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A North Carolina high school student was suspended late last month after she reported that a male classmate had sexually assaulted her, according to a local news report from WBTV. The sophomore student — who asked not to be identified — told the outlet that she decided to alert school officials at Hawthorne Academy of Health Sciences in Charlotte, North Carolina, about the routine sexual assault following a Title IX education class at the beginning of the school year. After she reported the classmate to the school, officials contacted local police and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department ultimately pressed charges against a juvenile for sexual battery in connection to the report, said a police spokesperson.
However, despite the police investigation finding the accused guilty, school administrators suspended the female student for what they said was filing a false report. "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 15-year-old'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 outraged 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? And she said, 'well, unfortunately, what the law does has nothing to do to do with [the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools district], so, unfortunately, we have nothing else that we can do about this.'" When asked what was going through her mind during the disappointing conversation, the mother said: "I really just thought I had faith in CMS, that they were going to do right by my daughter. So when I got that phone call I was hurt."
Aside from suspending her, the school is also said to be making the student attend a class called "Sexual Harassment is Preventable." Speaking of this incomprehensible turn of events, the girl's mom said: "They are making her feel like she is being punished for coming forward." Recounting the near-daily sexual assault to the outlet, the teenager 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."