Chicago Public Schools officials are facing criticism for their handling of a sexual abuse lawsuit in which they hired an expert psychiatrist who said in a deposition that not all instances of sexual assault are traumatic to victims.
The school district settled the complaint for $800,000 on Friday before it went to trial, a family attorney said, but the backlash has continued in a case dating back to the mid-2000s.
State Rep. Curtis Tarver, D-Chicago, introduced a bill in the final days of the spring session this week to protect child sex abuse victims in court.
Tarver said on the House floor last week that CPS’ top lawyer, Ruchi Verma, “needs to go” for approving the use of the expert witness and the legal strategy in the case, including trying to make the victim’s name public. CPS regularly hires outside law firms to handle litigation, but Verma oversees the district’s legal activity. In this case, the Board of Education hired Chicago-based Nielsen, Zehe & Antas, which has been paid $634,317 since it first started working for CPS in 2020.
“Not only did [Verma] sign off on this expert, they filed a motion … to force this woman to use her own name,” Tarver said in the House.
The case centers around the alleged grooming and abuse of a former Hubbard High School student by a former teacher at the school. The allegations were first made public in the Chicago Tribune’s 2018 “Betrayed” series that uncovered systematic mishandling of sex misconduct at CPS.
The teacher began taking a special interest in the student in 2003, the complaint alleged, before proceeding into sexual acts over the next year while she was a student and after graduation.
Identified as “Jane Doe” in a 2019 lawsuit, the student accused CPS of failing to protect her and continuing to employ the teacher despite adults at the school being aware of his inappropriate conduct. The complaint said the woman, 33 at the time, recounted the abuse to a therapist, who reported it to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services as the law required of her as a mandated reporter. CPS investigated the teacher that year, and he resigned.
As the suit neared trial this spring, CPS hired psychiatrist Prudence Gourguechon to share her expert opinion on trauma stemming from sexual abuse. The former student’s lawsuit claimed she had suffered trauma as a result of the sexual abuse.
Asked in a pre-trial deposition if all instances of sexual assault can be considered traumatic, Gourguechon said, “It depends on the detail and how they’re defining — who’s claiming what and what actually happened. I can’t make a totally, you know, across-the-board statement.”
Gourguechon said that by psychiatric standards, a trauma diagnosis means “something has to be big. It has to be huge. It has to be outside the realm of ordinary experience where nobody is prepared to cope with it.”
In later questioning, the expert said there can still be a significant impact on an alleged abuse victim’s mental health even if there isn’t a clinical diagnosis of trauma.
Then asked whether she considers every instance of sexual relations between a teacher and student to be sexual abuse, Gorguechon said, “Sexual abuse is a very broad term. I think it’s a bad idea. I think it’s bad for the student, bad for the teacher. I don’t know if every circumstance would qualify as sexual abuse.”
The age of consent is 17 in Illinois. School employees can be fired for engaging in any sexual contact with students, but there’s currently no avenue to pursue criminal charges if the student is 18 or older.
A few weeks after the psychiatrist’s deposition, first reported by CBS 2 Chicago, CPS reached a settlement agreement late last week pending approval by the Board of Education.
Carolyn Daley, the attorney representing the former student, said it was “shocking” to hear a witness representing a school district share those opinions about trauma and abuse.
“It’s disturbing that that’d be the Board [of Education]'s position on these cases, or this case at least,” she said.
“That can really be a chilling effect on other victims coming forward,” Daley said. “That’s the message that comes across when you have a witness hired by the Board saying that.”
A CPS spokeswoman said Gorguechon’s comments “were taken out of context and do not fairly represent the position taken by the district or its expert.
“Chicago Public Schools proactively works to prevent sexual abuse and agrees that any students who are harmed as a result of a legally recognized failure on the district’s part should be compensated in a reasonable manner that will help remedy injuries to the student,” the district said in a statement. “The district and our general counsel recognize the traumatic impact of sexual abuse; our system continually works to educate leaders, faculty and students about sexual abuse and how to report it.”
The spokeswoman said the district balances its responsibility to fairly compensate victims with a responsibility to reach a legally justified and financially responsible resolution. And CPS “stands behind our general counsel and our efforts to balance those two interests in order to reach mutually-acceptable resolutions.”
Tarver, the state representative, said he stands by his call for Verma, CPS’ general counsel, to be fired over the expert’s deposition and CPS’ attempt to reveal the former student’s identity.
“It’s bullying, it’s shameful, it’s shaming and it’s punishing in the worst possible way, and it’s not what someone with a law degree should do,” Tarver said. “You can defend a case without going to those extreme means.”
He introduced House Bill 222 on Monday, which would prevent courts from considering “contributory fault” in child sex abuse cases. That practice limits the damages a plaintiff can seek in a personal injury case if they were considered partially at fault.
“The purpose is to ensure that you cannot essentially blame a child for being sexually abused, and that’s what contributory fault would allow,” Tarver said.
HB222 would also establish that all sexual abuse of children is traumatic, and victims would no longer need to provide evidence that they were harmed. Instead they could provide evidence showing the extent of their harm.
The bill passed unanimously out of the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and is expected to be called in the House this week.
