GoodSports: For the Love of Justice: The Flogging of Human Decency in Silsbee, TX
The theme of GoodSports is to promote the good in and beyond the games we play. Sometimes, though, the games we play give way to something too awful to ignore, even on the most positive of blogs. That brings us to the story of the Silsbee High School (Texas) cheerleader who was kicked off her squad after refusing to chant the name of a player who raped her. Unbelievably, that’s not even the worst of it. Now, somehow, she’s being forced to pay $45,000 for the whole ordeal.
The girl, identified in reports only as HS, was allegedly raped by Rakheem Bolton at a house party when she was 16. According to various reports (see links at end of this post), Bolton and a football player named Christian Rountree, plus another juvenile male, shoved HS into a room, locked the door, held her down, and raped her. When others tried to get into the room, two of the guys jumped out of a window, including Bolton. Bolton also allegedly threatened to shoot people when the homeowner refused to return clothes he’d left behind.
Rahkeem BoltonBolton was subsequently arrested on rape charges, along with two other boys. In September, Bolton pled guilty to a misdemeanor assault of HS and sentenced to one year in prison. That sentence was suspended by the judge for two years probation, community service, a $2,500 fine, and an anger management class. The rape charge was dropped. Bolton was free. A few months later, with the case in limbo between grand juries, Bolton was allowed back to school.
Meanwhile, HS was told by Silsbee school administration to keep a low profile. They told her to avoid the school cafeteria. To not take part in any homecoming activities. So in other words, HS got raped by a boy who literally threatened the lives of people who ultimately got him arrested. As though that were not traumatic enough, her attacker was allowed to return to their school. And on top of that, HS was told by school administration to “keep a low profile.” And it still somehow gets worse.
Fast forward to February. HS is a cheerleader; Bolton, remarkably, has been allowed back on campus. One grand jury had withdrawn the charges; another had yet to reinstate them. Bolton was a free man. It’s inconceivable, but in one of the worst errors of judgment in modern America, Silsbee Superintendent Richard Bain, Silsbee Principal Gaye Lokey, Silsbee Athletic Director Bobby McGallion, and the Silsbee basketball coach Travis Williams all allowed Bolton to rejoin the basketball team. The case against him had been quite public. There is very little chance that they did not realize that HS was a cheerleader. (Never mind that there was such a case against him at all.)
Richard BainBolton played in a game at Huntsville. HS and her squad were there. She got along fine—only God knows how—until Bolton went to the free throw line. That’s when she did exactly what she should have done, all that she was allowed to do to stand up for herself. While the other cheerleaders did the standard free throw cheer, HS kept her mouth shut and her arms crossed.
Bain ordered her out of the gym at halftime, whereupon he and Lokey admonished her for not cheering. HS told him she refused to cheer for the boy who had raped her. She was told to cheer or go home. She went home. She was later kicked off the squad for this by cheer coach Sissy McInnis, presumably under pressure from Bain and Lokey.
(Curiously, Lokey submitted her resignation the week of Friday, Feb. 5.)
HS and her family and their lawyers pursued legal action against the principal and the school district in early 2009. Unbelievably, two separate courts ruled against HS. On top of that, last September a federal appeals court upheld the decisions and ordered HS to reimburse the school district $45,000 for filing a “frivolous” lawsuit against it.
All the reasons why are, though sound logically, absolutely offensive morally. The nuts and bolts of it is this: The HS party argued that she had the right to free speech. The school district argued that cheerleaders give up that right when they become cheerleaders. The courts ruled in favor of the school.
For something like politics, or some other such relatively meaningless protest, sure, rule in favor of the school. Call that frivolous, because it is. But a girl refusing to cheer for the guy who raped her is suddenly (1) wrong and (2) frivolous? It’s like something out of a Hollywood agent’s shredder.
I never, ever let my strongest opinions go public anymore. I prefer to make my name by telling stories, not touting opinions. I’m just not smart enough or wise enough yet to trust myself with that. But on this, there is no gray area.
This is as pure black and white as it gets.
A girl has been brutally degraded on just about every level there is, to the degree where even the law has, against all logic—forget logic; against all human decency—not only freed her attacker and left unaccountable the ones who enable him, but became an attacker and enabler all itself. All of it, it seems, comes in the worship of the athlete over all others. Against this, I can't stay silent.
It's horrific. It's tragic. It's the upheaval of American values, of all that is good and right in this country. Sanctity has been sacrificed for sport, common sense for fandom. And human decency wasn't sacrificed for anything, it was just flogged to death, probably by the cat-o-nine-tales, along the way.
I don’t know Richard Bain or Gaye Lokey or any of their posse. I don’t know who the judges were who sided with him. I don’t know who the people are who let the law fail HS.
All I know is that the Rahkeem Boltons of the world are already f------- enough in the head. He actually said, after all this, that he has "no hard feelings toward the girl." When they do something like this—when they rape a girl, threaten to pump bullets into the bodies of the people who stand against him for it, and then have the hubris to step back on a court in front of her and expect her to cheer for him—it’s horrible but somehow acceptable, because you can say, Well, people are crazy. Crazy people do crazy things. That’s why we have the law. Justice doesn't make right what went wrong, but it at least lets us feel safe knowing that it can't happen again, to us or anybody else.
But when our law, our system of justice, that which is meant to protect all that is good and fair in this world, fails a poor girl like HS, where does she go? When it not only lets her down in all the worst ways, but then punishes her for taking a stand for herself, what does she do? Even her own community has sided against her, saying that if she is really this outspoken about everything, she couldn't have "really" been raped.
I don’t know her any more than I know Bain, except that she's a freshman in college now. Somehow, she has stepped foot beyond her bedroom door. Somehow, she has stopped weeping since that order from the judge. She must be the strongest teenage girl alive.
There’s not so much that she can do anymore. She has a steep hill to climb. We all know and remember how formative, traumatic, defining our teenage years can be. It’s highly likely that she’ll be fighting the effects of this epitome of injustice the rest of her life.
But there is something you can do. Share the link (http://bit.ly/gdsports) to this blog. Spread this story. Use the contact information below to let Bain and Co. know how you feel. Have people go here to sign a petition against it. Let everyone you know what happened to HS, so they can let everyone they know, so that maybe some people will find out that can actually do something substantial about it. Yeah, we all have problems in our lives. I want to fix everything for everyone, especially myself, but there is really only so much I can do. There’s only so much any of us can do.
But maybe, just maybe, if the word gets around enough, and if people call Silsbee and its lawyers and its judges enough, and if hell gets raised just enough, then the world will see what happened there in Texas these past few months. Maybe if the voices of the public cry loud enough, HS can finally stop.
— Brandon Sneed
Contact Information:
Silsbee High School
Phone: 409-980-7800
SnailMail: 415 Highway 326 West
Silsbee, TX, 77656
Richard Bain Email: rbain@silsbeeisd.org
Sources:
[ Court OKs booting of cheerleader who wouldn’t cheer for rapist ]
[ Cheerleader Required to Cheer for Man Who Assaulted Her ]
[ Father of Student Forced to Cheer for her Rapist Fights for Justice ]
[ Richard Bain, This Is What You Did ]
Picture 1: Lady Justice [via]
Picture 2: Rahkeem Bolton [via]
Picture 3: Richard Bain [via]
The opinions expressed in this blog post are mine, and mine alone, and are intended with respectful disbelief at the events described therein, and are shared only for the purpose of trying to do a little good in this world that’s sometimes just too crazy to really be real.
Comments | May 4, 2011
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