Portland, Oregon, schools and after-school program sued after a 9-year-old girl is raped

At least it wasn't a transgender pretender - that we know of yet.

A young girl and her guardian have sued an Oregon nonprofit organization, 
Portland Public Schools and Multnomah County for $9 million, alleging they 
were negligent when male classmates sexually abused her at school and 
raped her during an after-school program when she was a 9-year-old third 
grader.

The child, who is now 11, attended a Portland elementary school and an 
after-school program operated by Multnomah County on her school campus in 
partnership with Latino Network and Portland Public Schools.

The lawsuit says the girl was subjected to multiple episodes of 
nonconsensual sexual touching during school hours. In March 2022, she hit 
a male classmate in the face to protect herself when he touched his mouth 
to hers, but the lawsuit said the school suspended both her and her 
attacker for the incident.

The next month, two other male students trapped her in a bathroom stall 
during recess at their after-school program and raped her, the lawsuit 
said. The school learned about the assault when the parent of one of the 
male perpetrators heard about it from their child and reported it.

The lawsuit alleges the school and after-school program failed to 
immediately notify law enforcement and undertook an internal 
investigation. It says school district personnel interviewed the girl 
without notifying law enforcement or her parents of the sexual assault or 
about their interview.

The school suspended the two males for one day and said they would stay in 
school with a safety plan. But the girl’s father didn’t believe this would 
keep his daughter safe and so enrolled her and her younger brother in 
another Portland public school. Both the girl and her brother missed 
almost one month of schooling as a result.

The lawsuit said Portland Public Schools should have known that the 
plaintiff was vulnerable and at risk of continued sexual assault by male 
students. It alleges the school district was negligent in failing to 
adequately train and teach students about appropriate sexual boundaries 
and how to report abuse.

The lawsuit alleges the school system made the plaintiff feel that she 
would be reprimanded if she protected herself from unwanted sexual 
contact. It says the school system was negligent for failing to report the 
student’s vulnerabilities to after-school program staff and to train 
employees to monitor, recognize and report child sex abuse.

It alleges Latino Network and Multnomah County were negligent for failing 
to maintain awareness of students during the after-school program and 
adequately train after-school program employees to monitor, recognize and 
report child sexual grooming and abuse.

Portland Public Schools said in a statement that it learned of these new 
allegations when it received the lawsuit, and it is investigating. It said 
it is required to report any instance of possible child abuse and neglect 
to the Oregon Department of Human Services, and such reports are 
confidential.

“We take our responsibilities as mandatory reporters seriously and follow 
the law around reporting,” it said.

Multnomah County said it does not comment on pending litigation. Latino 
Network said the news of the lawsuit is “painful” to the organization, 
which is committed to trauma-informed practices.

“We take the allegations very seriously and are working with our legal 
representation to provide counsel to our organization,” it said.

The lawsuit was filed on March 20 in Circuit Court in Multnomah County.

https://apnews.com/article/oregon-portland-schools-child-sex-assault-
lawsuit-cf9cde7030197429da332567f150e10b