<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Thursday, March 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Former student claims Seattle Public Schools silenced him from speaking up about hazing

By Dahlia Bazzaz, The Seattle Times
Published: December 28, 2021, 7:48am

SEATTLE — A former Seattle Public Schools student who says school administrators pressured him to stay silent about alleged locker room sexual misconduct on the Garfield High School swim team is seeking $500,000 in damages from the district.

A legal claim filed against Seattle Public Schools last week says the former student, identified as “A.T.,” witnessed a 2017 incident in which freshmen team members were allegedly asked to participate in a situp challenge that would unwittingly bring their faces close to older students’ bare genitals.

Three years later, in January 2020, the school’s assistant principal intercepted the student while he was on his way to speak to a school newspaper reporter and pressured him not to do an interview, according to the claim and a district investigation of the incident. The assistant principal then called the school’s armed police officer into the room, the claim states.

The assistant principal then asked A.T. and his father to sign a “student safety plan” that included a provision requiring A.T. follow all instructions from school staff, and which could trigger an emergency expulsion if the terms were violated, the claim alleges. His parents say the school didn’t provide a copy of what they had signed or agree to revoke the plan.

In 2019, according to the claim, A.T. also witnessed swim team athletes at Garfield and another school taking selfies in the locker rooms while others were changing in the background.

The tort claims A.T., who adheres strictly to rules and authority figures because he is autistic, saw his mental health plummet as a result of the meeting with the assistant principal and police officer, whose presence frightened him. He broke down during the encounter, according to the claim, and failed all of his classes the following term, according to his family. His mother, who also requested to remain anonymous to guard her son’s privacy, said he shut down emotionally.

District spokesperson Tim Robinson declined to comment on the case, only sharing that district attorneys were reviewing the claim. An internal investigation of the student’s complaints, concluded before the tort claim was filed, found neither the assistant principal nor the police officer on duty violated the district’s policy on harassment, bullying and intimidation. A copy of the internal investigation was provided by the Seattle law firm Cedar Law PLLC, which is representing A.T. in the claim.

A.T., now in college, says the swim team members who were leading the 2017 hazing incident had left the school and that he didn’t feel he needed any protection in 2020. As a student in the Running Start program, he was only in the Garfield building once a week, spending most of his time at North Seattle College.

The tort claim, the precursor to a lawsuit, accuses the school district of false imprisonment, violating free speech, and negligence. It also seeks a commitment from the district to work with the U.S. Center for SafeSport, a nonprofit that works to end abuse in sports.

Corinna Singer, the school newspaper reporter who set up the interview with A.T., said the school’s principal tried to dissuade the paper from publishing A.T.’s account, warning that families would sue.

While the story was never published, Singer said, during the reporting process “people were coming up to me in the halls and telling me … people’s lives would be destroyed” if it was published.

Ted Howard, the school’s principal at the time, said he couldn’t recall specifically telling Singer that families would pursue legal action against the school.

“I didn’t tell her not to write the story, but to think of the ramifications,” he said.

A state law passed in 2018 prohibits school administrators in Washington from censoring content in student publications.

Singer also said Howard did not explicitly order the newspaper staff to halt the story. But the idea of litigation startled her. She said she wishes she had moved forward anyway.

Howard, who left Garfield in June 2020, said he wasn’t involved in the meeting with A.T. and the decision to bring a police officer into the room. He said there aren’t any written protocols for handling this type of situation.

“The assistant principal has a lot of leeway. Sometimes they pull an officer in, and make sure everyone’s rights are taken care of … In my time as an assistant principal, I wouldn’t ever bring in a police officer unless someone’s rights were being questioned,” he said.

The alleged 2017 incident A.T. witnessed has a term in locker room culture — the “impossible situp.”

Individuals are asked to complete a situp with a towel covering their eyes. The towel is removed at the last moment, and the individual finds themselves close to another person’s genitals. A.T. said he saw one freshman perform the situp, and left the locker room right after.

Over the years, other stories of hazing rituals have emerged from Garfield High, a flagship city school with a strong athletic culture. In 2013, police and school administration intervened in an off-campus hazing tradition, finding a group of intoxicated students throwing eggs and paddling freshman students, some of whom were wearing diapers.

“It’s an unfortunate situation for the student,” said Howard. “Garfield has a past of hazing.”

The swim team, famous for a once-yearly tradition of sending team members to perform skits at school assemblies wearing only their racing swimsuits, stood out.

“There was a lot of school mythology around them,” said Singer.

Howard said it took several years before he was able to stop the swimsuit tradition, dubbed “the Speedo run.”

“You’d tell them to stop it, and you’d think it was World War III” among some parents who supported the activity. A few even came in to film the occasion, he said.

The complaint and the internal investigation did not center on the alleged hazing event, but rather with A.T.’s encounter with the assistant principal and police officer.

“We were just trying to take care of [A.T.], who was an emotional mess after that encounter,” A.T.’s mother wrote in an email.

Loading...