California school pays $8.25 million to 3 boys who had sex with teacher

This is the latest example of Leftist progressive insanity and lawsuits being out of control.

Those on the Left seem to thing that big employers should be held financially responsible for misconduct that their employees commit.

In this case, since it is a public school, this money is ultimately being spent by the government and coming from the taxpayers (which is why this thread is being placed in the "Budget & Taxes" section).

In other words the "costs" to an individual are being socialized and paid for by the group (society).
The victim is given money to financially compensate them for the wrong they suffered. (Never mind that the wrong may not truly have a financial equivalent, or that the people who end up paying are not the ones who chose to commit that crime)
I guess progressives view this as making society more "fair". It's almost like a social insurance scheme for suffering any wrong in your life.

I personally think this is total insanity, but many modern progressives apparently see it as perfectly normal, reasonable, and good. This is just how they roll in progressive areas.

In this story, a female teacher had sex with her male students, got pregnant by one of them, and then the families of boy students wanted money, and went to court trying to make the school have to give them money. So the school gave them lots of money.

A Southern California school district will pay $2.25 million to settle the latest lawsuit involving a teacher who became pregnant by one of at least two students she was accused of sexually abusing.

The settlement brings to $8.25 million the amount paid by Redlands Unified School District to Laura Whitehurst's victims since her 2013 arrest.

In August 2016, the district agreed to pay $6 million to a former student who impregnated Whitehust while she was his teacher.

The latest lawsuit was filed in 2021 by another former student who alleged he was preyed upon and sexually abused at Redlands High School by Whitehurst in 2007 and 2008 when he was 14. Whitehurst admitted to police in 2013 she had sex with the youth 10 to 15 times in her classroom and at her apartment.

In the other lawsuit, the boy who fathered Whitehurst's child alleged that Redlands Unified officials knew of his relationship with the teacher and failed to warn his family.

Whitehurst gave birth in 2014 after having sex with the boy for a year, starting when he was 16.

Whitehurst, who taught English and was a soccer coach, pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with three former students. She served six months in jail and was required to register as a sex offender.​

California school district to pay $2.25M to settle suit involving teacher who had student's baby, Associated Press, 9/10/2023

Apparently the Left thinks money grows on trees.

In my view, these type of lawsuits should NOT be normalized. This is not how things should work. It is not logical. Rather it follows a wacky sort of Leftist progressive logic.

 

What stopped the boy from telling his parents himself? Why was the school responsible for telling the parents?

Anyway, I hope the boy who fathered the child didn't waste his millions. The state will expect him to pay child support when he reaches the age of adulthood. And seeing how he got money, he has no excuse for pleading hardship. That's how these things usually end.

 

Because he was a victim and shamed into silence. That’s what they would say if they were female victims. Why should a male be any different?

 

This is leftist?

Um, because it is different. Both culturally and biologically.

This whole thing reminds me of two south park episodes...

 

Please clarify. Are you insinuating that you think this sort of decision is good and perfectly normal, so much so that you can't see why the majority on either the Left or Right would disagree; or is your impression that this decision was so crazy that you do not believe there would be many people who would support it?

 

I'm leftist and kind of anti-lawsuit in general except for physical damages. And I do know that it's usually pretty different for males messing around with older women than when the genders are reversed. I agree with the south park clips. I just wasn't really aware that the whole thing was leftist driven. I'm still not sure if it is or not. Seems just Karen driven to me (which can be either left or right).

I don't know the details, but my initial suspicion is that none of these teen boys were truly traumatized. They're just using fake trauma to get money.

 

why would the boy not get the child, surely they won't let the child molester keep the child

can you imagine if a male teacher got a little girl pregnant and kept the child, and she had to pay child support?

"Whitehurst, who taught English and was a soccer coach, pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with three former students. She served six months in jail and was required to register as a sex offender."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...aaddb8-5021-11ee-accf-88c266213aac_story.html

 

I can't foresee a situation where they wouldn't hand custody of the child over to the biological mother, no matter how underage the father was.
The father could be 7-years-old, with some rare hormonal imbalance, and they'd still give custody of the baby to the mother. (Assuming that the woman was fit to raise a child, didn't have drug addiction issues, and wasn't serving a prison sentence at the time)

Obviously it would likely be a totally separate situation if the genders were reversed. It's just yet one more example of double standards in society and the legal system. (which is not to say that those double standards are wrong)

(Now, of course if the woman had a history of doing inappropriate things to boys under the age of 10, there could be some question of whether a risk exists she might do the same to her own child. But this is extremely rare for women, usually the boy is at least in his teens, and it would probably be seen as much less of an issue if the baby was a girl. But this is all kind of just a hypothetical, because the story in the opening post is not like that)

 

if the mother raped a child, are they fit to raise a child?

 

The 14 year old teen in this story was not "raped".

(I hate to have to explain this to you but women have a totally different psychology than men. Very few women are at all attracted to males who have not reached some level of sexual maturity. An adult woman having illegal sex with a 14 year old boy does not mean she is at risk for having sex with a much younger child, and of course this is especially the case if it's a girl baby)

This thread was not intended to discuss the woman or actual perpetrators but was focused on discussion about schools or employers, public or private, having to pay out large amounts of money. This thread is posted in "Budget & Taxes".

 

the 14-year-old boy was too young to consent, same as if it was a man and a 14-year-old girl - this woman made this boy a father

 

A 14-year-old boy is very different from a 7 or 8 year old boy.
It's not like sex at 18 years old is just perfectly fine while sex at 17 is totally wrong and immoral.

No, it's not the same. You are using a false equivalency.

If you want to discuss this further, please start a separate thread.

 

it's exactly the same, this boy's innocents was taken from him

 

Teenage boys have less "innocence" that needs to be protected than teenage girls.
Besides the fact of course that it is the female who can end up pregnant.

You don't see 14 year old girls going around boasting to their friends that they had sex with an older man.

 

disagree, both may or may not react differently, but both are effected by it

the boy can end up a father.... no choice to have it or not... child support when 18

 

But one far more than the other.

 

depends on the child, some are more effected then others, male or female

either way, it's a crime

 

You might be surprised.

 

I remember being a 14-year-old boy. My innocence would not have been worth many regrets.

 

Those poor, dear boys suffered a fate worse than death. They will carry emotional scars the rest of their lives.

*sarcasm off*

 

Nope. This is an American thing.

 

she made a child a parent... a crime that occurred over and over in her classroom it sounds like

every classroom and hallway should have a camera, and all be monitored by a 3rd party

 

most parents would not find it funny they became grandparents cause a teacher raped their child

 

As Whoopi noted, there is a difference between legal rape and rape rape. Age of consent is an arbitrary legal line in the sand that varies widely by jurisdiction -- it's kinda hard to justify "consensual in Alabama, rape in Georgia."

Moreover, if someone is old enough to use a credit card, they are old enough to consent to a legal contract. So how would they not be old enough to consent to sex? IMO the term, "rape" should be reserved for non-consensual sex, and consensual sex with an underage person should be called "sexual exploitation of a minor," or some such. Same as we don't call hiring underage workers "slavery" just because they can't consent to an employment contract. As it stands, a precocious 15-year-old girl can pretend to be 18, seduce a naive 20-year old man, and when her parents find out, he gets charged with "rape." It's absurd.

 

I would agree with that, but it's still the same, no parents wants a teacher to make them a grandparent of their 14 year old child's baby