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A message from Steubenville

Ma’Lik Richmond, after barely a year in a juvenile detention center for raping a 16-year-old girl, has returned to the school's football team as if nothing had…

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Ma’Lik Richmond is known for two things. He is the 18-year-old wide receiver for the Steubenville Big Red football team in Ohio. And he’s one of the two from the team who were convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl in 2013.

The girl was raped in a town that criminalized her for unwittingly finding herself at the center of a scandal against their precious football team, in a country that routinely blames women for the violence against them.

CNN’s Poppy Harlow famously said that it was, “incredibly difficult, even for an outsider like me, to watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believed their lives fell apart.” It wasn’t as difficult, apparently, to watch the videos of the rape that the teens shared with their friends, videos that later became evidence in the trial.

Since the trial involving Richmond and his fellow-rapist, Trent Mays, three adults were indicted for failing to report child abuse and false statements — all in the name of protecting their star players. The trials offered a window into the adult-encouraged rape culture of the school. But rape culture isn’t confined to Steubenville. It’s the same culture that “punishes” an NFL star who beats his girlfriend by making him sit out two games and brushes off a 259-pound linebacker punching his female neighbor in the face as more troublesome for the player than the woman who was knocked unconscious.

A year later, the nightmare continues for the Steubenville girl abused, violated and traumatized by Trent Mays and Ma’Lik Richmond, who after barely a year in a juvenile detention center has returned to his old position on the school's football team as if nothing had ever happened. School Superintendent Melinda Young defended the decision, citing that the athletic policy only banned felons from playing for one calendar year.

Girls are routinely banned from playing football in schools, yet the boys who abuse them, rape them, are welcomed back and forgiven, sending a clear message to children across the country: a girl — any girl, no matter how athletic, brilliant or average — is worth less than a rapist who can catch a ball.  

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