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Bauxite ballplayers expelled for sexual harassment after hazing incident

Bauxite High School is roiled by controversy as three students have been expelled for the remainder of the 2017-18 school year. A video allegedly shows students abuse and sexually harass fellow students on the bus.

UPDATE: Bauxite baseball coaches Michael Mattox and Steven Tew are now on paid administrative leave from teaching as well as coaching as of April 10, 2018. They will remain on leave pending the results of the investigations according to Leann Pinkerton, the Director of Academic Affairs.

Special agents with the Arkansas State Police have also opened a criminal investigation to look at the hazing incident.

Credit: KTHV
(L) Steven Tew; (R) Michael Mattox [Bauxite School District]

ORIGINAL: BAUXITE, Ark. (KTHV) — Three Bauxite High School baseball players have been expelled from school as the result of an investigation into an incident of sexual harassment and hazing.

The Bauxite school board voted 5-0 in favor of expelling each of the students during a meeting Wednesday night. The three students, one Senior and two Juniors, were told as a group what the claims were against them, the given individual hearings to state their cases. Afterward, the board members chose to deliberate in private for approximately an hour before giving their votes.

April Mendenhall's son is facing discipline but is not one of the three who was expelled.

“I feel like I’m in a twilight zone,” she said. “I came in here thinking there is absolutely no way anybody’s getting expelled. Nobody!”

The Arkansas State Police and the state’s Department of Human Services are also investigating the incident, which is alleged to have taken place on a bus ride back from the Bauxite baseball team’s game at Mena on March 2.

Bauxite Public Schools administrators have said that surveillance video on the bus filmed the incident, but the footage was not included in the evidence presented by the district during the students’ hearings. Instead, it presented 18 written statements given by other players on the team.

The Arkansas State Police and the state’s Department of Human Services are also investigating the incident, which allegedly took place on a bus ride back from the Bauxite baseball team’s game at Mena on March 2.

Bauxite Public Schools administrators have said that surveillance video on the bus filmed the incident, but the footage was not included in the evidence presented by the district during the students’ hearings. Instead, it presented 18 written statements given by other players on the team.

“And it was drilled in our head, how horrible this video was, how awful this video was," Mendenhall said. "‘It was disgusting. They had to turn it off, they couldn’t even watch it anymore.’ Appalled, I think, is the word that was used, at the video. And now the video doesn’t want to be discussed, they don’t want to release it. They won’t let us watch it. It’s strictly the statements of kids.”

After the vote was taken, Mendenhall read copies of some of the statements to members of the media. She said most of them described wrestling and joking between students. But she noted that some of them offered contradictory information.

“‘Then, blank, blank and blank,’” she said, referencing names that had been redacted from her copy, “‘were calling people to the back of the bus to mess with them. They touched people in their blank parts — private parts — and held their mouths so they wouldn’t scream loud. Nothing happened to me because I was by the coaches.’ Why didn’t the coaches hear this, then?”

The school district’s attorney, Donn Mixon, gave the board members copies of the student handbook with sections highlighted that pertained to policies involved in the players’ cases. That included a page listing various offenses and the range of punishments. Highlighted were bullying, sexual harassment, and threats of violence, which all carried the possibility of expulsion.

Six players faced discipline for their roles in the incident, though only three were recommended for expulsion. Mendenhall said she believed the six players, upperclassmen who are accused of hazing and /or sexually harassing underclassmen, all had similar roles. She questioned the fact that half of them faced different punishments.

“The handbook states clearly that whoever is charged with hazing, you’re to be expelled,” she mentioned. “Which — my son will probably be expelled tomorrow because I’m not making a good, great case for him — but he was back there. He knows nothing happened. And now, I’m just really confused. I’m still so confused on how they just expelled these kids!”

Before the hearings began, John Wesley Hall, a defense lawyer representing the students, tried to convince the board members to delay the hearings. He argued that the students were not given proper notice of expulsion and that evidence against them had not been provided to them in advance, which violated their rights to due process. Donn Mixon, attorney for the school district, said the students had received the standard notice and claimed that the statements against the students had been emailed to Hall’s office, even if Hall had not received them. The board members decided they were willing to proceed.

The students were expelled for the remainder of the 2017-18 school year. They are all eligible to attend a school in a different district immediately, and the Juniors may return to Bauxite High School for the 2018-19 school year.

Mendenhall said the parents of all six students were likely to send them to different districts and had no interest in returning to Bauxite High School.

Head coach Michael Mattox and assistant coach Steven Tew have been suspended from their coaching positions. However, they remain in their roles as teachers in the Bauxite Public Schools system.

The team canceled one game in the wake of the investigation. It had lost the three games it has played since the investigation was announced.

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