A 14-year-old boy who says he was sexually assaulted by three members of his high school football team last month in rural Gunnison has filed a federal lawsuit alleging school officials knew the players had a “pervasive and extensive history” of harassment stretching over the past two years and did nothing to address it — leaving him vulnerable to the attack.
The discrimination lawsuit comes after prosecutors filed charges of rape and forcible sexual abuse against the 16-year-old classmate alleged to have led the assault against the boy and two students who reportedly helped hold him down.
Since then, at least a dozen other students, mostly boys, have come forward reporting similar cases of misconduct dating back to October 2017.
The plaintiff is a freshman at central Utah’s Gunnison Valley High School. He is identified as “Child Doe” in the complaint filed Wednesday but appeared with his mother at a news conference Thursday at the Salt Lake City law offices of Bob Sykes. His mother asked that reporters identify him only by his first name, Greg.
“If I didn’t say anything," Greg said, “it could happen to somebody else."
Greg credited his mother for giving him the courage to speak out. He said he is still attending Gunnison Valley and finished the season on its junior varsity football team, where he played linebacker and running back. He stayed at the school to help make change there, he said, though he added that he still has “good days and bad days" recalling what happened outside the boys' locker room.
“The days that are bad I think, ‘Why did this happen when the school could have stopped it?’" Greg said.
The school district did not respond to requests for comment.
His mother, Misty Cox, also is a plaintiff. She told reporters that after her son’s assault was reported, she started receiving messages from other parents saying something similar had happened to their sons.
“I am so upset," Cox said, “because if someone else, like the school, would have done something, then my son wouldn’t have been assaulted.”
The Salt Lake Tribune typically does not identify victims of sexual assault and does not identify youth defendants unless their case has been moved to the adult court system.
The filing says “Child Doe” started at the high school this year. Within weeks of his first day, the 16-year-old boy started teasing him. On Sept. 17, he alleges, the older boy caught him before a football practice; he had the other two players hold the younger boy down while he rubbed his genitals on his face in front of about 15 teammates.
Greg on Thursday said the varsity quarterback came out of the locker room and shoved the assailants out of the way to stop the assault.
“Child Doe," according to the complaint, told a school resource officer — former state Rep. Carl Wimmer, who also works for Gunnison City Police Department — that day what had happened, and he opened an investigation. Sanpete County prosecutors filed charges in early October, calling it a case of hazing that went too far.
The boy’s attorneys say that’s a simplification of the alleged harassment, bullying and sexual violence. And they’ve named the school district, superintendent, principal, vice principal and athletic director as being complicit in allowing the three boys to assault multiple students “unchecked.”
They allege that the school officials — particularly South Sanpete School District Superintendent Kent Larsen — knew of previous reports of misconduct by the same boys and dismissed them as “horseplay” and “boys being boys,” which they say showed “deliberate indifference.”
“My son deserves an apology from him,” Cox said. "We sat in his office, and he dismissed what happened to my son in front of him.”
Cox and her attorneys also criticized the punishment the three boys received from the school. The complaint says the boys “essentially were rewarded” with a three-day suspension from school but were allowed to continue practicing with the football team.
Larsen has told The Tribune that the incidents first came to light at the end of September. He also said the 16-year-old will not be allowed back at the school until the case is resolved.
The lawsuit says that after the boy reported the assault, the three boys and their friends taunted him and called him derogatory names.
The boy and his mother are asking for a trial by jury to determine damages, including compensation for emotional trauma. They’re alleging the school and district violated Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education, and equal protection laws.
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