Seven Sayreville, N.J., High School Football Players Charged in Sexual Assault of Teammates

 

If the numbers mentioned in the report from Christian Science Monitor are accurate, 1 in 4 boys experiences sexual violence from peers during the high school years. This is identical to the number of females experiencing sexual violence in high school or college. Clearly, rape is not about sex - it's about power, control, and humiliation.

This crap needs to stop.

Hazing cancels Sayreville, N.J., football season: Does culture contribute to abuse?

As more details of the nature of the alleged sexual abuse in the New Jersey football program become known, a debate widens about the damage that can come from behavior often dismissed as 'initiation.'

By Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, Staff writer | October 10, 2014

In a football town, Sayreville residents shaken by hazing scandal; WPIX - New York

Amid a criminal investigation into possible hazing and sexual violence among high school football players, the town of Sayreville, N.J., is facing a season with no more football.

The decision by Sayreville Superintendent of Schools Richard Labbe to cancel the season Monday night brought an uproar from some parents, worried that innocent students who may depend on football for college scholarships would be unfairly punished.

[Update: On Friday night, seven students were charged with sex crimes in connection with a series of assaults. Six of the seven students, ranging in age from 15 to 17, were arrested Friday night, and the seventh was being sought, police and prosecutors said.]

But as details of the allegations at War Memorial High School spread in the news media this week, the town has become the stage for a broader public conversation about the detrimental nature of behaviors that experts say are too often dismissed as “tradition” or “initiation.”

About 47 percent of high school students experience some form of hazing, but only 8 percent apply that label to it, a landmark national study found in 2008. Among high school boys, 26 percent experience sexual violence from their male peers, the Journal of Youth and Adolescence reported in 2009.

A parent of one of the players in Sayreville told NJ Advance Media Wednesday that this fall, freshmen players were repeatedly attacked in the locker room by upperclassmen, who would physically restrain their target and assault him anally.

The school district has directed questions to the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s office, and a spokesman there told the Monitor he cannot comment beyond confirming there is an “active investigation.”

The initial negative reaction by many in the town when the season was cancelled may stem from confusion over the language in New Jersey’s statutes such as intimidation, harassment, and bullying, says Parry Aftab, an attorney and anti-bullying expert based in Fort Lee, N.J. Some people may not have realized how serious the allegations were.

But some who hear the allegations in such cases are still inclined to excuse the behavior and, instead, blame the victims for coming forward, says Kiersten Stewart, director of public policy and advocacy in the Washington office of Futures Without Violence. “This in no way can be tolerated. This is not hazing, this is child sexual abuse and we need to call it what it is,” she says.

The case highlights that education about respect, decency, and standing up against violence needs to start at a young age, Ms. Stewart and others say. But there also needs to be tough scrutiny of what any adults may have known about the case – whether current or former coaches, parents, or former players.

Superintendent Labbe told football players’ parents that school officials were not aware of any bullying or hazing before players came forward late last week, NJ Advance Media reports.

It’s important that students have access to anonymous reporting methods for more of them to come forward about bullying, hazing, and sexual assault, Ms. Aftab says.

The society “can’t just look at it as some anomalous thing that happens in some aberrant group,” but instead “we have to look at aspects of our culture that can create a climate where something like this is able to occur,” says Elizabeth Allan, president of Stop Hazing and a professor at the University of Maine in Orono.

One such factor is “the social construction of masculinity,” Professor Allan says, in which there are “lots of rewards for being seen as strong, tough, heterosexual…. One way to reinforce power and status and hierarchy in a group is to engage [male peers] in behaviors that would call into question their masculinity.”

In this case, if the allegations are true, she says, it will be more obvious to people that the behavior was physically forced, but in many instances of hazing, people think victims are going along with it because they don’t understand the coercion at play. “The kids know that if they don’t [go along with hazing] they are likely going to be seen in a different light.”

Education about how to speak up or intervene as a bystander in such situations is spreading into more high schools and middle schools around the country.

Sayreville community members are organizing a Sunday evening vigil to show support for the victims of the alleged hazing and raise awareness.

Natascha Yogachandra - Teaching Positive Masculinity

This is an interesting recent article from The Atlantic on how the effort to prevent sexual assaults is now (finally) being directed at men and boys - a process of teaching "positive masculinity."

Teaching Positive Masculinity

Health advocates are engaging men in sexual assault prevention, challenging the negative aspects of traditional manhood.

Natascha Yogachandra May 14 2014

Dean Courtney Robinson leads a session with students (Natascha Yogachandra)

School is out on a Wednesday and the dean of students' office at Facing History High School is full, but these kids aren't here for detention. Dean Courtney Robinson, who has thick arms covered with tattoos and hair pulled back into a braided bun, looks over the room as high school boys shuffle in and out. Some wear sweatshirts with hoods pulled floppily over their heads; others wear navy polos embroidered with a special insignia: tiny hands clasped around a globe.

They chat, complain, and tease one another until precisely 1:35 p.m., when Robinson ushers out the hangers-on while those in the polos plop into seats for a meeting of the Human United Strength Organization, or HUSO. The conversation topics range from rap music to Malcolm X but the subtext always centers on the meaning of masculinity.

"All right, guys," Robinson begins. "Let's check in."

A senior named Devante Moore usually talks about basketball. He speaks faster and faster as he becomes angrier and angrier. Apparently, this year's coach isn't his favorite. John Susana, a freshman, mentions in a mumble that his grades are good, and his small audience claps for his success.

Room 227 is a safe place. One boy shares that his favorite Christmas gift was a hug from his mom. It's a supportive place. Robinson listens intently to the students' problems and responds with short suggestions for nonviolent solutions. It's a male place, a haven for these high-school boys to talk about the things they ordinarily would find difficult to air in public.

They call it the HUSO Mentoring Group, or HMG, an after-school offshoot of the HUSO umbrella organization, which Robinson established at Facing History in Hell's Kitchen. He hopes to see his group replicated in more city schools, even though there are already a number of similar male-oriented clubs operating under other leadership across the United States.

The purpose of these programs is to give boys the chance to rethink maleness, and to change the way men treat women and each other. Moore, the one who always brings up basketball, says that the group isn't for the weak-minded. "This is for people who got strong minds; who are willing to step up to the plate and really become a young man."

Organizers say the construct works once the young men decide to participate. Getting them in the door and then finding the money to keep the doors open are often the two biggest challenges.

* * *

When Robinson started his organization, he did not know he would become part of a much larger movement that has been working for the past 40 years to engage men in the prevention of violence against women. Mentoring for him started at his home in Harlem when he was just a boy. His mother kept the front door open for any child in need, and those who came also looked informally to Robinson for advice. He now tells his club members that they're walking examples of respectful male students, ones who choose conversation over clenched fists.

The first such experiments emerged in the late-1960s and early-1970s during the second wave of the feminist movement, when male activists realized the positive impact of their support in the battle for women's rights.

Termed "anti-sexists," these men supported the rights of their female partners and initially seemed to be little more than a weak and scattered army without provisions or direction. But after the First National Conference on Men and Masculinity in 1975, structure soon followed, resulting in the establishment of the National Organization for Men Against Sexism.

As gender studies gained credibility as an academic discipline around the same time, some scholars of feminist theory began to develop a new focus, known as masculinity studies. Dr. Ronald Levant played a significant role in the development of masculinity ideology, something he defines as "an individual's internalization of cultural belief systems and attitudes toward masculinity and men's roles."

In 1992, he and his colleagues created the Male Role Norms Inventory, which measures adherence to seven norms of the Western masculinity ideology: Avoidance of Femininity, Fear and Hatred of Homosexuals, Self-Reliance, Aggression, Achievement/Status, Non-Relational Attitudes Toward Sex, and Restrictive Emotionality. Research influenced by Levant's inventory has since revealed that men who embrace more traditional Western masculine ideology are reluctant to discuss condom use with their partners, have less satisfactory relationships, and harbor attitudes that often lead to the sexual harassment of women.

So instead of putting resources into warning women about dark streets and risqué clothing, which unfairly burdens women with assault prevention, advocates for female victims of sexual abuse, such as Lina Juarbe Botella, realize that their primary focus should be on changing the behavior of abusive men. "Women cannot be safe," Botella says, "until men know how to behave." 

Tony Porter and Ted Bunch founded A Call to Men in 2002 after being heavily involved in social justice activism for several years. Botella, the organization's training director, said that the two founders "meet men where they're at physically and emotionally," to encourage them to act as positive role models for their communities. But the two men also acknowledge the debt they owe to the women like Botella's predecessors, who came before them as workers for the same cause.

Botella admitted that she originally had difficulty accepting men as partners in the field of female advocacy. But her current focus on prevention has taught her how to embrace their presence.

"I can't take any credit for it, but Tony and Ted had a lot of wisdom on how to be with men, all types of men, from the barbershop to the boardroom. This is really a men's issue," she added. "We need to engage men so that we can ensure a collective liberation."

A Call to Men's mission goes beyond working with men of violence to include community leaders, fathers, brothers, and uncles. "If I have my arms stretched out open to symbolize all the men in our society, a small percentage of them are abusers," Botella explained. "We particularly focus on men who are on the other side, who are on the line, who might stop those jokes or [help] create a society without confrontation." When someone shares a sexist joke by the office water cooler, A Call to Men wants male bystanders to shut it down before he gets to the punchline.

Jamie Utt, who describes himself as a diversity and inclusion consultant, travels around the United States to speak at schools about positive sexuality, bullying prevention, and student leadership. "So much about toxic masculinity is all about hoping the world doesn't see how hard you're trying."

"I think that we can motivate people to act," he said over Skype from his home in Minnesota, "but it so often comes from a place of charity, you know? We're trying to motivate men to change masculinity for women, but then it's this paternalistic sort of charity versus trying to get men to change masculinity because of their personal investment in it and their relationships."

Utt knows well there are no gold medals or blue ribbons for advocacy work. He said he just wants men to realize the importance of engaging with their partners and responding to their needs. That way, they can help build communities in which all members feel safe, and masculinity is inclusive and not violent.

Carlos Andrés Gómez shares a similar message. He came to realize the negative consequences of most traditionally masculine behavior through a series of shallow relationships, fights with his father, and losses both personal and material. Already an HBO Def Jam poet, actor, and public speaker, he added author to that list in 2012 with his book Man Up: Cracking the Code of Modern Manhood. In it, he writes about renouncing his identity as a guy known for liking to pick a fight and then taking up another as a poet—"a journey to becoming a man, a different kind of man, a man who lives and moves and acts outside of the predetermined boundaries of masculinity," he says in the book.

"I mean, so much about toxic masculinity is all about hoping the world doesn't see how hard you're trying," he said. "Whether it's a guy rocking 28-inch rims, or a guy outside of a party with his shirt ripped off, beating his chest, yelling at the top of his lungs, or a guy bragging how big his dick is—it's all about this performance. It's all a performance to hope the world doesn’t see that there’s a little boy in there who’s shaking and scared and hurting."

The topic of privilege repeatedly came up during our discussion—the privilege society confers on men, the privilege society ascribes to being white or sometimes even just appearing to be white, as in the case of the blue-green-eyed Gómez. He prides himself on being able to walk into a room and completely disorient those he encounters. Gómez is well-built; his large shoulders and arms signal days spent at the gym. He "plays up" his masculinity when he walks into a school, "very much by design," he assures me, but when he delivers emotional poems on stage, he leaves tears on his cheeks. Much in the way that Robinson tries to reshape masculinity in Room 227, Gómez does so when he performs in front of an audience. The two men may have different approaches, but they work toward the same goal in safe, private spaces.

Teaching young men to value the models of maleness that men like Utt, Gómez, and Robinson are forging seems to be easier in a room full of strangers than it is in the locker room or at home. Gómez recalled an expression he says he heard somewhere once: "You know, it's like anybody can confront an enemy, but it takes a true hero to confront a friend."

He told the story of a recent trip to Alabama where the men he met represented what he calls "the front lines of the battle" to change the way men think about their masculinity. Gómez says he prefers to speak at a place like this where, by the end of the session, a "pretty homophobic construction worker" was in tears talking about his son. To Gómez, watching that man's transformation in the space of a one-hour meeting is "more revolutionary and more meaningful to me than 30 people who identify as activists" parroting what they already believe. Online forums have a special appeal because they provide anonymity that gives guys the chance to be curious in private.

And those venues have become virtual as well as physical. Online forums have a special appeal because they provide anonymity that gives guys the chance to be curious in private. Blogs like Masculinities 101, MasculinityU, and Higher Unlearning have emerged as equivalents to Robinson's classroom. They encourage young men to debate, ask questions, and learn about new definitions of masculinity.

Twitter and Facebook generate numerous conversations in which postings fling around buzzwords such as "pro-feminism," "healthy masculinity" and "positive sexuality," where male advocates tackle the issues of street harassment and sexual abuse with a keyboard.

Emiliano Diaz De Leon wishes that he had social media when he started working in the field of advocacy. His reach would have been larger, he said, to help educate young boys like himself. When Diaz De Leon was a teenager, he confessed to being violent toward women he dated and said that there had been acts of abuse in his own family. He wasn't aware of the male support group at his high school and was surprised when the school counselor referred him to join after he acknowledged his need for help. Those early experiences led him to the job he now holds as men’s engagement specialist at the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault. Although not everyone who comes to be passionate about this kind of advocacy starts because of an early intervention, many do, and he thinks the existence of such groups is a plus.

"I think if we can get men to begin to do the work that early, that absolutely has an impact on their ability to continue doing the work as adult men."

Diaz De Leon became the first children's male advocate at SafePlace, the women's shelter that was his club's sponsor, after having participated in his own high-school group. Plenty of men had provided services to the organization—making repairs to the building and such—but none before Diaz De Leon had volunteered to work with the shelter's clients.

"It was really the women, both the leadership at SafePlace and in the shelter, who took a risk, who both mentored me and challenged me and held me accountable," he said. While some women were receptive to his presence, others had a hard time with it. "They had experienced a tremendous amount of violence from men who looked like me."

He felt the weight of being the first positive male role model to which most of the children had ever been exposed.

"It really forces you, every day, to think about your behavior, language, the way that you walk, the way that you talk, the way that you are around the people in the shelter," he said.

* * *

One afternoon at the meeting in Room 227, the group starts to argue about the value of money. Sentences overlap and the boys grab at any second of silence to shout out their opinions. As they debate, Robinson listens. He waits for the right moment to jump in and when he does, some of the boys are too involved in conversation to hear him. "Yo yo yo, one mic, one mic," a few call out. It's a phrase used often by the students during meetings to avoid interruptions. The rest stop to give their mentor the floor. Robinson doesn't have to ask for their respect; he's earned it.

"I've had teachers that don't come from the same type of environment as these kids, and they're like, 'Wow, Courtney, how do you do that? You ask them to do something and they do it!'"

It's simple, he says. He doesn't dictate; he explains. When discussion centers on the words "female" and "bitch," Robinson doesn't respond aggressively when a student says that he only uses "bitch" because sometimes "she acts like one." Instead, he puts the word into perspective, asking the boy how he would feel if that word was used to describe his mother or sister.

"Regardless of how you feel about her, somebody loves her," Robinson reminds the student. "And there isn't anything you can say to justify how you're treating her." They listen.

The group's members also know that when Robinson was asked to leave Facing History and become the New York supervisor for Men Can Stop Rape, he turned the offer down to stay with them. This is why: "Me seeing y'all and being here to support you all [to] graduate and move forward and be able to deal with your problems, and help you all make it through and give you all advice means more to me than whatever dollar amount they were going to give me."

"That's love," one of the students says. And the rest clap.

Mark Wahlberg, 42, Earns His High School Diploma

Very cool - I always like to see successful people go back and finish pieces of their education that they walked away from (for whatever reason) at an earlier stage in their life - whether it's getting a high school diploma, a GED, or finishing college.

People Magazine reports that actor and director Mark Wahlberg has gotten his high school diploma at the age of 42. Congratulations to him for doing this, even though he never needs to work again.

Does anyone else remember Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch?

Mark Wahlberg Earns His High School Diploma

By Raha Lewis | 09/16/2013

Mark Wahlberg

Actor and producer Mark Wahlberg has a new title to add to his resume – high school graduate.

The 42-year-old received his diploma in June and tells PEOPLE that his four children were a big motivation for hitting the books. "I didn't want the kids saying, 'You didn't do it, so why do I need it?' They are all wanting to do things in their future that require an education."

The Ted star, who had a troubled childhood and dropped out in the ninth grade being charged with attempted murder, says getting his diploma is "a huge accomplishment."

"It's also a huge sense of relief," he told PEOPLE Monday at an event in Irvine, Calif., for the Taco Bell Foundation for Teens, where he presented scholarships to select Taco Bell employees as part of its pilot program. "I wondered, 'Why didn't I do it when I was there?' It's so much harder at 41 going back and trying to do all these difficult tasks." 

The most challenging part for Wahlberg, who took online classes, was math, even though he jokes that he's "good at counting money and keeping track of my money."

Wahlberg hired a tutor and studied between takes on the set of Two Guns, but kept it a secret from his costar Denzel Washington.

"Denzel was always asking me what I was doing but I didn't want to share that information with him," he says. "Nobody knew, because I felt like I don't like to count my chickens before they hatch, so I didn't want to say that I was doing it until I actually finished it. What if I said I'm doing this and I didn't finish it?"

Now that Wahlberg has his diploma, he's hoping to further his education.

"I would love to go to USC and study film. I don't want to become a veterinarian or anything, [I want to study] things that further my career and broaden my horizon."

School Principal Discouraged Teen Girl from Reporting Sexual Assault Because It Would Ruin Attacker's Basketball Career

This principle, Terry Urguhart (as well as the Superintendent, Daniel Behm, and Assistant Superintendent and Title IX Coordinator, Anne Edsenga) all should be fired from their jobs. Fortunately, they are being sued by the National Women’s Law Center on behalf of the victim (who was a 15-yr old sophomore at the time of the assault in 2010).

Not only did the principle fail to investigate, he left the perpetrator in the same class as the victim for two weeks. It gets worse.

As word of the sexual assault spread among the student body, the female victim became the target of an intensive cyber-bullying and harassment campaign—both at school and online—that depicted her as a liar and a “whore” who was trying to bring down an innocent athlete. These cyber-attacks were only reinforced by the fact that the school continued to take no action to reprimand the male student. Not only did fellow students harass the victim, the attacker and his friends verbally and physically harassed the girl as well. They followed her around as she moved in and out of classrooms, through hallways, and around the school campus. The attacker sometimes pushed her into other students as she walked down the hallway, causing her to slam into lockers. Despite repeated efforts by the victim’s parents and other students to alert the principal and the school’s Title IX Coordinator about the viciousness of the harassment by the attacker and other students, school administrators took no action.

The perpetrator had already been convicted in the juvenile system of Aggravated Assault and been through the Kent County Adolescent Sex Offender Treatment Program. Apparently, the treatment did not work for him. In the time between his assault of the first victim and his being charged by the Kent County Prosecutor’s office (two felony counts of criminal sexual conduct), he attacked and assaulted another female student (thus the two felony counts) at the school.

The attacker later pled guilty to a single count of misdemeanor assault and battery. He was sentenced to attend Kent County’s Adolescent Sexual Offender Treatment Program for a second time. The only sanction the school imposed upon the student assailant was to temporarily bench him on the basketball court.

He still has not served time for his actions - and he may still have a shot at a college basketball career, where there a lot more women to sexually assault.

If the principle could sit in my office for a week and see how these assaults, and worse, the discounting of the victim's suffering, affects their lives, their self-esteem, their ability to get through the day, he would hopefully not been so willing to dismiss the girl's experience and let the athlete get away with it.

We need to do better at educating school officials, law enforcement, and other groups that this shit is real, and it can be debilitating, and to consider how they might feel if their daughter was ever sexualy assaulted.

I originally found this story at AlterNet, and the text below comes from Jessica Pieklo at RH Reality Check.

Michigan High School Protects Student Athlete at Expense of Alleged Sexual Assault Victim

by Jessica Mason Pieklo, Senior Legal Analyst, RH Reality Check
April 21, 2013 

A lawsuit filed last week by the National Women's Law Center suggests high school administrators have a long way to go in protecting students from sexual assaults.

(Basketball on court via Shutterstock)

Last week the National Women’s Law Center, along with a local law firm in Michigan, filed a complaint in federal district court on behalf of a high school student who was allegedly sexually assaulted at school by a fellow student and star basketball player. In many ways the story echoes the tragic high school rape story from Steubenville, Ohio, which should lead all of us to ask just what kind of culture are we raising our children in, and what kind of culture is being cultivated at our high schools?

According to the complaint, in 2010 the victim was sexually assaulted by a star player on the school’s basketball team. The assault took place on campus in a sound proof band room at Forest Hills Central High School. The victim notified a teacher who in turn reported the assault to the principal. But rather than open an investigation into the allegations, the principal discouraged the student and her parents from filing charges, telling them that doing so could ruin the assailant’s prospects at being recruited to play basketball for a Division 1 school.

The victim and her parents ignored the principal’s request not to file charges because they were concerned that this student might attack other girls. Instead, the student and her parents filed a police report, and the Kent County Sheriff’s Department began a criminal investigation. Meanwhile, the school did nothing.

As alleged in the complaint, two weeks later another female student was sexually assaulted by the same attacker. Despite a legal obligation under Title IX to investigate the assault and protect the student, the high school officials never interviewed the girl or her parents again, failed to conduct an investigation, and for two and a half weeks left the attacker in one of her classes.

It gets worse. As word of the sexual assault spread among the student body, the female victim became the target of an intensive cyber-bullying and harassment campaign—both at school and online—that depicted her as a liar and a “whore” who was trying to bring down an innocent athlete. These cyber-attacks were only reinforced by the fact that the school continued to take no action to reprimand the male student. Not only did fellow students harass the victim, the attacker and his friends verbally and physically harassed the girl as well. They followed her around as she moved in and out of classrooms, through hallways, and around the school campus. The attacker sometimes pushed her into other students as she walked down the hallway, causing her to slam into lockers. Despite repeated efforts by the victim’s parents and other students to alert the principal and the school’s Title IX Coordinator about the viciousness of the harassment by the attacker and other students, school administrators took no action.

Thankfully law enforcement did. Five weeks after the sexual assault, the Kent County Prosecutor’s office authorized two felony counts of criminal sexual conduct against the attacker for his assaults on NWLC’s client and the second female victim at the school. The attacker later pled guilty to a single count of misdemeanor assault and battery. He was sentenced to attend Kent County’s Adolescent Sexual Offender Treatment Program for a second time. The only sanction the school imposed upon the student assailant was to temporarily bench him on the basketball court.

“Title IX requires schools to ensure that the educational environment is free from sex-based discrimination,” said NWLC Vice-President of Education and Employment Fatima Goss Graves said in a statement.

“This school completely ignored its legal responsibility to address student-on-student sexual harassment and failed to take reasonable steps to protect the victim. The school’s failure to address the harassment sends a chilling message to students that they should remain silent in the face of sexual assault and cannot count on their school to provide a safe learning environment.”

Because of the school district’s inaction, the victim’s grades suffered, she quit the soccer team and cheerleading squad, became isolated from her classmates, and ended up transferring to a new school. And while the lawsuit may vindicate her rights, it does little to undo the message the school district sent to other students, which is that if a student dares to speak out against sexual violence they will be ridiculed and left unprotected. Students not only deserve to feel safe in their school environments, according to Title IX they have a right to be safe in them as well. Unfortunately for students at Forest Hills Central High School, their administration doesn’t seem to understand that duty trumps potential college athletic recruitment.


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Follow Jessica Mason Pieklo on twitter: @hegemommy

When CNN broke the story of the two Steubenville boys being convicted of rape, their report focused exclusively on the fate of the rapists, not that of the victim. Poppy Harlow, CNN's reporter in the courtroom, lamented that it was "incredibly difficult" to watch "as these two young men — who had such promising futures, star football players, very good students — literally watched as they believed their life fell apart."

Seriously?

What about the life and future of the young woman who was raped while she was passed out and then photographed naked by one of the rapists, with the pictures being posted online.

The case gained international attention after the hacker collective Anonymous released information connected to the incident, alleging that local authorities were protecting the defendants because of their athletic connections. This kind of behavior by people in authority is why teen boys think they can get away with crap like this.

Despite Poppy Harlow's inappropriate sympathizing with the convicted rapists, these boys raped a girl who was defenseless and posted pictures of her online. They got off easy, because they were tried as juveniles despite being 16 and 17 years old.
 

CNN grieves that guilty verdict ruined ‘promising’ lives of Steubenville rapists

By David Edwards (RAW Story)
Sunday, March 17, 2013

CNN broke the news on Sunday of a guilty verdict in a rape case inSteubenville, Ohio by lamenting that the “promising” lives of the rapists had been ruined, but spent very little time focusing on how the 16-year-old victim would have to live with what was done to her.

Judge Thomas Lipps announced on Sunday that Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, would be given a maximum sentence after being found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl while she was unconscious. Richmond could be released from a juvenile rehabilitation facility by the age of 21 and Mays could be incarcerated until the age of 24.

CNN’s Candy Crowley began her breaking news report by showing Lipps handing down the sentence and telling CNN reporter Poppy Harlow that she “cannot imagine” how emotional the sentencing must have been.

Harlow explained that it had been “incredibly difficult” to watch “as these two young men — who had such promising futures, star football players, very good students — literally watched as they believed their life fell apart.”

“One of the young men, Ma’lik Richmond, as that sentence came down, he collapsed,” the CNN reporter recalled, adding that the convicted rapist told his attorney that “my life is over, no one is going to want me now.”

At that point, CNN played video of Richmond crying and hugging his lawyer in the courtroom.

“I was sitting about three feet from Ma’lik when he gave that statement,” Harlow said. “It was very difficult to watch.”

Candy then asked CNN legal contributor Paul Callan what the verdict meant for “a 16 year old, sobbing in court, regardless of what big football players they are, they still sound like 16 year olds.”

“What’s the lasting effect though on two young men being found guilty juvenile court of rape essentially?” Crowley wondered.

“There’s always that moment of just — lives are destroyed,” Callan remarked. “But in terms of what happens now, the most severe thing with these young men is being labeled as registered sex offenders. That label is now placed on them by Ohio law.”

“That will haunt them for the rest of their lives.”

Watch this video from CNN, broadcast March 17, 2013.

Lesbian Couple Crowned Homecoming King and Queen

From ABC News - I'm sure a lot of conservatives will get their anger on over this, but it was bound to happen eventually, so I'm cool with it. Surprising, to me anyway, there has already been a gay couple named Prom King and Queen. There is far less tolerance in this culture for gay men than there is for lesbian women.

Lesbian Couple Crowned Homecoming King and Queen

Rebeca Arellano and Haileigh Adams at the Patrick Henry High School homecoming dance. The girls became the first lesbian couple to win homecoming king and queen in America. (Courtesy Rebeca Arellano)

By OLIVIA KATRANDJIAN

Two California high school students became one of the first lesbian couples crowned homecoming king and queen in the nation this weekend.

Rebeca Arellano, a senior at Patrick Henry High School, was made the school's first female homecoming king when her name was announced Friday at a pep rally.

"They were chanting my name and it was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had," said Arellano.

Arellano's girlfriend, Haileigh Adams, who also attends Patrick Henry High School, was made homecoming queen at Saturday night's dance.

"I was happier than when I won, my little Haileigh has just been announced Homecoming queen and I couldn't feel happier! Thanks to every single one of you! You guys made this happen and we are all part of something huge. I can't fully express how grateful I am. I am in completely shocked that this happen. My girl looks absolutely flawless," wrote Arellano on Facebook Saturday night.

Lesbian H.S. Student Crowned Homecoming King Watch Video

Teens Hail Gay Prom King, Queen Watch Video

Lesbian Couple Banned From Prom Watch Video

 

The two girls told ABC News that they're thankful for the abundance of support they've received from family, friends, and students and staff at the school.

Arellano said one of her teachers told her, "Today school is a bit better because of you girls."

Arellano's Facebook wall is covered with congratulatory notes from her friends.

"Thank you all for allowing this change to happen," Arellano posted on Facebook.
Adams said they have received negative feedback as well.

"We have a lot of support, but there are also a lot of people who are angry about it," she said. "Anonymous Patrick Henry students are saying they're embarrassed and that it's wrong for a girl to take the spot of king. But there's no other way for us to run as a couple. It's not really fair for us not to have the right to run as a couple."

Arellano posted a statement to those who opposed her on her Facebook wall that read: "For all the girls who think tradition should be continued, go back to the kitchen, stop having sex before you're married, get out of school and job system, don't have an opinion, don't own any property, give up the right to marry who you love, don't vote, and allow your husband to do whatever he pleases to you. Think about the meaning of tradition when you use it in your argument against us."

Adams and Arellano both came out their freshman year of high school, and they began dating in February of their sophomore year. They say their parents were supportive both when they came out and when they started dating.