STATE SUMMARIES
Unlike colleges and universities, U.S. elementary and secondary schools are not subject to national requirements for tracking student sexual assaults. But 32 states and the District of Columbia do maintain information, though it is inconsistent and sometimes incomplete, The Associated Press found.ALABAMAThe state education department received information from school districts and, in some years, schools on incidents of sexual battery by students, including actual or attempted penetration, fondling and child molestation, especially where the victim was unable to give consent. The department reported 43 assaults over the four-year period and said it generally doesn’t try to verify the information.GEORGIASchools reported annually only those incidents of sexual battery that led to suspension, expulsion, corporal punishment or placement in an alternative education program. The education department defined such behavior as unwanted oral, anal or vaginal rape and forcible intimate touching. The state reported 607 such incidents in the four-year period.TENNESSEEThe state education department tracked incidents of student sexual assault, including rape, sodomy, fondling and child molestation. It reported 462 such incidents during the four-year period.— The Associated Press
The Georgia school district said it was investigating the baseball players for “misbehavior” and “inappropriate physical contact.” What it didn’t reveal was that a younger teammate had reported being sexually assaulted.
Even after players were later disciplined for sexual battery, the district cited student confidentiality to withhold details from the public and used “hazing” to describe the incident.
Locally, a similar event took place on Ooltewah High School’s basketball team just days before Christmas in 2015. Two 16-year-olds held down their 15-year-old teammate as a 17-year-old raped him with a pool cue, according to court testimony.
Across the U.S., nowhere is student-on-student sexual assault as common or as camouflaged as in boys’ sports, an Associated Press investigation found. Mischaracterized as hazing and bullying, the violence is so normalized on some teams that it persists for years, as players attacked one season become aggressors the next.