WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (CN) - A girl claims in Federal Court that her school district and high school principal protected two star athletes who sexually assaulted her, defended them at every turn even after they had been found guilty, and violated a court order protecting her.
C.S. sued the Southern Columbia Area School District and Southern Columbia Area High School principal James A. Becker.
The Southern Columbia Tigers are a football powerhouse, with four consecutive titles in District IV, according to the complaint. The girl claims her assailant K.D. was "the football team's star wide receiver," and also a defensive star. She claims that K.D. and her other attacker, A.Z., were also basketball stars on a team that was runner-up in the District IV tournament and went to the stare tourney.
C.S. says the two boys, who are not named as defendants, sexually assaulted her in July 2009.
"On Dec. 10, 2009, A.Z. was adjudicated delinquent and dependent on the charge of indecent assault (misdemeanor-1), even though school district employees testified in support of him during the criminal hearing," the complaint states.
It continues: "On Jan. 29, 2010, K.D. was adjudicated delinquent and dependent on the charges of aggravated indecent assault (folony-2), sexual assault (felony-2) and indecent assault (misdemeanor-2), even though school district employees testified in support of him during the criminal hearing.
"Despite these adjudications, the school district did not take any action to discipline the perpetrators, or prevent them from having contact with or harassing C.S., or otherwise restrict their ability to attend or participate in extracurricular activities, and they were both allowed to play on the boys' basketball team that winter. The boys' permission to participate on the basketball team resulted in the constructive deprivation of C.S. to participate on the basketball team's cheerleading squad, as C.S. could not reasonably be expected to cheer for, and rally behind, two students who had recently sexually assaulted her."
C.S. claims that the defendants asserted a "legally flawed position that no action could be taken absent a court order since the assault did not take place on school grounds. The School District took this position although it had a Title IX coordinator, its employees and agents had received Title IX training, and it specifically learned at this Title IX training that it could take action against student athletes who had committed a crime off school grounds."
She claims that "the school district has adopted and enforced a disciplinary system designed to protect and maintain athletic eligibility for its male athletes regardless of their criminal behavior and/or propensity for violence against female students." Shortly before she was assaulted, she says, "a star athlete on the high school football team physically assaulted a female student by shoving her into a locker." But C.S. says, "The athlete was not meaningfully punished as a result of this assault, and he was able to continue to participate on the football team." She says this treatment is "common practice at the high school."
In her own case, C.S. says, she "was sexually assaulted by K.D. and A.Z."
