A new lawsuit says CPS failed to protect a student from repeated sexual assaults at Dunbar

A new lawsuit says a former Chicago Public Schools student claims a school security guard repeatedly sexually assaulted him while he was a sophomore at Dunbar Vocational Career Academy.

According to a complaint filed Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court against the security guard and the Chicago Board of Education, the student, now 18, also claims that teachers and staff at Dunbar School failed to protect him and neglected to intervene and investigate inappropriate behavior at sexual background.

The suit says a student named John Doe in the suit was new to the South Side school in November 2021 when security guard Tywain Carter began grooming him.

Carter told the boy he would protect him from “bullies and gang members.” He then proceeded to pull the student out of class, take him to a staff-only computer lab and sexually assault him. According to the lawsuit, the regular abuse, which included rape and other acts of violence, occurred over several weeks in November and December.

“John Doe was repeatedly and brutally sexually harassed by a security guard employed by CPS,” said Scott Lane, a senior partner at Lane Brown and one of the student’s attorneys.

“CPS allowed these attacks and abuses to take place and is therefore responsible for what happened. Unfortunately, John Doe is not alone in being a victim of CPS’s failures. There are many victims of sexual assault and harassment in the CPS system,” Lane told reporters on Thursday.

A CPS spokesman said the district does not comment on pending litigation.

“The safety and well-being of our staff and students are our top priorities and essential to our school communities,” a CPS spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

The district “actively works to prevent sexual abuse and responds thoroughly to all reports of harassment. “District leaders and staff understand the traumatic impact of sexual abuse and continually strive to educate leaders, faculty and students about it and the reporting process,” the statement continued.

The lawsuit seeks to establish why Dunbar officials failed to protect the student, as well as to raise awareness of the district’s failure to protect students from sexual assault and an unspecified amount of money.

The student, who was 15 at the time, told his mother what happened in December, and his parents reported the abuse to the Chicago police and school. Carter was eventually arrested and in 2023 pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting John Doe and another Dunbar student. He is serving an eight-year prison sentence.

“The school failed me,” the student said in a written statement. “No child should have to sacrifice their innocence for safety, yet I lost my innocence and now endure constant pain and anxiety in this world.”

The lawsuit also accuses Dunbar teachers and school staff of failing to follow CPS procedures for recognizing and reporting cases of grooming and sexual assault, said Nick Kamenjarin, another John Doe attorney and a partner at Lane Brown.

“This was a classic example of what CPS workers, administrators and teachers were trained to witness and report,” Kamenjarin said.

Kamenjarin said teachers and administrators at Dunbar School should have noticed something was wrong when Carter repeatedly took the student out of class for no reason and took him to an unknown location for extended periods of time.

“Yet they consistently failed to follow not only their training, but also the written policies and procedures of Chicago Public Schools, as well as common sense,” he said.

The boy’s father said in a written statement that even after Carter was sent to prison, “no one from Dunbar ever reached out to us to find out how our son was doing, much less to say they were sorry.” because of what happened to him. It hurts.”

John Doe stayed at Dunbar for several weeks after the violence, but eventually left the school because his stay became too painful, his lawyers say. Ultimately, he graduated from another school. However, since then he has been struggling to live a normal life and recover from the trauma, his mother said in a statement.

“CPS ignored all of these safeguards and, frankly, showed they were cold and uncaring. They just didn’t do anything,” Lane said.

“It is this attitude, this cold and indifferent attitude, that allowed these attacks and abuse to occur in the first place.”