Oh, Life

[TW: rape, victim-blaming, ableism] Back in 2009, a 7th grade special education student was raped not once but twice by a fellow student. The staff, including the principal and a counselor, not only did not believe the girl, they made her write a letter of apology to the boy she accused and hand deliver it to him.
The girl, whose file indicates she’s extremely averse to confrontation and would forgo even her own needs to please others, was questioned again and again by officials, who told her she was a liar until she finally recanted the story. She was then expelled for a whole year. And when she came back, she was raped again. Doctors examined her and, indeed, there was evidence she had been assaulted, including DNA evidence that makes it pretty unlikely to be a made-up story, so the school suspended her for disrespectful conduct and engaging in public displays of affection, which is the cool new way shitheads refer to rape, apparently. This being a 12-year-old girl in special ed classes known to do whatever other people want to make them happy. Feeling queasy yet?
The girl’s family sued the school and almost a year later the case was settled. The school is reported to have paid the girl and her family about $185,000, which is just about the exact amount of money a scumbag will pay someone for being a scumbag if they can get a court to agree they don’t have to legally admit they’re a scumbag. Worth noting is that, in the school’s response to the lawsuit, they claimed the charges were baseless and the girl herself was at fault for failing to take reasonable means to protect herself. That feeling you had when you read that of being slapped in the face was just the metaphysical weight of the balls some lawyer must have had to write that down in legal papers crushing your psyche.