When You're Forced to Cheer for the Man Who Raped You

The story of a high school cheerleader from Texas who was forced to cheer for her rapist has garnered no shortage of outrage – outrage at the victim’s school, the justice system and even the victim herself. As the case has hit national news outlets, it’s become a fascinating, and in many ways horrifying, Rorschach test for how our culture views rape and rape victims.

The Assault

In October 2008, H.S., as she has chosen to be identified, was a 16-year-old student at Silsbee High School attending a post-basketball game party in her hometown. At the party, three fellow students allegedly threw H.S. onto the floor and dragged her into a separate room, where, as she later testified, she was raped by Silsbee High football and basketball star Rakheem Bolton.

As some of the other party-goers tried to get into the room, two of the young men escaped out an open window. One of the men who fled the scene was Bolton, who left some clothing at the scene. (Bolton is said to have later threatened to shoot the house’s owners when they refused to return the clothes.)

Bolton and one of the other young men were arrested a few days later and charged with sexual assault of a child, a second-degree felony. But a county grand jury withdrew the charges, and the students were allowed to return to school and resume playing sports for Silsbee High. (Their return was temporary, as the charges were later reinstated.)

The Victim-Shaming Begins

While H.S.’s attackers were back in school, Silsbee High officials did something all too common in sexual assault cases: they put the onus on H.S. to avoid her assailants in the lunchroom and at school activities. At the same time, some of H.S.’s fellow students began yelling “slut” at H.S. and her younger sister, who eventually changed schools.

But H.S. rejected the inference that she had anything to be ashamed of, and with the support of her family, she tried to go about her normal school routine.

Presumably, H.S. saw her attackers at school on a regular basis. As a member of the Silsbee High cheerleading squad, she even attended – and cheered at – their sports games. Where H.S. drew the line, however, was chanting the name of her rapist. When the rest of the squad would cheer Bolton on, H.S. would stand back quietly. "I didn't want to have to say his name, and I didn't want to cheer for him," she said. "I didn't want to encourage anything he was doing."

H.S.’s silent protest of Bolton went without notice until a basketball game in February 2009. When Bolton began making free-throws, and the squad started cheering his name, H.S. stepped back, folded her arms and sat down. This time, she was pulled aside at halftime and told by the Silsbee district superintendent, his assistant and the school principal that she had to cheer for Bolton – or else she’d be sent home and kicked off the squad.

H.S. started crying, and some of the other students in the stands began mocking her. Her father stepped in to defend his daughter against the school officials. When that got them nowhere, the family left the game.

Off to Court

The incident at the basketball game led H.S.’s family to sue Silsbee ISD, accusing its leadership of discrimination for punishing their daughter while continuing to treat the students who assaulted her like star athletes. Their legal argument was that the school had stepped on H.S.’s First Amendment right to free expression – her right to refuse to cheer.

Despite a precedent set by the Supreme Court four decades earlier that neither students nor teachers "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech ... at the schoolhouse gate," the courts in H.S.’s case did not see things that way. In October 2009, a federal judge ruled that H.S.’s First Amendment rights had not been violated, because “her actions conveyed no specific message to onlookers, other than disapproval of Bolton.”