Federal judge blocks Maine student’s bullying suspension for note warning of ‘rapist’ at school

A federal judge last week halted the suspension of a 15-year-old Maine student who was being disciplined for allegedly bullying a male classmate with a stick note that warned of “a rapist in our school.” 

Judge Lance Walker issued a preliminary injunction preventing Aela Mansmann — a 15-year-old sophomore at Cape Elizabeth High School in Portland — from being suspended.

Aela was suspended by her school after she posted a note in one of the bathrooms that said: “There’s a rapist in our school and you know who it is.” 

“I was disappointed in the fact that the school decided to punish me rather than punishing the multiple perpetrators in our school,” she said in an interview with WMTW at the time.

Although no one being specifically named in the note, school principal Jeffrey Shedd said a male student thought he was being targeted and felt threatened.

This led to Aela’s suspension, along with two other currently unnamed students also suspended for passing out similar notes.

Mr. Walker said that Aela’s note “was neither frivolous nor fabricated, took place within the limited confines of the girls’ bathroom, related to a matter of concern to the young women who might enter the bathroom and receive the message, and was not disruptive of school discipline.”

He also said that Aela’s lawyers called the note protected free speech while the school said it wasn’t.

Aela claims the note wasn’t calling out a specific student but rather the “culture” of the school itself.

“The sticky note was meant to target the culture that we have in our school. There are definitely multiple cases and perpetrators in mind, but there’s not one in particular despite what everyone seems to think,” she said.

While it appears Aela did not extend her protest to social media, the student has apparently provided some news outlets, including People magazine and BuzzFeed, with a selfie she snapped showing the sticky note on a bathroom mirror.

“In this day and age of social media and all other vehicles, she went old school. I am very proud of her,” Aela’s mother Shael Norris said, according to People magazine.