C.A. Goldberg, PLLC lawsuit spotlights NYC Dept of Education’s failure to address sexual violence against child victims and “victim transfer policy”

Online sexual violence and cyber abuse was rife during remote schooling. As kids headed back to the classroom, the NYCDOE proved woefully underprepared to deal with it, resulting in a gender-biased ‘victim transfer policy’ that punishes and traumatizes victims.   

  • On December 21, 2022, C.A. Goldberg, PLLC filed on behalf of Jane Doe, a student of Brooklyn Tech, who was the victim of an escalating campaign of abuse, sexual violence, and psychological torture at age 15. The dean stated that it was the “worst case” of student-on-student misconduct he had ever seen.
  • The New York City Department of Education (“NYCDOE”)  has been the subject of multiple lawsuits and federal investigations into discrimination and retaliation against girls who reported sexual violence by another classmate during school. Yet NYCDOE has created no new safeguards to protect child victims of student-on-student sexual violence. 
  • NYCDOE is the largest school district in the country and has a budget of approximately $38 Billion. 

This lawsuit is about the injuries being inflicted on NYC’s child victims (predominantly female) when a school district fails to enact appropriate policies to address sexual violence. It sheds light on the NYCDOE’s primary method of handling substantiated incidents of sexual violence between students: to compel the victim to transfer to another school (the “Victim Transfer Policy”). 

Such a transfer is an arduous process that requires the involvement of law enforcement, multiple NYCDOE sub-agencies and/or district offices, and allows the victim no control over where the NYCDOE will send the victim to attend school next. Disruptive and involuntary school transfers in the middle of the year have a significant negative impact on academic performance, grade matriculation, and competitiveness for college admission. It also removes a victim from their social support network, with minimum disruption to the perpetrator.  

The lead attorneys on this case are Aurore DeCarlo and Annie Seifullah. 

 

 

If your child has experienced something similar, please contact us so we can tell you about your options.

C.A. Goldberg, PLLC media contact: Caroline@cagoldberglaw.com 

 

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