Senior, 18, sues Bucks school district after alleged rape
An 18-year-old senior at Pennridge High School has filed a sexual discrimination suit against the school district and two administrators alleging they did not protect her from harassment by a classmate who she says raped her at a nearby restaurant.
The incident occurred on Dec. 17, 2014, when she was sophomore in the parking lot of The Country Place restaurant in Perkasie, according to the suit filed Wednesday on her behalf by the National Women’s Law Center in federal court in Philadelphia. After she reported it to police and school officials, her alleged assailant and some of his friends sent threatening texts, shoved her in the hallway and cursed at her, the suit said.
It is the second Law Center suit filed against the Pennridge School District alleging that administrators ignored pleas for help with harassment. In January, former student Modupe Williams contended in a suit that she was subjected to racial and sexual slurs, received harassing phone calls, and was tormented in and out of school. Administrators were aware of the episodes, she said, but didn’t act.
The district is seeking to have that case dismissed. Law Center attorney Alexandra Brodsky said that after Williams’s case received publicity several other Pennridge students or alumni came forward to say something similar had happened to them. More lawsuits may be forthcoming, she said.
Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/pennridge-20170531.html
