and her parents get justice and school officials get fired. If it was their child justice would of been done. This is totally a crime as the school official should of reported this in the beginning. I would not let them teach my dogs.
I predict the district's attorneys will get the lawsuit continued ad infinitum until all of the school officials involved are retired and drawing pensions.
The Republic School District is in Republic, not Springfield. It recently banned two books, including "Slaughterhouse Five," did not ban one dealing with date rape. And over a decade ago the city removed an ichthys from the city's official seal after being sued. Springfield has its own problems, but shouldn't be lumped in with another community's.
Not surprisingly, this is the same school district that banned "biblically-contrary" books such as Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five".
What is happening to our country?????Are we back in the middle ages or what????
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