Facebook Post of Offensive Homework Assignment Goes Viral

On December 19, Charity Willard Eigenberger posted on her Facebook a screenshot of her daughter’s school assignment. The assignment read, “What could have Melissa done differently to have avoided her sexual assault (please provide at least four examples)?”.

The mother was outraged and posted “Haven, my sophomore, was shown a video on sexual assault. This is the first question on the assignment.” The original post currently has over 3,000 comments, almost 3,000 reactions and over 9,000 shares. Eigneberger than provided the name of the school and a link to email the school. She later posted that she still “loves and supports her daughter’s school but is very disappointed that the assignment was given.”

She has also clarified that her daughter will not complete the assignment because the question promotes putting blame on victims of sexual assault. With the current lack of report of sexual assaults in our society, this post has created much controversy against the school.

Kenosha Unified school district has responded by launching an investigation into the health class at Bradford High school. The movie that was shown was the 1996 film called “She Cried No” on December 17, two days before the post was shared on Facebook.

Tanya Ruder, a spokesperson from the Unified school district, issued a statement that said “District administration takes concerns very seriously and immediately launched an investigation. In addition, Bradford was asked to promptly remove this assignment from use.” She also said they will be “doing a comprehensive review of the health curriculum covering relationships and dating violence, consent and sexual assault to avoid future incidents.”

There are many people who are outraged by the victim-blaming nature of this post, while others have argued that this will help in the prevention of rapes because the question’s intent was to generate ideas on how women can protect themselves in this situation.

At this point, there are no further comments from Eigenberger or the Unified school district.