After #YesAllDaughters, School District Creates Sex Assault Task Force

An Oklahoma school district is dramatically overhauling their response to sexual assault, sexual harassment and gender-based bullying after a former student was arrested and charged with raping an unconscious 16-year-old girl.

Earlier this month, we told you about three girls in Norman, Oklahoma who all allege they were raped by the same classmate from Norman High School, Tristen Killman-Hardin, 18. A feminist knitting circle in Norman helped to publicize their story, and Killman-Hardin was arrested on December 2 on charges that he allegedly raped one of the girls while she was unconscious. (We used the last name Killman for him, the name he currently goes by and that the girls knew him by, but Killman-Hardin is still his legal name). All three girls said that they faced extensive bullying, ridicule and threats from other students at Norman High following their rapes.

Friends of the three girls as well as the women of the knitting circle created Yes All Daughters to advocate for better support for the girls, leading a protest outside Norman High School that drew hundreds of people and got worldwide media attention. On Tuesday, the Norman public school district announced they are creating a new task force to study “gender-based violence and bullying,” with a member of Yes All Daughters, Stacey Wright, serving as one of its members. For its first job, according to a press release, the task force will look into creating a Student Support Specialist for both public high schools in Norman, whose sole job it is to provide “support and any wraparound services for students who have been victims of trauma, sexual assault, harassment, and/or bullying.”

Superintendent Joe Siano, who previously sent out a letter urging parents not to let their students participate in the Yes All Daughters protest, appears to have gotten on board. In the release, he’s quoted as saying, “Our counselors, teachers and principals are dedicated, caring and compassionate professionals who want all students to feel safe, secure and supported in their schools. They have our utmost appreciation and support because we know their capacity has been severely taxed in recent years. That is why we are going to do whatever necessary to add individuals at middle and high schools focused solely on student trauma and the prevention and response of gender-based harassment and bullying.”

As for the girls who were the subject of our story, they are working with a civil rights attorney to ensure that they feel safe when they return to school. (Two of the girls were not attending school at the time we wrote about them because of the bullying they said they faced; a third had enrolled in an alternative program. She’s still on track to graduate on time.)

The knitting circle is currently working to make Yes All Daughters a registered non-profit and to set up college funds for the girls. The group also recently received a human rights award from the Oklahoma Universal Human Rights Alliance.

Students protest outside Norman High on November 24. Image via Twitter user Stovetopps