Student Suspended After Reporting Sexual Assault to School Administrators

A high school student in North Carolina was suspended last month after she reported to school administrators that she was sexually assaulted by a male classmate.

Charlotte’s local news station WBTV reports an unnamed female sophomore at Hawthorne Academy High School reported the incident to school officials. “He would, like, come into the bathroom and he would push me into the stall,” the girl told WBTV. “He put his hands in my pants and then he was like touching my breasts.”

After administrators at the school alerted the Charlotte-Macklenburg Police Department of the report, the department pressed charges against the male student for sexual battery.

However, the school subsequently accused the female student of filing a false report and suspended her. In addition to her suspension, Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District is reportedly also making the female student attend a class called “Sexual Harassment is Preventable.”

“The school did their investigation, gave me a phone call, and said, ‘Hey, look, unfortunately, it looks like there’s no evidence that shows that what your daughter saying took place,’” the victim’s mother explained.

She continued, “We’re going to have to give her a day of suspension, and you know, so then I asked the principal, ‘Well if the police are telling me that he did do these things, he admitted to them, and that I have the right to press charges, you’re telling me this didn’t happen? And she said, ‘Well, unfortunately, what the law does has nothing to do to do with CMS, so, unfortunately, we have nothing else that we can do about this.’”

WBTV claims they’ve made several attempts at contacting the school, submitting interview requests to Superintendent Earnest Winston, the CMS School Board, and Hawthorne Academy Principal Diann Weston. However, the school has not responded to the ongoing investigation.