Title IX complaints at Myers Park are shocking. What now, CMS?
What happens when a student is sexually assaulted at school?
At Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, perhaps not enough.
A pair of lawsuits filed by two former Myers Park High School students allege school administrators and a police officer assigned to the campus mishandled their reports of being raped in the woods adjacent to Myers Park High in 2014 and 2015. Both female students allege school officials dissuaded them from initiating a criminal investigation.
They aren’t the only female students who say they were assaulted on a CMS campus. In recent weeks, more students have shared stories of their own, including at a recent school board meeting — incidents that they say occurred not just at Myers Park High, but at other CMS schools, too.
Each story has a similar haunting message: that CMS did not clearly outline and communicate Title IX policies and resources.
“At the time, I thought my case was an anomaly,” one female student, who says she was a victim of sexual assault at a CMS middle school, said at last week’s school board meeting. “However, I see it as a symptom of a larger problem of sexual assault in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.”
Title IX, part of federal education law, protects against sex-based discrimination in schools and other education programs that receive federal money. Under the law, federally funded schools like CMS are required to address sexual violence on campus when complaints arise.
But students say that, despite the district’s obligations under Title IX, their experiences were not documented and they did not receive the help and support they needed.
One particularly disturbing revelation is that, until 2016, CMS did not have a Title IX coordinator office to oversee how schools handle such reports.
This means that, prior to 2016, school administrators appear to have been on their own to properly and adequately respond to students’ allegations or complaints. A district the size of CMS — one of the largest metro school districts in the country — should have had an office of staff members who are thoroughly versed in Title IX protections and requirements long before that.
Between the 2015-16 and 2016-17 school years, there were 16 sexual harassment claims from students at Myers Park High alone, according to CMS data. The Observer also reported that during those same years, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police received seven reports of rape/sexual assault or forcible fondling at Myers Park High.
Yet it took a federal Title IX investigation and warnings from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights for CMS to finally designate a Title IX coordinator in January 2016.
Even now, students say CMS doesn’t clearly tell students what their rights are under Title IX, or educate students on what Title IX even is. It’s concerning that students don’t feel like the Title IX office is a strong resource; the district should do more to make students aware of it. In fact, students have been vocal about the change they want to see. An online petition, which has garnered more than 60,000 signatures, calls for “clearer Title IX policies, mandatory reporting, written records of all reports, and training for all staff, personnel, students and parents on how to report sexual violence.”
We agree. Students should not have to fight to have their experiences taken seriously. They should never feel like they are not supported in the wake of a traumatic event. And they should not be confused about what to do if and when such an event occurs. CMS must, at the very least, provide further clarity to students about the reporting process and the resources available to them under Title IX. The district also needs to be more responsive than students say it has been.
Schools ought to be safe places, but when they are not, students should understand their rights and protections. CMS needs to make sure they do.