Cheerleader must compensate school that told her to clap 'rapist'

[CrazyGirl17]

...WHAT!?!?

I'd sue the school, personally, try to get some national attention... and maybe even call some militant feminists in to see them handle it...

(steeples fingers ala Gendo Ikari)

 

[Lilani]

What I want to know is why was a student who was convicted of sexually assaulting another student was on the sports team in the first place. Oh, wait:

In court, Bolton pleaded guilty to the misdemeanour assault of HS. He received two years of probation, community service, a fine and was required to take anger-management classes. The charge of rape was dropped, leaving him free to return to school and take up his place on the basketball team.

That's why. A plea deal. How lovely. So, he pleaded guilty to a lesser crime and they dropped the rape charge. Legally the school looks just fine for keeping him on their team, and the kid doesn't have to register as a sex offender.

That is a major misstep in the justice department. I mean seriously, he rapes her (or according to them, "assaults" her) and she still has to go to school with him. How the hell is that justice? How the hell is that supposed to make her feel safer? Not only that, he's allowed to go back to sports after his sentence, when she has been there that whole time. They should have transferred him to another school or something.

This is ridiculous. So the school decides to endorse a criminal rather than a victim. Good job, Silsbee High School. We now see very clearly how much you care about the safety and comfort of your students.

 

[Kargathia]

I've already voiced my opinion -- that you are wrong -- and informed you that I find your posts ill-informed. There is no need to continue the debate as neither of us will fault.

If you allow me to comment: both your and his arguments are essentially referring to the same issue: the difficulty in finding out what exactly happened in a "rape".
That and I'm curious as to why exactly you two think that your points are incompatible. Yes, a shocking number of rapes go unreported or unpunished due to various reasons, but there also indeed are cases where somebody decides in hindsight that sex wasn't consensual, and calls the police. That they happen much less frequently does not mean that they should not be taken into consideration.

But let's take it back on topic here. We'll assume that his conviction of assault was, indeed, justified.

Apparently the guy indeed at least assaulted her, as he was convicted for that. We, however, do not know whether he actually raped her - as that requires he actually stuck his dick into her. I didn't hear anything about DNA testing results, so I'm going to go with "we don't know". Of course she's going to call it rape, as she's not really debating legal technicalities when she's being pinned down by two guys.
What happened in that room is questionable, and we can't fully hope we can ever establish these things beyond a flicker of a doubt. We can, however, state in all likelihood that it was a very traumatizing thing to happen to her. Or to anyone in that situation.

But this does lead us to what probably is the biggest reason that many comparable cases are never reported: how the environment (in this case the school) handled it.

A player convicted of a sexual assault on a minor was allowed to stay on the team, and further enjoy all the benefits conferred by being a star player.
And to further excarbate matters: apparently there was nobody who paid any attention to what would happen if they'd have to interact, and nobody offered any kind of diplomatic solution when things did get out of hand.

TL;DR: Whether he indeed did rape her is rather vague, but one thing is certain: the school's handling of a reported sexual assault / rape by and to students was horribly subpar.

 

[Duol]

Freedom of Speech is not designed to protect you in the way that she is claiming to 'use' it. In fact, by claiming that he is a rapist and making a stand against him (when nothing of the sort has been proven) is defamation.

Whether she was or wasn't raped is irrelevant. It couldn't be proven, only what he pleaded guilty to.

Slow down there.

Look, we understand the concept of 'innocent until proven guilty', but to say that you can't accuse someone of a serious crime because it hasn't been proved in a court of law makes absolutely no sense at all. How else would anyone bring charges against someone else?

This is especially true of rape, where the conviction rate is exceptionally low due to a high burden of evidence. A court can be largely sure that someone is guilty of rape, and it seems quite possible in this situation, yet lack the evidence to actually convict. This is why we have a whole variety of other measures designed to protect people who lose their cases, because there must still be every acknowledgement that they may have been raped.

He has not been proven innocent, the case against him has been dropped due to insufficient evidence. While these may mean the same things legally, it does not mean that this woman has no right to call him a rapist, because he might be. If it's a problem, I'm sure he could take that defamation case to court, but that would place the burden of proof on him to prove that he didn't rape this woman, and if there was insufficient evidence to convict him, there's unlikely to be sufficient evidence to prove that he didn't do it.

I am not saying she didn't get raped. I completely sympathize that this is a difficult situation, but many people are saying "she got raped" for sure, in my eyes the odds are pretty much 50/50, even if it did happen it could have been someone else (others were involved if I remember correctly from the article).

Why should she be allowed to go around saying that she was raped by him when there is no proof such a thing ever happened? Why should she be able to go to a civil court and try to state this as fact when it has never been proven by a criminal or civil court?

"This woman has a right to call this man a rapist because he might be" [rough quote minus the negations]
Really?
I think you might be a pedophille. Am I allowed to print this in a magazine? Announce it in public? Refuse to answer you as part of a job working at a call centre? I can present evidence with regards to publications or announcements, but I cannot state it as fact and I cannot refuse to fulfill obligations based on unsubstantiated claims.

Just because someone 'might' have done something doesn't mean you can declare it as fact, particularly not in a legal context.

I completely understand/agree with all of what you said about providing support etc. but that has nothing to with the law. It does not change the fact that her lawsuit was frivolous or that there is no concrete proof she was raped by that particular man.

I think what the school did was stupid and insensetive, but they were well within their rights to remove her from the team.

 

[Hive Mind]

As that requires he actually stuck his dick into her.

You were going so well. The way you chose to convey that however is something I don't appreciate.

Besides that, it's actually incorrect; vaginal penetration does not need to occur for rape to take place.

 

[Ris]

A Mandatory examination would eliminate bogus claims and give genuine victims more faith that they will find justice in the legal system. Yes, it will be a difficult ordeal for a victim to have to endure, but at least at the end of it nobody can push their claims aside as bogus.

This would be fine if exams worked. They don't.

An exam can pretty reliably prove that you had sex. Often, you can get enough genetic material to prove who you had sex with it.

However, it's perfectly possibly to seriously injure someone through consensual sex, or to not injure someone at all through rape, so exams do not provide absolute proof of consent. Evidence gathered from medical examination is generally pretty useless in court unless the accused tries to claim they never had sex at all.

There is no absolute visual measure of whether someone has been raped.

This is why I would never support the death penalty. Not because of false rape charges, which have never been convincingly proven to be terribly 'widespread'. We don't need anything which pushes the burden of proof higher than it already is, because it's already too high for a lot of people to have any hope of securing conviction.

That's true, my post did sound a little too absolute. When I think of rape, I think of people being attacked suddenly by someone with little to no relationship to them. As a woman, those are the kinds of situations that I fear, and in such cases I think a medical examination is crucial evidence.

Obviously cases get more complicated than that, especially when it comes to parties who know each other/engaged in sexual activity but didn't consent to all of it/one party was inebriated at the time. My attitude tends toward "How about you act a little safer and not walk yourself into situations like that?" (which I can appreciate is probably as ignorant and unfair as calling for the death penalty), so I didn't fully consider everything before posting.

 

[Saviordd1]

I would 100% do that, except im an evil bastard so i would take the postalage up to 11

 

[Mumonk]

Why is she going to cheer at a game where her rapist plays? And if he raped her, why isn't he in jail? And if he did rape her and got off on a technicality, why is her parents letting her attend that school and/or the dad kill the guy that raped her? And who wants to go cheer at a stupid sports game after they got raped?

 

[DevilWolf47]

This knocks of the court essentially saying "You have no right to show any form of emotion, even under extreme duress, this game is more important than your emotional well-being."
That is to say, it pisses me off to the degree that i start having long loving thoughts about crowbars and kneecaps and stew pots.
...don't ask for the correlation. But the basic point is, i'm offended. She was not a professional, signed no waiver, was their voluntarily, and did not do anything to forfeit constitutional rights like the dumb motherfuckers at the appeals court claimed. I don't even want to know how a rape allegation was diluted to an assault plea with no jail time...

 

[Fanboy]

Give me a W
Give me a T
Give me an F

What does that spell? My response to this article!!!

Goooooooo justice!

I feel for her, but she should not have resorted to litigation. The school was within their rights to kick her off the squad, even if it was a completely dick move. And why did she expect to get any sympathy from the same legal system that handed her scumbag rapist such a joke of a sentence.

 

[Ericb]

Is there anyone here from around that region in Texas who could tell us just how crazy this sports thing is down there?

 

[Kadoodle]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU




Gotta love the American justice system.

 

[artanis_neravar]

OK at the risk of being flamed, as a cheerleader her job is to cheer for the team in the way the school wants, not in her own opinion. The school was completely with in their rights for kicking her off the team, and when you lose a lawsuit you have to pay, that's how it works.

 

[v3n0mat3]

There are no words for how fucked up that is.

I'd take it to supreme court, to have the decision overturned. Make the fucking kid pay for his crime.

 

[standokan]

Well, save the chearleader save the world

 

[Shoqiyqa]

Did she really need to take this to court? Was being a cheerleader that important?

Here is a question, WHY IS THE RAPIST STILL ON ANY TEAM AND NOT IN JAIL??!? This situation should not even be happening...or is it just me?

Maybe the two are related. I was wondering why she was on the cheerleading squad for a team that included a rapist, and then I thought maybe she'd already been a cheerleader and had put ten hours a week, thirty weeks a year, for five years into being a cheerleader and then they'd put the guy who raped her on the team for which she "had to" cheer and the choice was to just quit there and then or stay on the team and cheer for everyone except him because she's put as much into being one of the cheerleaders as he's put into being one of the players and hadn't done anything to merit being kicked off and told she wasn't fit to represent the school, whereas he had done something to merit being kicked off and told he wasn't fit to represent the school .....

..... so she was still on the team because she refused to back down, which is pretty reasonable because you've got to make a stand on something at some point and, well, it's quite a thing.

I just ran out of things to say that aren't banhammerbait, except this: the school authorities have chosen to have a thug, bully, scumball, slime-bucket, vomit-stain and piece of dogshit who raped a 16-yr-old girl represent them, and I don't believe that's inappropriate.

 

[Dahemo]

The thing I love the most is the timeline. He was still awaiting sentencing for a possible rape conviction while still playing for his school. Classic. So they were asking her to cheer for a man who might have been (but eventually wasn't) jailed for raping her.

I have always loved the hypocrisy of the "Bible Belt" states. I'm an atheist, but if you told me that there were states in America that passionately followed the Bible and teachings of Christ and I had no information other than this I would think:

"Wow, incredible. States full of pacifist people with strong ethical values and a love for their fellow man? Their charitable, kind-hearted nature must know no bounds. Also, I'm sure like Jesus they moved with the times and broke down social barriers to preach equality and salvation. For all this I can probably accept that they don't support abortion, I mean, they won't have any other hang ups, and even the Pope has said contraception is permissible in certain circumstances"

Yet to my horror I would discover gun-toting rednecks who drop the N-bomb like it's going out of style and think their president is an African Muslim.

Obviously not everyone there is like this, I'm sure we have a few posters from these states who would not identify themselves or their families with this and to those people I am obviously not describing them, but they cannot deny that whether these people are a vocal minority or majority, they exist and consistently commit acts such as this. My sympathies to the poor girl.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

He'll be leaving high school and going straight to jail in no time.

Don't you mean "leaving high school, committing several more rapes and then going to jail," really? It may not take long on the geological clock, but they'll be a long few minutes in each future victim's life, not to mention the rest of their lives.