Just when the infamous oral sex scandal had begun to fade from the memories of students at Milton Academy, the family of one of the five alleged sex offenders filed a lawsuit against Milton, regarding the school’s response to the sex scandal. The Driscolls believe that the school hurt their reputation in its attempt to illustrate the scandal as “an isolated, uncharacteristic incident,” when sex is actually very common at Milton, according to The Boston Globe. Since Milton has no specific guidelines for sexual misconduct on campus, the Driscolls are arguing in their suit that the message at Milton Academy seems to be ‘anything goes’ when it comes to sex and it is arbitrarily punishing the boys, as written in The Boston Globe. After the incident, the Driscoll family supposedly suffered emotional distress, and is currently trying to obtain unspecified financial compensation, according to The Boston Globe. Two of the other boys involved in the incident were not expelled, while a similar but separate oral sex incident did not incur the same punishment, according to The Boston Globe. “For Jay alone it was horrible, but it was also a terrible emotional ordeal for the entire family. They felt misled and let down by the Milton community,” said the Driscolls’ attorney Lisa Arrowood to The Boston Globe reporter. Among other requests, the Driscoll family asked that Jay’s permanent record be changed from “expelled” to “withdrawn,” according to The Boston Globe. Milton spokeswoman Cathy Everett, told The Boston Globe that the school is “disappointed that the Driscoll family decided to take this action. From the time we initially learned about this matter, we have acted appropriately and with the best interests of the students and the academy in mind. We stand by the decisions we made and the actions we took.” When questioned about the lawsuit, an anonymous student at Milton responded, “I think they have a right to sue the school. I do not however agree with their lawsuit. He broke the law and deserved to be punished. If they gave him a lesser punishment, they would not be sending the right message to the students.” He continued, “I think the lawsuit is really about getting bad press for the school and giving some dignity back to the family of Jay Driscoll.” On January 24, 2005, five boys on the Milton varsity ice hockey team were charged with statutory rape for allegedly receiving oral sex from a 15-year-old student. In June, Jay Driscoll and two other boys were placed on pretrial probation. If they remain out of legal trouble, they will be removed from probation on their eighteenth birthdays. In a Disciplinary Committee meeting at Milton, the administration interviewed the students separately. Then, according to The Boston Globe, the school “forced Jay and the other boys to make incriminating statements, expelled them, and notified police,” without calling his parents. An anonymous student from Milton Academy said, “The general Milton population felt that while the boys deserved to be punished, the girl deserved to be equally punished because, in the student’s minds, she consented to the act.” The Milton sex scandal triggered much debate over the summer. While the state law forbids underage sex, it is common for instances of un-coerced statutory rape to go without prosecution. While the school argued that the number of boys present made the action equivalent to coercion, the suit said that there is “no evidence that the boys ‘pressured’ or ‘coerced’ the girl,” according to The Boston Globe.
