In the wake of a sexual assault lawsuit recently filed against Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, some students have planned a walkout for 9:30 a.m. on Monday, April 29.
L-S Superintendent/Principal Bella Wong noted in an email to the L-S community on Sunday night that the walkout is permitted by school policy. However, non-L-S individuals who aren’t already at the school for a specific school-related purpose will be excluded from campus during the event.
The school as well as Wong, Director of Special Education and Director of Student Services Aida Ramos, and East House Housemaster/Associate Principal Leslie Patterson were sued on April 24 by a former student who claims the school discriminated against her and inflicted emotional distress after she was allegedly sexually assaulted by two other students in 2013.
Allegations in the lawsuit include the following (the plaintiff is referred to as“Jane Roe” and the two boys are not named):
- During a football game at the high school on November 1, 2013, Jane was lured to an adjacent field by the boys, who assaulted her on the bleachers of the field adjacent to the football field and in an unlocked storage shed near the bleachers. “Although Jane tried to resist, the perpetrators forced Jane to perform oral sex and penetrated her with their fingers.”
- In text messages to Jane afterwards, “both perpetrators admit to having acted improperly and [begged] for Jane’s forgiveness and silence.” One of them told her he was terrified of going to “juvie” and losing his girlfriend if the incident became public. He tried to persuade Jane to keep silent by indicating that he was crying, to which Jane said that she’d “been crying ever since I left u guys,” and continued, “I resisted… I tried to run away… you both raped me.” In a separate text exchange with the other boy, Jane confronted him for attempting to justify his actions to another classmate by saying he was ‘drunk and high’.”
- Six days after the incident, Jane reported it to L-S clinical counselor Sue Leichtman, who notified Patterson and Jane’s mother, a Lincoln-Sudbury teacher. Jane also showed screenshots of the text messages between her and the boys. Sudbury police subsequently began investigating. Jane’s parents obtained Harassment Prevention Orders from Middlesex County Juvenile Court to prohibit the boys from interacting with her.
- Though Jane returned to school on November 12, she was unable to attend classes because the boys were allowed to remain in school and shared classes with her. Patterson therefore had her sit in the East House common area for most of the day. “She was not assigned work to complete and had little to no interaction with teachers, counselors or other Lincoln-Sudbury personnel. She spent her days sitting alone, listening to her iPod” while a steady stream of students, including the boys, passed through the area to check their mailboxes.
- Wong told Jane’s parents that the school could not give them information about any investigation or discipline, citing privacy concerns because “the perpetrators were allegedly special education students, as was Jane.”
- L-S did not provide Jane with any counseling or therapy services. She began seeing a therapist at her family’s expense.
- On November 20, Patterson told Jane’s parents that L-S was finally allowed by the police to conduct its own investigation of Jane’s allegations, but that the school was not allowed to talk to the perpetrators and had no authority to punish or remove them from the school.
- Because the school could not adequately support Jane or keep her apart at all times from the boys, it suggested she enroll in a therapeutic school, EDCO Collaborative School (then in Watertown). The district denied the Roes’ request for Jane to attend a different equivalent public or private school closer to home; also, her EDCO education was inferior because she had to drop her double enrollment in math, did not receive a wellness credit, and could no continue as a two-season athlete. When Jane’s special education liaison sent her a recommendation for private schools, she was reprimanded by Ramos.
- In March 2014, Jane was admitted to Anna Jacques Hospital for a week after telling her therapist she felt suicidal.
- L-S launched the BEACON program in the fall of 2014 for students who had either formerly been outplaced due to depression and anxiety or to avoid such outplacement, but Jane’s parents were told she did not qualify.
- In the fall of 2014, Jane’s parents enrolled her at Lawrence Academy at their expense. She graduated from that school in 2017.
- In October 2015, the district told the Roes that its investigation of Jane’s allegations was inconclusive. However, in August 2017 after both boys had graduated, Jane’s mother received another letter from Ramos and South House Housemaster Peter Elenbaas claiming that the 2015 letter had incorrectly reported the school’s findings. “In that August 2017 letter, Lincoln-Sudbury for the first time admitted and acknowledged that its investigation had found ‘that there was sufficient evidence that an interaction of an egregious nature did occur on the evening of November 1st, and that the boys’ conduct substantially violated one of the core values of L-S’.”
- Lincoln-Sudbury “deliberately failed to accurately report the results of its investigation prior to August of 2017 because the perpetrators remained students at the school and defendants did not want to contend with adverse publicity or parental complaints about the presence of known perpetrators of ‘physical assault and inappropriate sexual behavior’ within the school.”
The lawsuit charges L-S with failure to train and supervise response to sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and discrimination on the basis of gender in violation of Title IX.
While noting that she could not comment on the specifics of the lawsuit that had been reported by various media outlets, Wong addressed the issue of sexual assault in two emails to the L-S community on April 27. In the first, she urged any student who had experienced unwanted verbal or physical sexual contact to notify someone at the school.
“The second you disclose to a trusted adult at L-S you will receive immediate attention and support,” Wong said. “You can tell ANY adult in this building and they will know what to do to make sure you get the help that you need.”
In the second email, Wong outlined the school’s measures to prevent sexual assault and support victims, including education around boundaries and consent, peer leaders trained through the Mentors in Violence Prevention program, self-defense classes and security cameras.
When an allegation of sexual assault occurs, “the police are provided the first opportunity to fully interview the affected parties in order to ascertain criminality,” Wong said. “We are able to interview the students more fully once the police have had their opportunity to interview. School discipline can only occur after these interviews are held. At the close of any incident of sexual assault, we also conduct a separate Title IX investigation to ensure that the civil rights of the student involved have been adequately protected.”
“We rely on every member of our community to help each of our students reach their fullest potential and to keep them safe. We cannot stress enough the importance of their learning about how to best maintain their own personal safety, and to reach out when in need of support,” Wong said.