School officials kept jobs after teen used as "bait" is raped in school bathroom

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HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- All of the school administrators that the Justice Department has accused of "deliberate indifference" leading up to the 2010 rape of a 14-year-old girl at Sparkman Middle School remain in their jobs – and one assistant principal has since been promoted.

Ronnie Blair, who ran unsuccessfully earlier this year for Madison County superintendent, remains principal of Sparkman Middle and Teresa Terrell remains his assistant principal. Former Sparkman assistant principal Jeanne Dunaway has since been named principal of Madison County Elementary School.

A teacher's aide involved in the case, June Simpson, was placed on leave after the incident and later resigned, according to court records. 

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It is the Court of Appeals to which the Justice Department has weighed in on the case, which stems from a January 2010 plan crafted by Simpson to "catch in the act" the boy, a special needs student who had been sexually harassing girls at the school over a period of several weeks.

Despite the boy's history of violence and sexual harassment, Simpson told the 14-year-old victim, also a special needs student, to go into the bathroom with him so she could catch him harassing the girl. When she failed to follow the teens into the restroom, the boy sodomized the girl.

Blair and the two assistant principals were named in the lawsuit because Simpson had told Dunaway about her plan beforehand. 

"Simpson and (the girl) then went to Vice-Principal (Jeanne) Dunaway's office, where Simpson told Dunaway about her plan to use (the girl) as bait to catch (the boy)," the Justice Department brief states. "Dunaway did not respond with any advice or directive.

"(The girl) left Dunaway's office, found (the boy) in the hallway, and agreed to meet him for sex. (The boy) told (the girl) to go to the sixth grade boys' bathroom and she complied. No teachers were in the bathroom to intervene, and (the boy) sodomized (the girl)."

The brief also states that Blair, when Simpson first reported to administrators the boy's behavior toward female students, rejected the aide's recommendation that the boy be under constant supervision, telling Simpson "that (the boy) could not be punished because he had not been 'caught in the act,' short-hand for the school's policy that students could not be disciplined without substantiation of student-on-student misconduct."

The brief also points out that administrators minimized the assault after the fact by listing it as "inappropriate touching" in the boy's file. The federal attorneys note that one assistant principal, upon seeing photos of the injuries, contended that school officials could not know if the sex had been non-consensual.

"Vice-Principal Dunaway testified that (the girl) was responsible for herself once she entered the bathroom," the brief states.

The National Women's Law Center also on Thursday filed a brief supporting the 14-year-old victim, who left the school district after the rape and now lives in another state. In a press release issued today, the law center cited the "outrageous response" by the Madison County Board of Education and school officials.

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