Student Post - Teacher Accused of Sexual Assault of Student

A preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 13, 2009 for Linda Pithyou, who has been charged with sexual assault. Linda was a teacher at Lawrence Hall Youth Services. She is accused of having sex with one of her male students from the alternative school for at-risk youths. Linda is among a large number of teachers accused of sexual assault of students. Although she has been dismissed from the school, the psychological damage has already been done. The psychological consequences that can follow from relationships such as these teacher-student affairs demand strict enforcement of the laws prohibiting such conduct. The risk factors involved were compounded by the at-risk status of this student.

Lawrence Hall is intended to provide additional support and services to youths affected by multiple risk factors for conduct and emotional problems. Psychologists have explained that children with similar experiences early in life may have different problems later in life. This distinction is between multifinality and equifinality. This results because there are many contributors to any psychological disorder, and children have different risk and resilience factors. Psychologists look to the resources and events within the individual, family and school/community. Lawrence Hall is intended to provide at-risk youth with “adults outside the family who take an interest in promoting the child’s welfare,” a characteristic that promotes resilience in the face of adversity. When a teacher abuses this relationship, however, the impact may be magnified given the lack of external resilience factors and frustration already experienced by the student.

Studies that show women typically receive lighter punishment than men in the circumstances point to a clear problem of incongruency between damage that is caused and the punishment received. Research does not show that victims of sexual assault by men fair worse than victims of women. As society continues its efforts to increase knowledge of the psychology and development of children, the law needs to evolve to consider these developments. The punishment Linda faces, if found guilty, needs to consider the many facets of damage she has caused.

Comments

[Daniel]

You should have the student look up the Rind study. There is actually no scientific evidence that pedophilia (broadly defined) is psychologically harmful and some evidence that it is actually beneficial. As a *scientific* matter it's an area that is almost impossible to study (and absolutely impossible to study in the USA) and all conclusions about it should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism. Indeed, there are psychologists that believe that in many cases more harm is done to the child's development by involving them in an adversarial legal system than was ever done by the "abuse" in the first place.

The fundamental problem is that law is a socially normative construct while psychology is an individual-orientated construct. Using psychology to justify sociology is dubious at best; it actually becomes a matter that's laughable when it something like pedophilia.

[D]

I am the attorney representing Linda Pithyou. I am asking that you remove this story for the foregoing reasons. Please be advised that she was found not guilty on all counts by a 12-member jury, I am attaching her disposition. The jury heard the 15-year-old testify and did not believe his lies. He bragged to others about having had sex with her after she rebuffed his advances. The school got wind of it, called him in and he continued to brag about his sexual escapades with her. The school immediately fired her, called the police, etc... What is amazing is that Ms. Pithyou has no criminal history, never had any complaints about any misconduct, and the 15-year-old gang member had been arrested for 2 charges of attempted rape. Ms. Pithyou spent her entire life savings on her defense, lost her job, lost everything and is now attempting to put her life back together. I ask that you help me, who is doing it pro bono, to remove the story or at least update the story on the same page where it appears. This injustice has ruined a woman who decided to help disadvantaged youth. Her compassion to help troubled youth caused her downfall. Please help me fix this. This injustice must be fixed, it is a tragedy and I need your help to remedy it. I ask for your time in reviewing the disposition and one of the very few stories about her acquittal (although many appeared about her arrest).

Here is a story showing her acquittal:

http://archive.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/09/teacher-acquitted-of-student-sex-charges.html

Carol Oshana
www.oshanalaw.com