Teen Suspended For Calling Out Alleged School Rapist!

A Maine high school student was suspended for bullying due to her efforts to stop what she claims is a sexual assault problem at her school.

Cape Elizabeth High School sophomore Aela Mansmann (pictured above) told BuzzFeed News she was unsettled by her classmates’ stories of sexual abuse and the school’s apparent reluctance to do anything about it — so she decided to take matters into her own hands.

The 15-year-old slapped an anonymous sticky note on the bathroom wall at her high school with the explosive message:

“There’s a rapist in our school and you know who it is.”

Powerful. (And possibly inspired by Season 2 of 13 Reasons Why?)

Needless to say, the teen’s note got everyone’s attention. Soon, many similar sticky notes started to pop up around the school, causing school officials to take action. Unfortunately, they weren’t very concerned with figuring out who the rapist was.

Instead, officials tracked down the author of the original note through surveillance tapes. When Mansmann was caught on the tapes, she was called in for questioning and put through three weeks of interviews.

Eventually, she was reported to administrators as a bully before being suspended with two other students for three days for violating anti-bullying policies.

Is making sincere accusations of sexual assault — a crime — really bullying??

The teen admitted she was confused by the school’s focus on punishing the messenger instead of the alleged abuser, telling the outlet:

“That kinda confuses me, right? Because this person wasn’t identified in the sticky notes. In fact, there’s more than one person that was being referred to. Yet this person self-identified feeling targeted, so the school took steps to suspend me versus further investigating that self-identification.”

But the school is standing by its actions.

In a statement, Superintendent Donna Wolfram defended the decision to suspend Mansmann, explaining:

“The Cape Elizabeth Schools have never disciplined a student for advocating for their peers or their views on cultural, social and political matters. It is important to understand, however, that when a student’s speech bullies another student, we are required by law and by School Board policy to investigate and take prompt action, even if the same student has also spoken out on a matter of public concern.”

Bullying, according to the school’s policy, is defined as physically harming a student or damaging their property, placing a student in reasonable fear of physical harm, creating an intimidating educational environment for a student, or interfering with a student’s academic performance, among other things.

Mansmann, for her part, doesn’t believe she was bullying anyone by putting the school’s alleged rapist on blast: she thinks she’s doing everyone a service.

She told local news station WCSH:

“It makes me angry that I’m being punished for bullying and a rapist isn’t being punished for raping people. I felt this was important – that this was common knowledge.”

Prior to her sticky note method, Mansmann said she tried to solve the problem in more traditional ways. Last year, she helped organize a regional summit on sexual assault prevention and awareness; then, in June, she attended a school board meeting.

The school reportedly conducted seven investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and assault last school year, and officials determined the four cases “more likely than not” violated Title IX policy — which protects any individual who reports sex discrimination, sexual harassment, or sexual violence against retaliation.

Mansmann isn’t done yet. The American Civil Liberties Union is currently helping the teen appeal her suspension, and she joined dozens of classmates in walking out of class on Monday to protest her punishment.

Her mom, Shael Norris, told People:

“Aela is not a survivor, she’s an advocate. One of the things that I taught her and that she’s very clear about is that if we wait for survivors to be the only voices to stand up and speak out against things that are happening, then we’ll never get anywhere.”

Keep speaking out, girl!! We stand with you!

Watch the clip (below) for more on Aela’s plight for justice: