A Chicago Public Schools expert says in his testimony that sexual assaults are not always traumatic

CHICAGO (CBS) – Jane Doe is now 38 years old, but the pain she says she suffered more than 20 years ago at the hands of a Chicago Public Schools (CPS) high school English teacher is still alive.

“I have nightmares almost every night,” she said of her experience in her first on-camera interview. “It’s still very hard to talk about.”

Jane was referring to inappropriate contact she allegedly had with a teacher at Gordon S. Hubbard High School in Chicago’s West Lawn neighborhood.

The lawsuit

Jane claims in a 2019 lawsuit set to go to trial in mid-May 2024 that teacher Walter Glascoff began communicating during her junior year at Hubbard University.

“We started communicating via email,” she said. “It felt like he wanted to be friends with us students, to be friends with me.”

It was the attention that first welcomed the self-described quiet, shy girl.

“It was nice to feel special,” Jane said.

Jane was 16 years old at the time. Then, she said, Mr. Glascoff’s communications suddenly escalated.

“He kept pressuring me to meet him,” she said, “and over time it became sexual.”

Jane’s civil lawsuit against Glascoff and the Board of Education of the City of Chicago, essentially CPS, claims during the 2003-2004 school year, Glascoff:

• “insisted on seeing her.”
• “purchased alcoholic beverages from plaintiff JANE DOE.”
• “then held plaintiff JANE DOE’s hand.”
• “Plaintiff asked JANE DOE to dress in a couple’s costume to go home with him.”
• “Plaintiff JANE DOE sexually abused” in various locations outside of school
• “Plaintiff JANE DOE repeatedly and continuously sexually abused”

“He made me feel like I would be a bad person if I didn’t care about him,” Jane said.

She didn’t tell any adults about the abuse until she confided in a therapist in 2018. At this point she was in her thirties.

“Her reaction was so shocked that it was really helpful to see … helped me pull myself out of things and just realize that this was really terrible,” Jane said.

The therapist, a mandated reporter, alerted the Department of Children and Family Services.

That same year, CPS investigated Glascoff. According to district reports, he admitted to having sex with Jane when she was a student. Dismissal lawsuits were prepared pointing out that there was “credible evidence” that Glascoff had “sexual intercourse” with Jane.

A few days after these reports were completed, Glascoff resigned. He was placed on the county’s Do Not Hire list.

Also in 2018, CPS commissioned an investigation into the entire school system.

“Their own reports found that sexual misconduct was widespread in Chicago public schools in the early 2000s, when it occurred,” said Carolyn Daley, Jane’s attorney.

In that investigation, called the “Hickey Report,” investigators wrote, “We find systemic deficiencies in CPS’s efforts to prevent and respond to incidents of sexual misconduct.”

The report goes on to cite “systemic deficiencies in training, reporting, aggregating data, tracking trends, and understanding the extent of sexual misconduct faced by CPS children.”

A year later, in 2019, a follow-up report showed that CPS had “made significant progress in protecting its students from sexual misconduct.”

Despite the progress, the report made several recommendations for further improvements.

The legal fight

In fighting Jane Doe’s lawsuit, CPS hired an expert witness, Chicago psychiatrist Dr. Prudence Gourguechon to testify about her views on childhood sexual abuse, sexual relationships between students and teachers, and the effects of trauma following sexual abuse.

CBS 2 exclusively obtained a sworn video from Jane Doe’s attorney in which Dr. Gourguechon expresses some controversial views.

As Dr. For example, when Gourgeuchon was asked whether having sex with a teacher’s student in any circumstance was not sexual abuse, he replied: “I don’t know if every circumstance would be considered sexual abuse.”

When asked if sexual assault was traumatic for the person affected, she replied: “It depends. It depends on the details and how to define who claims what and what actually happened. I can’t make a blanket statement.” Statement.”

CPS has settled similar lawsuits against students in the past.

In 2016, a Hubbard High School security guard was convicted of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor involving a student. He was sentenced to three years in prison. Now he is free and a registered sex offender.

Two years after the conviction, that student and two others filed a civil lawsuit against him. CPS ultimately paid the three girls $700,000.

When asked about Jane Doe’s case, CPS provided CBS 2 with the following statement:

The District believes that students who are harmed as a result of a legally recognized failure on the part of the District should be adequately compensated to remedy the student’s injuries. In doing so, the District also has a responsibility to the taxpayers who fund the District to ensure that it resolves these cases in a manner that is not only legally just, but also financially responsible. Unfortunately, disagreements often arise about legal liability and what constitutes appropriate compensation in each individual case. The purpose of litigation is to resolve these disagreements. The District strives to find a mutually acceptable solution in all cases of this nature and continues to do so.

Additionally, the district will not comment while the litigation is pending.