PA School Encourages Sexual Assault
Posted by Darian Worden on Aug 5, 2010 in Commentary • 9 commentsAfter a Pennsylvania high school student told administrators that another student had raped her, the school principal’s response was to use her as “bait” to catch students he suspected were having consensual sex on campus. The alleged perpetrator was not pursued and is now accused of raping the same student later that night.
Yes, you read that right. Not only was a serious crime not investigated, but the alleged victim was forced to take part in a sting operation to catch non-criminals. And then she was raped again.
How could something like this happen?
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (“Suit charges Upper St. Clair officials made rape victim ‘bait,’” July 30, 2010) reports:
According to a court filing submitted by the school district, [school Principal] Dr. Ghilani didn’t believe that the students were in danger or that any safety concerns were present. Instead, he thought students were having consensual sex in school after hours.
He devised a plan to have school police officers follow the students in question to determine who they were and where they were going.
Ideas about teens and sex — that sex is something that older adults must restrict until teens are older or married — come through here. Catching teens having consensual sex in school appears to be a higher priority than pursuing an alleged rapist. It is the role of the administrator to protect adolescents from sex — preventing them from honestly learning about it — whether consensual or not.
It should be asked what role sexism played. A male principal did not believe a female student’s accusation, but decided that she was accusing the male out of jealousy. His response could not honestly be called skeptical. The principal was so sure of what happened that he decided to investigate something entirely different from the actual complaint. He did not appear concerned for the victim’s well-being.
The Post-Gazette contains passages from the school’s legal filing:
Security personnel followed the students. Whether the sexual activity was alleged to be consensual or nonconsensual would not have altered the plan. … The plan to was to monitor the students and stop the students before any sexual activity occurred.
This makes it sound like the accuser was at least as much a subject of investigation as the accused.
At the root of the problem are authoritarian ideas. The victim’s personal autonomy is denied, not only by the rapist but by those in charge. If she can be useful in establishing greater control, she’ll be used for that purpose. The administrator will decide what kind of risk she is to be put at.
Authority often becomes institutionalized irresponsibility. Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising. When one person is in charge of another, the ruled is expected to serve the ruler. Since the ruler views individuals as a means to the end of power he will take care of the ruled as means, not as ends in themselves.
Authorities betray freedom. Whether through social prejudices that they buy into or through their priorities of securing power first and individuals second, they hurt people.
Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS.org) News Analyst Darian Worden is a left-libertarian writer and activist. He hosts an internet radio show, Thinking Liberty. His essays and other works can be viewed at DarianWorden.com.
I have no dog in this fight, but I suppose it is entirely possible that the principal strongly suspects that the girl is lying about it being rape rather than it being consensual out of fear that she is possibly pregnant and doesn't want to get in trouble– from what little I know, false rape accusations are all too common.
A strong suspicion that the girl was lying does not negate the obligation to investigate. Nor does it excuse using her as a pawn to catch people engaged in consensual behavior.
No big surprise that they put a higher priority on punishing consensual sex than punishing rape.
I watched one of those cheesy "life behind bars" documentaries that MSNBC runs after hours, and it was about the prison adminstration relocating a committed couple to stop them from having consensual sex. "Inmates are not allowed to have sexual relations with each other," explained a warden to the cameraman. Golly, no! Sex in prison? Why, whoever heard of such a thing? Prison rapes take place 24/7, and "corrections officers" manage to look the other way with the cool unperturbability of a Kennedy wife. But the minute somebody's actually *enjoying* it, and it makes life behind bars a little less hellish and inhuman? Egad–NIP it in the BUD!
Absolutely disgusting.
I do wonder if CLS has heard this one yet. He does a lot on the topic of adults abusing teens for the crime of teens being sexual beings.
Darian,
“does not negate the obligation to investigate.”
Heh, I thought we anarchists are opposed to positive rights, involuntary obligations and/or duties.
Iceberg,
One has the obligation to carry out duties he agreed to if he doesn’t want to be considered dishonest. A school principal claims to be keeping students safe, and if he was actually doing so he would investigate alleged crimes.
Iceburg,
"Heh, I thought we anarchists are opposed to positive rights, involuntary obligations and/or duties."
1/. It depends on what type of anarchist you are. I'd certainly argue that every adult has a provisional moral obligation to protect minors from sexual assault
2/. The principal accepted a position within an organisation. If s/he does not fulfill those duties s/he is breaking an agreement
There’s surely a difference between (i) positive moral responsibilities and (ii) legally enforceable positive duties. Almost any understanding of morality will feature positive duties of various kinds–cp. Kant, utilitarians, proponents of feminist morality, natural law theorists like Aquinas, etc. A common anarchist line rejects treating many or all of these positive moral duties as *legally enforceable*, but taking that line is quite consistent with acknowledging the reality of the duties. It is always possible, in any case, to assume legal liability for performing a certain task contractually; and, as Jacob suggests, principals can plausibly be thought to have assumed various positive *legal* as well as *moral* responsibilities contractually.