In January of 2010, the faculty at Sparkman Middle School in Alabama decided to use one of their 14 year-old female special needs students as bait in order to catch a 16 year old male student who was thought to be a sexual predator, according to CNN. The plan took a turn for the worst when the boy took the girl to a different bathroom than the faculty had previously planned resulting in the girls’ rape when they could not intervene. The family filed a federal lawsuit, and the Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Education filed an amicus brief–a legal argument offered to the court by someone who is not a party to the case–just last week supporting their case. The victim and her family have chosen to remain anonymous at this time.
June Simpson, a teacher’s aide at the middle school prompted the girl to agree to meet the boy after he had allegedly proposed that she meet him in the bathroom for sex so she and other faculty could catch him in the act, according to NY Daily News. The boy had coerced several other females in the past, and had been involved in a total of 15 violent and sex-related incidents of misconduct. While I’m sure that Simpson had good intentions, putting a student at risk is not appropriate or professional by any means. However, the girl agreed to the plan, as well as Vice Principal Dunaway who apparently did not suggest any alternatives, reported CNN.
I am interested to know how the administrators and the faculty involved in the plan thought that using a young girl who qualifies for special education classes as bait would be a good idea in the first place. Vice Principal, Jeanne Dunaway of the Alabama school, who knew about the plan beforehand, said that the girl was responsible for herself once she entered the bathroom, according to CNN. That statement is ridiculous– this girl was a victim of rape. Rape victims cannot control a forced sexual act.
If this situation wasn’t already wrong, none of the administration or faculty are being punished in any way for using a minor as bait. In fact, Vice Principal Dunaway has been promoted to Principal at a nearby elementary school, as reported by CNN. The faculty and administration should be held responsible for what happened to the girl considering they thought it would be a good idea to use one of their own students as bait. A plan such as this one has the potential to be extremely dangerous, as proven by the rape of this young girl.
Instead of doing something to prevent a situation like this in the future, the administration suspended the boy for five days and then sent him to an alternative school where he remained all of 20 days before returning. Instead of labeling his misconduct as rape, they called it “inappropriate touching a female in boys’ bathroom,” according to CNN. It doesn’t make sense that the administration didn’t do more to discipline the boy even though they were completely aware that he had a history of sexual misconduct.
Despite the girl’s evident trauma both physically and mentally, as well as the 15 prior sex-related incidents the boy has been involved in, the second Vice Principal–Vice Principal Terrell–had the nerve to say that she was unaware of whether or not the girl consented to the assault, as reported by CNN. To me, it seems as though the administration is attempting to use the girl as a scapegoat, and cover up what they did wrong, which was allow her to be used as bait in the first place.
Sultan Alsaadi, a senior accounting major at UT believes that the administration should definitely be held responsible and stated that this incident is due to a lack of competence by both the teachers and administration. “Teachers are supposed to play a second role as a parent in school,” Alsaadi said, “ and for them to do that I feel like it doesn’t reflect on the ideals of teachers.” Alsaadi stressed that using this girl as bait was a terrible idea which made everyone involved look untrustworthy.
Alsaadi disagreed with Vice Principal Terrell’s comment about saying that the girl was responsible for herself when she entered the bathroom. “On campus faculty has authority over you. The kid’s parents leave their kids under the responsibility of the teachers,” Alsaadi said, who also felt that the boy’s long list of previous incidents related to sexual misconduct were reason enough to believe that he had committed rape. “I feel like the government should get involved. I feel like if nothing was to happen to him, the community shouldn’t keep quiet about it, especially the parents of the children,” Alsaadi said.
This whole situation could have been avoided if the administration had recognized that the boy was a danger to the students. Administrators at a middle school should be much more concerned about the safety of their students. It does not seem right that a school with children as young as 10 and 11 years old would allow a student who has been involved in so much misconduct continue to attend. There should not have been 15 separate incidents of sexual misconduct by one student. As the trial goes on, hopefully the law prevails and this administration is punished for how this girl was treated in their school.
Liz Rockett can be reached at elizabeth.rockett@spartans.ut.edu