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. @Public_Justice has been dealing with an awful development in one of our Title IX cases: Defense counsel shared with us child pornography of our client, a rape survivor, which the firm & school appear to have been keeping in their files to discredit her. https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/suit-gwinnett-schools-using-ex-students-nude-photos-to-discredit-her/KPHQAPMCL5CBZCEGO7FMLA377M/
A little background: Jane Doe was sexually assaulted by a classmate in high school. When she reported, her school asked her why she hadn’t screamed or bitten her assailant’s penis. Then the school suspended *her*. https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/09/title-ix-sexual-assault-allegations-in-k-12-schools.html
You may not be surprised to learn our client is a girl of color; her assailant is white.
Along with excellent co-counsel, @Public_Justice filed suit against the school in 2018. You can read the complaint here: https://www.publicjustice.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/2018.11.16-Doc.-1-Complaint.pdf
Recently, our team discovered that the school’s lawyers had sent us naked photos of our minor client—that is, child pornography.
Apparently, a school resource officer (a school cop) had, in the course of investigating our client’s rape, discovered the photos she had sent to a boy (not her rapist) and made copies on his own cell phone.
The photos were kept in the SRO's file on our client's sexual assault report for years, even though they had nothing to do with the assault or her assailant.
And the schools’ lawyers held on to them because, as they explained at a hearing last week, they thought the photos were relevant to why the school hadn’t believed Jane’s report that she had been raped.
The school’s attorney said a ruling that they cannot keep the photos would have “gigantic implications . . . to the entire disciplinary system for the state of Georgia” and that he is “not sure how the school system is going to defend these cases in the future.”
We worry that means that schools and/or their attorneys *regularly* maintain child pornography of their students in anticipation of potential lawsuits. Unbelievable.
Luckily, the judge granted our request for a temporary restraining order, writing “the Court is extremely concerned about the possession of the photographs in question by civil counsel”: https://www.publicjustice.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/055112920911.pdf
These specific events are unlike anything I’ve ever seen. But they are a version of the same story: too often, when survivors turn to their schools for help, they are instead re-victimized.
