By Talyn Helman
I recently came across two articles about sexual assault victims and how they were treated by their high schools that upset me.
In one instance a cheerleader, who was sexual assaulted by three male classmates, was told to “fly under the radar” when she returned to school and avoid certain activities like Homecoming as to not cause a stir. Then as if the shaming wasn’t enough she was forced to cheer for one of her assailants. The assailant in question had returned to school after charges had been dismissed (he was later charged). The victim was a cheerleader and her assailant happened to be a basketball player, and during a game she refused to cheer for him, leading her school to kick her off the squad. As if it wasn’t hard enough to be sexual assaulted and return to school, she was then expected to cheer for her assailant and when she wouldn’t she was punished. Her parents ended up suing the school for kicking her off the team but the court stood by the school.
In another recent incident, a girl reported to her school that she had been dragged into the bathroom and raped and instead of calling the police right away the school made her write down everything and go over her story multiple times; this lasted for about two hours. By the time her guardian was called and she went to the hospital it had been about 4 hours since the crime. The local police criticized the school for how they handled the report since they should have called the police and gotten a victim’s advocate involved but the school defended itself saying “her story didn’t make sense.”
This isn’t the first time that schools have handled sexual assault wrong and it probably won’t be the last. But our high schools need to be trained on how to deal with sexual assault. Schools need to learn how compassionately handle these situations and the aftermath. Victims have a hard enough time after an assault; our high schools should not add to the problem, they should be a part of the solution.