slowpoke999 said:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cheerleader-must-compensate-school-that-told-her-to-clap-rapist-2278522.html
A teenage girl who was dropped from her high school's cheer leading squad after refusing to chant the name of a basketball player who had sexually assaulted her must pay compensation of $45,000 (£27,300) after losing a legal challenge against the decision.
Normally stuff like this makes me rage so hard I am unable to type,this time I am sort of in a transcended state of pure rage so I am able to coherently type.It happened in the US in Texas btw.
So,what are the Escapists feelings on this,I consider myself level headed and understand crazy shit happens in this world,but if I had a daughter who got raped and I had to pay the rapists legal fees,I think I would instead use that money to buy guns and ammo and go postal on the judge and rapist.This is if I was 100% certain my daughter got raped.
Hmmm, well I think your missing some important details here. This is why "Justice Is Blind" so to speak.
Right now the guy isn't a rapist in the eyes of the law, he was able to plea out of it. Given that he's effectively innocent of that accusation, and the cheerleader has a job she agreed to do, there is a lot of legitmacy for thise case. Like it or not the kid IS playing the game, and the cheerleaders are supposed to hype him up, it's their job. To not do so, reflects on the school and it's morale.
What's more, we don't know the details of the case from reading this, all we know is that SHE claims this guy raped her. Given that the charge was pled down, it could very easily be a case where she was claiming rape in a case where she was groped or whatever, which is why the prosection was willing to reduce the charges and go with what amounts to a slap on the wrist. Groping someone being bad, but hardly a full on case of rape with forced sexual contact and so on. I don't know that this is the case, just what the ruling was.
Normally I'd be a bit suspicious given that this is apparently one of those "sports towns" where Jocks are above the law since so much of the school's livelyhood and town economy relies on their athletics, *BUT* this case was apparently looked at by a higher court and apparently thrown out (they refused to hear it) that leads me to believe that there is a bit more to this than we're hearing.
On the surface we can all envision a situation where it's one of those schools where Jocks are allowed to torture nerds, can ignore local laws like speed limits in the surrounding town(s), and cheerleaders are expected to service the sports teams on all levels you can think of. I however get the impression that this is not what we're seeing because unlike a lot of those horror stories, higher authorities DID look at this, and the guys who made the desician to not allow an appeal have to be able to justify that should there be an official inquiry. We have not seen an official inquiry, or any kind of record of their ruling and reasoning, all we have is a news story that is playing the whole "rape" card, when at least legally there is no rape involved. The most the cheerleader can say is that the guy assaulted her and got a slap on the wrist, if she accuses him of rape or makes a show out of that accusation, she's arguably guilty of slander because the court already made a ruling, like it or not.
To put things into perspective, if you went to a party, tried to come onto some girl, maybe brushed up against her, or petted her or whatever, and then got accused of rape, how would you feel about it? Sure, you probably went too far, and it was wrong, but you DID stop yourself and didn't throw her down and force her to have sex or whatever. You go to court, tell your side, get a reduced penelty and take your lumps. However the girl on the receiving end wants her five minutes of fame and insists on her right to basically slander you in large public gatherings for something that wasn't true to the extent she claims, and for which you've paid your penance.
We don't know the details, but we do know the rulings, and overall I can't say this is unfair based on the information presented. The girl violated school policy, that can't be denied. If she can't put personal feelings behind her, then she doesn't belong in a public relations job like a cheerleader. That would be like me in Casino Security (where I used to work) refusing to provide dressing room security or an escort for a celebrity because I thought he was a rapist, murderer, or whatever else, or worse yet wanted to annouce that to passing patrons as I was there. I'd have gotten my butt kicked to the curb at lightspeed, and no court in the land would agree with me being right.
