A young woman who claims school administrators used her as bait to catch a classmate accused of sexual assault when she was just 14 is finally getting her day in court. It’s taken more than five years for the case to be heard.
Opening arguments were made yesterday morning in the civil lawsuit against the Madison County School System in Alabama. A young woman identified only as “Jaden” was 14 years old in 2010, when she says she was continuously being harassed for sex by a classmate. When she told a teacher’s aide, the help that she was hoping for twisted into something awful. The aide allegedly persuaded her to accept the boy’s proposition, acting as bait so that administrators could catch him in the act. The plan was for the aide to watch the surveillance tape over the bathroom where the meeting was to take place, and for adults to intervene before anything happened.
"I told her no. I didn't want to do it," the girl, who is a special needs student, told CNN. But, she agreed later that day. When the meeting took place, the boy took her to a different bathroom. As administrators watched surveillance video over the wrong bathroom, the boy sexually assaulted and raped her.
Much of the case will revolve around what administrators knew, and when. In the aftermath of the case, no criminal charges were ever filed, and with the exception of the teacher’s aide, who has since retired, all the school officials involved kept their jobs or were even promoted. In September of last year, the U.S. Department of Justice stated that the school system had shown “deliberate indifference” and the family should be able to sue.
Now, there's finally a chance for a little bit of justice. Though we have to say, it feels like too little, too late.
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