Rational Outrage

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. That’s the motto of the city, but does it also apply to other locations?

While things that happen between consenting adults in Las Vegas are par for the course, a recent news story has raised serious questions about other venues where the Las Vegas motto may apply.

It seems that it’s a free-for-all on public school buses and vans, just like in Las Vegas, except that these are our children and the acts can be far from consensual.

In Ohio, a seven-year-old girl was repeatedly molested, raped and sodomized over a period of at least a year and a half. This is an accepted fact by the court because the emotionally disturbed 16-year-old boy who sexually assaulted the little girl on a special education school van gave a full confession to the police. His confession correlates with what the child reported to her mother, and what her mother reported to the school and the police. He also did not attempt to defend himself in a civil lawsuit brought against him by the victim’s mother.

However, prosecuting the rapist in this case doesn’t go very far in protecting this child and others from sexual predators on school buses. In this case, the school district and the driver of the van do not admit that the sexual attacks even happened. From the driver’s seat of the special education van, the driver cannot see what goes on at the back benches of the 7-passenger van. Since he did not see the attacks, he says that they never happened and that the sexual attacks that the 7-year-old described, and that the 16-year-old confessed to, are the product of the little girl’s imagination. The school district takes the same stance on the issue and stands firm on their position that the child was not raped on the school’s special education van although the 16-year-old has a lengthy rap sheet and school disciplinary record.

To add insult to injury, the mother’s attempt to sue the school district on behalf of her child has failed. A rational person might think and believe that when a child is on a school bus or van, that the school has a duty to protect that child. With this case, we find that is not the case and that the school, by virtue of being a government entity, is immune from liability. Rather than being held to a higher standard, government agencies are instead protected by sovereign immunity.

Initially, a judge in Stark County, Ohio ruled that a jury should hear the case to decide if the school district was negligent. The district, of course, appealed that decision.

The Ohio Court of Appeals recently ruled that the child who was raped has no right to sue the school district. Several courts in Ohio have previously ruled that the operation of school vehicles does not involve protecting the children from harm, including sexual assaults.

Now the child and her mother are waiting to see if the Ohio Supreme Court will hear the case. Although the school district denies that the sexual assaults ever happened, that is not the issue at stake. The real issue is whether or not the school district has a responsibility to ensure the safety of students who rely on transportation provided by the schools. Ohio courts have repeatedly protected the schools by ruling that they do not have a duty to protect students while they are being transported on school buses and vans.

So, unless the Ohio Supreme Court decides otherwise, what happens on school vehicles is of no concern to the school districts. After all, why should they be concerned when the courts say that they aren’t liable?

Back in October, a Pennsylvania judge made waves across the country when she ruled that the forcible rape of a prostitute wasn’t rape at all, but robbery. Her reasoning was that the prostitute had already consented, and that all the “robbers” had done was fail to pay for her services.

Reasonable outrage ensued on behalf of the victim and other similarly-situated women across the country, but even those who were most indignant—even those who took action and wrote letters and lobbied against the retention of the judge who made the ruling—focused on what the ruling said to and about prostitutes. The real risk of this ruling is much broader: the judge as good as said that consent couldn’t be withdrawn.

The facts presented to the judge indicated that the woman had entered into an agreement to perform certain sexual services for a fee of $150. When she arrived at the designated meeting place, the man told her that a male friend was going to join them, and would pay her an additional $100. Instead, they were shortly joined by three additional men, and the original “customer” produced a gun.

Like most reasonable women, the victim decided that she was a shade uncomfortable at gunpoint and withdrew her consent—an option I’m sure we’d all like to think we retained if some new element like a DEATH THREAT was introduced into our romantic interludes.

But no. According to this court’s ruling, that wasn’t an option. She’d already consented; the only issue now was payment.

Except…what if there hadn’t been money involved? The ruling in this case didn’t technically hinge on the fact that there had been money involved in the original agreement, but on the fact that the woman had consented in advance.

Let’s imagine a different scenario for a moment. Let’s imagine that a woman agrees to meet her ex-boyfriend for dinner. The evening goes well; he invites her back to his apartment to spend the night, and she accepts. Once they’re inside the apartment, he produces a gun and tells her that his roommate is going to join them. She rethinks her decision to have sex with him, but he insists…with a gun to her head. Rape?

According to the reasoning of the Pennsylvania ruling, no. And however a chorus of voices across the country might say, “But that’s DIFFERENT”, the fact is that legally, it’s not different at all. The judge in the Pennsylvania case said that the victim’s withdrawal of consent was ineffective…that she’d consented and the fact that she’d changed her mind didn’t make the slightest bit of difference.

Forget the ramifications for prostitutes--which are serious enough standing alone—the underlying rationale in this ruling is that once a woman has consented, there’s no turning back, no matter what turn circumstances might take.