Student seeking justice in wake of sexual assault

When 16-year-old Johnson High student Emily Polk finally mustered up the courage to speak up about being sexually assaulted by her teammate, she found nobody from the school that would listen. Months after the incident, her mother found out and told officials at the school, but she too faced indifference.

“At one point I thought my daughter was going to kill herself because she was mentally and verbally abused,” said Brandy Pittman, Emily’s mother.

These inactions worry Pittman beyond the damage that sexual assault causes; she believes that passive reactions to sexual assault will allow her daughter to think that it is okay, or that speaking out against an abuser does more harm than good.