Former Lake Oswego High School Student Accuses School District of Not Investigating Sexual Assault

An 18-year-old former student of Lake Oswego High School filed suit today against the school district, alleging it failed to investigate or discipline her rapist—and expelled her in retaliation for her complaints.

The former student, who WW is not naming per its policy of not identifying victims of sexual assault, has also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and requested that the district remove the offending student from Lake Oswego High School so she can return to school and graduate.

She was a senior until being unenrolled in April after she stopped coming to school, citing panic attacks and the ongoing trauma of seeing her alleged assailant. The complaint also accuses school officials of failing to discipline her alleged assailant for violating a “safety plan” that required him to make efforts to avoid seeing the plaintiff on school grounds.

The lawsuit alleges the plaintiff’s unenrollment was a “de facto expulsion,” jeopardizing her plans to attend Oregon State University in the fall. “She has complained in good faith about the ongoing harassment, intimidation, and menacing by” her alleged assailant, the lawsuit alleges, while the school failed “to investigate and discipline” him.

The lawsuit alleges that the sexual assault occurred on Aug. 27, 2022. The complaint includes text messages from the following day, in which the victim says “you technically raped me and that has obviously fucked me up a little mentally.” The other student responds: “I am sorry. Genuinely. I did realize that, and I really should not of done that,” according to the messages included in the complaint.

Kevin Brague, the Portland lawyer who filed the lawsuit, says his client reported the incident to police.

After school administrators learned of the incident in October, they told the victim to file for a restraining order, which, as a minor, she could not, according to the complaint. They then devised a safety plan that required her alleged assailant to delay leaving class a few minutes after every class to avoid seeing the plaintiff in the hallways, among other requirements.

The other student admitted violating the agreement repeatedly, according to the complaint. “The offending male student receives no consequence or discipline,” it says.

“This circumstance is not unique to LOSD,” the complaint alleges, citing similar legal complaints filed in Beaverton, Eugene, and other cities where “victims of sexual assault are left in a hostile education environment when their assailants are not removed from the immediate school setting.”

“I cannot explain to someone who does not live in my head how much this affects me constantly and how it feels,” the plaintiff wrote in a letter to school administrators that was included in the complaint.

Lake Oswego School District did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CORRECTION: The original version of this article incorrectly quoted the student’s text message response as “I did not realize that.” It is “I did realize that.”