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A Louisianna middle school is doubling-down on its decision to expell a 13-year-old girl victimized by male classmates who allegedly created and shared AI-generated nude photos of her around campus.
The eighth-grader at Sixth Ward Middle School was accused of hitting one of the boys on the bus heading home after they continued to taunt her and trade the images featuring her face on a naked body even after she reported the harassment to school officials, according to her lawyers.
The Lafourche Parish County School District expelled the teen over the physical altercation in late August, not long after the school year started. Now her family is planning to sue the school board for failing to protect their daughter and instead punishing her.
The family’s attorneys first tried to convince the board to throw out her explusion at school board meeting on Nov. 5, arguing that the girl was mercilessly bullied for the explicit images all day because the nude model featured a sizable “bush.”
The attorneys argued that she wasn’t granted “due process” and “fairness” — and said that the school board was setting a “dangerous precedent” by letting the boys involved go unpunished.
On Sept. 15, one of the male students involved in the ordeal was charged with 10 counts of unlawful dissemination of images created by artificial intelligence, though the charges were only announced on Nov. 10, according to the Lafourche Parish County Sheriff’s Office.
The girl had reached her wit’s end when she was riding the bus home from school, which she shared with a gaggle of boys who were going around showing off the photo. Her lawyers said that she “swatted” at the boy to “knock the phone out of his hand.”
It’s unclear if this is the same boy who was later charged.
Earlier that day, the girl tried to report the harassment to school officials and offhandedly mentioned that she wanted to call her father. The lawyers said that school officials told her that they didn’t “need to get parents involved right now.”
“What is she supposed to do? She’s reported it to the people who are supposed to protect her, but she was victimized,” attorney Benjamin Comeaux said during the school board meeting.
Comeaux also claimed that the boy involved in the altercation was never properly investigated or present at the girl’s expulsion hearing.
Attorney Matt Ory went a step further and accused the school board of pushing its students to the brink through their inaction.
“This is how kids become suicidal. This, right here, and you guys are saying it’s okay!” Ory said.
“She asked for help. Not once, not twice. She is the victim. And now you took her out of school and suspended her? Excuse me, expelled her?” he added.
Both attorneys said that the board’s investigation was botched and set the victim up for failure, particularly once investigators claimed they couldn’t locate the photo that circulated around the school.
“You didn’t find an image? I bet you didn’t, it’s Snapchat, it disappears!” Ory said.
Board Member Valerie Bourgeois, though, insisted that while the girl was “a victim,” she never would’ve been expelled “if she had not hit the young man” and suggested they could’ve settled their differences outside of school.
The board and Superintendent Jarrod Martin ultimately refused to revoke the student’s expulsion and instead amended it, allowing her to return to school on probation.
“Sometimes in life, we can be both victims and perpetrators. Sometimes in life, horrible things happen to us, and we get angry and do things,” Martin said during the meeting.
“The video you all watched depicts something that’s very difficult to defend,” he said, referring to a clip of the altercation on the bus, showing the girl hit the top of the boy’s head..
Lafourche County Sheriff Craig Webre assured that the female student would not face criminal charges “due to the totality of the circumstances.”
While her case was rehashed in excruciating detail, the 13-year-old victim sat in the audience at the meeting, flanked by her parents on either side.
The victim’s father testified that her grades “plummeted” and that she “went through a depression and gave up” after the expulsion.
“The expulsion was way too extreme for a little girl who has never been in trouble in her life. A suspension would’ve been perfectly fine with me and I would’ve never said anything because I always believe in accountability, which is why I’m still pushing this issue. Accountability,” the father said.
“She was wrong, but the school was also wrong by putting her in that place with the little boy at the time. In my mind, it goes both ways. Share that accountability.”
The family plans to take the school district to court for creating a sexually hostile environment, failing to comply with Title IX, and failing to meet mandatory reporter obligations, according to CBS affiliate station 4WWL.
“Any and all allegations of criminal misconduct on our campuses are immediately reported to the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office,” Martin said in a statement to the outlet. “After reviewing this case, the evidence suggests that the school did, in fact, follow all of our protocols and procedures for reporting such instances.”
An investigation is still ongoing, and the sheriff’s office noted that there could be more arrests in the future.
The Post reached out to the Lafourche Parish County School District for comment.
