Wednesday, April 9, 2014

We Have Rights


Some of you may recall I post I did a few months back on sexual predators. Ms. Jarrell, the math teacher at my school who raped a girl, finally got her sentence. And it's...drumroll please, eighteen months probation, 100 hours of community service, and a $900 dollar fine.
For rape. I know students who do more service than that just to look good on college applications. What's the cost of rape? Apparently less than a good quality computer. She doesn't even have to register as a sex offender.
And what is Jarrell doing about this? Whining. She told newspapers, "I lost my teaching license and that was something I worked really hard for and I've been punished throughout the year with different things."
You poor baby. You worked hard for that teaching license? Really, really hard? Then maybe you shouldn't have thrown it away. Try not to rape anyone at your next job.
Wait, what's that you say? You didn't do anything wrong, Jarrell? This is just two young women falling in love? Let me explain sex to you. There are two different types:
1. Consensual
2. Rape
If a person in a position of authority has sex with a person with less control than they do, it is no way consensual. Rape is trickier to define with female on female sex, you say? No. It's not.
Jarrell said she never planned on having sex with her victim, at least, not until she turned eighteen. Jailbait wait. She just wrote her a note saying she could treat her "better" than her current girlfriend, she just swapped phone numbers, and she just gave the girl her address. Things just escalated from there. So of course she's not responsible.
Swapping phone numbers and passing notes are the things high schoolers should do with other high schoolers. Our teachers should yell at us for planning dates in class. Jarrell started it and she is the only one responsible.
After crying for a while, she goes on to say,
 "I'll never be in a school again like that. I don't even know if I can go on field trips with my nieces' or nephews' or kids' schools and that's really hard for me. I feel like it was a big deal for me to lose that."
Yeah, and we lost one of our competent math teachers. We lost that innocent idea that teachers are adults we can trust.
Every student, male or female, straight or not, has the right to sexual safety in school. Sure would be nice if we had the same kind of safety everywhere else, but that won't happen, so can we at least get it here? And every teacher, male or female, straight or not, needs to understand this.
We are your students. Not your playthings.


1 comment:

  1. I completely agree! Plus, the bit about how the sentence was lighter because Ms. Jarrell was not the girl's teacher or coach is pure crap! I have the right to send my children to school and think that they will be safe. I sure don't think that it is okay for them to have sex with a teacher at the school as long as it is not THEIR teacher! Pure crap!

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