Yesterday, students walked out of classrooms in protest of the behavior seen time and time again by our district and our administration.
Myself and a group of 12 others planned this walk out for a reason.
This week, the Sacramento Bee published an article about a former McClatchy student who claims to have been drugged and gang raped by classmates two years ago. The victim is planning on suing Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) for mishandling the investigation and dissuading her from pursuing recourse.
The former student claims that the police officer working on campus at the time sent her home for the semester while her attackers remained at school, undisciplined.
Our administration, along with the SPD officer, grossly mishandled this case. The student’s rights, protected by Title IX, were not enforced. The survivor claims the district never informed her about her civil rights, or her right to press charges.
As students at McClatchy, we deserve a trustworthy administration, one that will not brush off these serious allegations, discrediting the survivor in question by forcing her to stay home and refusing to punish the perpetrators.
The SPD officer asked her if she was a virgin. “That question made me feel so bad,” she said in her court declaration. “I felt like maybe that meant that it wasn’t as big a deal to him. I told the truth, but I felt afterward like I should have lied because then he would have taken it more seriously.”
No student, no survivor, should be made to feel this way when reporting an act like rape.
We walked out for this survivor. But more than that, we walked out for the scores of other cases such as this. We walked out to come together as a community that will not tolerate a system that is complicit, and even supports, the perpetrators of sexual violence.
We are asking for feasible change, so nothing like this ever happens again. Our demands are simple and straightforward: we want to see current policy enforced, and we want to see policies enacted that work to never let something like this happen again, such as easier access to trained and qualified support staff before, during, and after every investigation, or rigorous follow up procedures after every complaint and/or investigation. An updated and comprehensive harassment and sensitivity training for all school staff is another demand.
We will be meeting with administration this Friday to make our first steps towards enacting these changes.
A few of our demands.
