Former Dunbar Career Academy student sues Chicago Board of Ed, alleging it failed to protect him from sexual abuse by security guard

When the teenager was asked if he wanted to share a statement at a court hearing for a former security guard at Dunbar Vocational Career Academy who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting him when he was a 15-year-old student, he worried that he wouldn’t be able to express his emotions in detail using his voice. So, instead, he wrote a poem — an “alternative route,” he called it. 

“From poor self-esteem to no sleep, you brought all of this upon me,” the poem said. “Please don’t take me out of another classroom. I hope you feel the deceit, and I hope you don’t have any more access to hurt me.”

The teen lays part of the blame for the repeated sexual abuse he experienced as a sophomore at the South Side high school from then-29-year-old guard, Tywain Carter, with school employees, he alleges in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court against Carter and the Chicago Board of Education. The suit says they failed to protect him from grooming and failed to investigate misconduct, showing an “utter indifference to or conscious disregard” for his safety. 

Carter was sentenced in 2023 to eight years in prison for assaulting the boy. The Tribune is referring to the teen victim using the pseudonym J. because the Tribune generally does not name victims of sexual assault. He filed the lawsuit as John Doe.  

“It’s been very hard for me to build my self-esteem and confidence. It feels like I have an X or a target on me, and that I’ll never be the same,” J., who is now 18, told the Tribune. 

“I just don’t feel the same how I was before,” he continued. “I wouldn’t say I necessarily feel dirty, but I just feel like I was taken advantage of, and there’s nothing that I (can) do to take that back.” 

Carter began grooming J. on his first day as a new transfer student at Dunbar in November 2021, according to the lawsuit. J. left his previous school — a public charter — due to bullying, and said he was scared about stepping into a new environment that had a “completely different crowd.” 

When he was walking through the hallway on his first day, J. said Carter approached him and asked him who he was. He approached him again after another class, taking him into an unoccupied restroom, the suit said. J. said Carter told him that he knows he’s “different from other students” and that his more expensive clothes would make him a target. He also asked about his sexuality, he said. 

“He was kind of making me really nervous about joining the school,” he said. “But also at the end he assured me that he was going to make sure nothing happened to me, or I wasn’t going to be in any type of danger, and he was going to always look out for me.” 

The suit said that Carter introduced himself to J.’s mom later that first day when she picked him up from school. She told the Tribune that they exchanged phone numbers, and that Carter said he would make sure “nobody messed with” her son and that they would be like a “big brother.” Carter also said he claimed to be a deacon at a church, and said he could relate to her son because he was gay, she said. 

“When he told me he’d been watching him ever since he got there, I’m not taking it as a predator,” she said. “I don’t even know that this man is preying on me, trying to win my confidence. I’m looking at the suit he got on, I’m looking at him being security.”

“I felt that my son was going to be guarded,” she added. 

The lawsuit said that in November and December 2021, Carter would intercept J. on a nearly daily basis, pulling him out of class to take him to a faculty-only computer lab. The abuse included Carter pushing J. against a wall, choking him, grabbing his genitals, biting him, kissing him on the mouth, nipples and chest, forcing him to perform oral sex on him and penetrating him anally. 

Most days, J. said Carter would call or text him and his mom after school, which made the abuse feel like it never ended. He would ask J. when he was coming to school, send sexual messages or ask him to meet outside of school, which J. never did.

“I felt like I was broken. I felt like I had to basically compromise my body just to feel safe in the school,” he said. “I didn’t really want to pursue any relationships with anyone else because my confidence was messed up. It just really brought me to a really bad state as far as mentally. I would come back home and be extremely sad.” 

Sylvia Barragan, a spokesperson for Chicago Public Schools, said in a statement that the district doesn’t comment on ongoing litigation, but that “the safety and well-being of our staff and students are top priorities and foundational conditions for our school communities.” Barragan declined to elaborate on training at Dunbar specifically, or the alleged actions of the school’s staff.

‘This didn’t have to happen’

The lawsuit names six staff members at the high school, including the school principal, who allegedly knew that Carter’s conduct constituted grooming and failed to follow Chicago Board of Education’s policies and procedures for reporting. 

The board’s policy states that employees “must protect students by reporting any interactions or behaviors which suggest that an adult has or had an inappropriately intimate relationship with a child or may be grooming a child, even if the employee does not have reasonable suspicion that sexual misconduct is occurring or has occurred.” Mandated reporters are required to call the Department of Children and Family Services hotline if they have “reasonable suspicion” of abuse, the policy states. 

J. said Carter pulled him out of Spanish class nearly every day and that the teacher never questioned why. He said a special education teacher told J. that Carter discussed J.’s sexuality with her. 

“They definitely should have had an idea or took more precaution,” J. said. “There’s not one time no one pulled me to the side, ‘hey what’s going on, why are you leaving my class?’ Definitely more could have been done.” 

The suit points to a staff training that provided an example of grooming that should be reported as another teacher at a school stopping by your classroom and pulling a student out of class for “just a minute,” eventually leaving your sight. 

The suit also accuses the board of violating the Illinois Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act, which requires school staff to report immediately when “they have reasonable cause to believe that a child known to them in their professional or official capacities” may have been abused.

“This didn’t have to happen. There were safeguards in place, reporting requirements that were in place, specifically designed to protect the students,” said J.’s attorney Scott Lane. 

The Office of Inspector General’s Sexual Allegations Unit received nearly 308 allegations of sexual misconduct at CPS from July 1, 2023 to Feb. 15, 2024, marking a 12% increase from the same time last year. It also noted an increase in “particularly serious” allegations against security guards, adding that the district pulled or blocked eight security guards this fiscal year. 

The OIG formed this unit in 2018 following a Chicago Tribune report that exposed conflicts of interest in investigations formerly helmed by the CPS Law Department. Citing “appalling” districtwide “failures” in CPS’ handling of sexual abuse allegations, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights entered the district into a legally binding agreement in 2019, mandating reforms and federal monitoring.

J.’s dad believes CPS needs more checks in the system to give kids extra protection. He suggested that if a security guard takes a student out of class, they should be required to check in with a principal or other superior beforehand.

“I think policies need to be changed at CPS. I think they are like a monster,” J.’s dad said. “They’re just like this cold-hearted machine that they look at everybody the same. They don’t care.”

“Not one time have they reached out to this family, have they reached out to (J.) to even to see where his head is at, to see if they can assist him in anything. They have not reached out to him to even apologize for their faculty,” he continued. “Policies need to be changed at CPS to help other kids so they won’t have to go through this, other parents won’t have to go through this.”

Coping with anxiety, depression

While the abuse was taking place, J.’s parents noticed that their son — who at his previous school was an honors student and involved with his church — became sad. He eventually told his parents about the abuse in December. J.’s parents then reported it to police and school administrators.

The same day Carter pleaded guilty for sexually assaulting J., he also pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a second Dunbar student, and was sentenced to three years in prison, to be served consecutively with his sentence in J’s case. The other former student is also suing the Chicago Board of Education. 

J. said he left Dunbar later that year. He lost his love of school, interest in many of the activities he enjoyed and his aspiration to go to college to become a psychologist. When security guards walked past him at his new school, and he heard their keys jangling, it reminded him of the abuse, he said. He said his parents wanted him to have the typical high school experience, but events like a prom send off or graduation party felt like “too much.”

He sees a therapist and psychologist and takes medication to help manage his anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. He had a part-time food service job at one point, but is still figuring out what he wants to do next after graduating high school when he was 17. He said it took him a lot of work to realize that he was a victim, and didn’t do anything wrong by reporting the abuse.

“There’s just been a complete upheaval in (J.’s) life, and it is clear, based on talking to his providers, that he will be grappling with the impact of this abuse forever, and he will require lifelong treatment … and certainly he has every right to seek a means to continue getting that treatment,” said his attorney, Nicholas Kamenjarin.

One of J.’s main goals he said, is to help other survivors of sexual abuse. He wants to set up a scholarship fund for other students who experienced sexual assault. 

“I want to be able to give kids the funding to go to a school where they feel safe and protected, where their safety isn’t in jeopardy,” he said.