The high school restroom is a common place for sexual assault. In this case, the perpetrator waited in line with his victim and then attacked when they were alone together to make sure there was no escape route before taking off her clothes.

The girl reported it but instead of protecting her from further harm like most schools would do if confronted by such allegations, this school punished her instead and said that the report was a false accusation.

According to Vice,

The student, who is not named in the report by WBTV, told the outlet that she was routinely harassed by a male student at Hawthorne Academy of Health Sciences in Charlotte, North Carolina. One day, she said, “He would, like, come into the bathroom and he would push me into the stall.”

“He put his hands in my pants and then he was, like, touching my breasts,” continued the student, who is 15. 

After she reported the classmate to the school, officials contacted local police, according to WBTV. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department ended up pressing charges against a juvenile for sexual battery in connection to the report, a police spokesperson told the outlet. 

But school administrators suspended the student for what they said was a filing a false report, WBTV reported.

“The child who did this to my daughter admitted to the police that he, in fact, did sexually assault her in a bathroom at the school,” the student’s mother told the outlet. “The school did their investigation, gave me a phone call and said, ‘Hey, look, unfortunately it looks like there’s no evidence that what your daughter’s saying took place did. We’re gonna have to give her a day of suspension.’”

The mother said she asked Hawthorne Academy’s principal, “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?”

Yesterday we reported on a @CharMeckSchools student who was suspended after reporting a sexual assault (Story https://t.co/VvqnwRsujc)

Today we tried to ask CMS board members @MargaretMarsh84 @elysedashew @JenniferforCMS if that was acceptable. They wouldn't answer #ncpol #nced pic.twitter.com/skPxWC3VAT

— Nick Ochsner (@NickOchsnerWBTV) November 2, 2021

The man asking questions in the video above also tried emailing the school board to get some answers, but was still unable to get any. We’ve got to do better with who we elect into school boards. I think for too long we’ve just not treated it very seriously and put all of our attention on who is running for president or governor.

Photo Credit: Ben Schumin