By Burt Mummolo, FOX23.com News Staff
BROKEN ARROW, Okla. — “It’s a sad situation that should have never happened,” said Anita Varnell. She is the mother of a 17 year-old student at BA High School who’s at the center of a lawsuit against the district after an alleged sexual assault took place in a bathroom last December.
“How was it allowed to happen?,” she said.
As detailed in the lawsuit, this wasn’t the first time the alleged perpetrator was on the radar of school officials; “Z.D. had a previous history of sexually inappropriate behavior that defendant was aware of but took no action to protect the female student population…If the school had followed their own suspension-discipline policy, their own investigation policy, and/or attempted to protect female students in any way, this would not have occurred…”
“There’s policies in place for a reason, and sometimes policies don’t fit every situation but they’re to guide you in every situation, and in this situation empowering your victim should be your policy,” she said.
We reached out to the Broken Arrow school district who told us, “The district is unable to comment on ongoing litigation”
As for how Anita’s daughter is doing?
“She went back to school in a different building. She’s looking forward to going back to school. It was very hard for her to not be in school for a little while,” she said.
A lawsuit against the BA school district, with a mother and daughter looking to teach school officials a lesson.
“The change across the board, across the state that I would like to see is that we’re empowering victims. We’re giving them a voice as to what happens,” she said.
