The Metro Legal Department Needs to Do Some Housecleaning

My mom was a public-school teacher for her whole career. I graduated from public schools. I believe that one of the most basic and important tasks our government has is to educate our children, and I have for years made fun of people who flee to Williamson County the second they have kids. I have accused people of putting their kids in private schools as a continuation of racist responses to desegregation.

And this here is the pile of crow I’m eating.

It’s not just "send your kids to Nashville public schools and maybe they can drink poison water" or "send your kids to Nashville public schools and maybe you’ll also have to buy them paper." I dare anyone to read this story from Anita Wadhwani and Dave Boucher over at The Tennessean and not immediately want to pull every kid out of Nashville schools.

I read this story and I want to move every child out of Davidson County and out of the reach of the Metro Legal Department.

Wadhwani and Boucher report that a girl and her mother are suing Metro Nashville Public Schools because the girl was allegedly assaulted in a Hunters Lane High School bathroom, her attack was videoed and shared, and school officials did nothing to stop it.

Metro Nashville’s legal strategy? “Undermine the girl’s assertion that the sexual contact was unwanted.”

From the story:

“(The girl) has put her sexual history at issue in this case by alleging ... that the sexual contact and videotaping between her and another student was ‘unwanted’ and ‘pressured,' ” the attorneys argue in a recent court filing.

[...]

In a legal filing, Metro Legal Department attorney R. Alex Dickerson rejects the girl, a freshman at the time of the alleged attack, is fragile or seeking treatment.

Actions by Dickerson include:

• Asking the girl’s mother in a March 21 deposition if she obtained books used to teach her daughter about sex “about the time she was coming into her period”;
• Asking the girl’s mother if the girl knew anything about the mother’s sexual history;
• Asking the mother why the daughter sought birth control and whether she had a gynecologist;
• Asking the mother about a 2001 pregnancy and “did the pregnancy terminate naturally?” Dickerson admitted in a legal filing that the question "came out poorly";
• Pulling a Hunters Lane High School student out of class May 3 to ask him if he was the girl's boyfriend;
• Asking the boy how the school district attorneys could reach the boy's mother to set up a deposition.

The attorneys also want electronic copies of the girl's social media accounts because "there is no better way for a jury to ascertain her allegations of physical and emotional well-being than through her social media posts."

“Coming into her period"?! Does Dickerson know any women, even? Who talks like that?

First of all, this all is bullshit. If a girl learns about sex when she starts to menstruate, and if she goes on the pill, that doesn’t mean she’s sexually available to everyone who wants her. It’s disgusting that my tax dollars are going to pay for some lawyer to suggest otherwise.

Second, this must be a new low in victim-blaming. Now it’s not just the person who has something bad done to her, but her mother whose sexual history is up for debate? What about the sexual histories of the assholes who did this? What about the sexual histories of their parents? Hell, I’m curious about the sexual history of Dickerson, who doesn’t seem to know anything about how people talk about periods, and who seems to be using this lawsuit as an opportunity to humiliate women. Do we get to go poking around in his bedroom?

Third, don’t miss the bit where they pulled a kid out of class and talked to him without his mom’s permission.

And then Metro Law Director Jon Cooper has the gall to decline to answer questions about tactics?

Cooper gave the city bad advice about Fort Negley. This is a long, convoluted story that doesn’t matter anymore, but he told city officials that the Heritage Protection Act didn’t apply to the Greer Stadium portion of the park because, “The Greer Stadium property is located at 534 Chestnut Street (Map/Parcel No. 10502043400) and was acquired from MDHA in the 1970s as part of an urban renewal project.” This isn’t true. The part of the land acquired from MDHA was in the parcel the fort sits on.

His office also argued that we didn’t have to have a mayoral election in May, when the plain language of code made it clear that we did. So, instead of electing a mayor at the same time we had a big vote on transit, we played dick-around in court until we lost, and now we’re having a mayoral election with such poor turnout that we’re going to be lucky if we don’t elect Krusty the Clown.

And now this bullshit where the city’s position is “Yeah, it happened, but she wanted it and we’re going to humiliate her and her mom to prove it.” That’s the legal argument we as taxpayers are paying for. We’re paying to put this girl and her mom through that.

It is bad enough that this happened. And let me be clear — it’s really, really bad. I feel for every parent who has no option but to send their kids to our schools. And I’m ashamed of that.

But something screwy is going on in the Metro Legal Department too, and someone needs to get a handle on it pronto.