“They had a right to be protected.” Issaquah School District is being sued by two sisters who attended Skyline
and allegedly were ignored by administration as they faced relentless bullying by the student body after reporting a rape by two Skyline football players. This quote comes from the lawsuit filed October 24, 2018, over two years after both players were on trial and one pleaded guilty to Assault with Sexual Motivation.

I sat down with a former Skyline student who graduated in 2015 and was a junior when the original crime took place as to understand the school climate better. I also tried to contact a former teacher, but the Issaquah School District does not permit faculty to speak on the subject.

The student grew up on little league teams and attending Skyline games as a child, as most of the community did. The lawsuit claims “In Issaquah, football was God.” This may or may not have creedence, as by 2015 Skyline football had lost its streak of state championship wins and the hype was dying among high school students, but—according to
some students—the funding from administration wasn’t. Still, the claims go beyond the admin favoring football funding; the lawsuit says, “The District stood by while the football team and the student body engaged in a campaign of harassment, bullying, intimidation, and retaliation, attempting to force the victim to leave the school.” The players were moved to a different high school in the district, at the instruction of a police-issued court order, where they pursued different sports.

Administration also permitted letters of recommendation to be written for the athletes, according to evidence submitted in the lawsuit. Despite court-ordered probation, both players returned to the homecoming game the following year where Vice Principal Camarata allegedly required the hysterical younger sister of the rape victim to continue her cheerleading routine to the players and crowd.

The sisters did eventually leave the Issaquah School District, moving an adjacent school. This was after an alleged firebombing of their house and weeks of the home being bombarded with “eggs, feces, and paintballs,” as claimed by the lawsuit. Before it reached this level, students and a football coach tweeted that the girls should leave the school and had ruined the lives of the football players who moved schools due to the police order.

Through all this, the lawsuit claims the girls were repeatedly ignored and dismissed by administrators. Even in those few years, much of the administration had turnover, including principals, vice principals, and sports directors. The former Skyline student says, “they protected their own.” Their own football athletes, not their own victimized students, in the eyes of the lawsuit.