Does he deserve a second chance? Yes, he does, and he is receiving that second chance by furthering his education on YSU’s campus. Does he deserve the privilege of playing on a football team and representing a university? Absolutely not. Education is a right, whereas playing on a sports team is not.

Do you know the details of this case? Cuz it’s pretty fucking traumatic. Considering her entire town turned on her & now her rapist is being defended by shitheads like you.

If he was actively pursuing rehabilitation- getting treatment (beyond and outside of whatever was involved in his sentence, which was probably nothing), if he was openly apologetic, if he was pursuing restorative justice and willing to admit he did something awful and irrevocable that changed someone’s life forever…

Welcome to Steubenville!

Most people do not recover from trauma without treatment. With treatment, some do. Plenty of people with severe ptsd have normal lives - work, go to school, friends, etc. But the trauma hangs over them and effective treatment makes it easier to live with the trauma.

Disagree. Playing football is a privilege, not a right.

They are public representatives of their schools. They help with recruiting. A lot of them do camps in the summer for kids. They are oftentimes on TV and featured in promotional materials. They are not paid athletes, they are students.

Because sportsball is all about second chances, I guess. And, hey, bitches be crazy, amirite?

I bet she’ll have a great time riding waves of depression and anger in her room while rapey boy gets high fives and media glory being on a football team.

“The kid is humble and he wants to put [his past] behind him,” Pelini told the paper.

Once he was convicted and sentenced to prison, how the hell did his high school not expel him, let alone let him return and play football again?

See, while I agree with you on the rehabilitation angle, seeing as he used football and the related prestige to try to dodge justice the first time around, I think keeping him off the team may very well keep women safer. I agree with the writer upthread that he deserves a second chance at an education, but hasn’t…

I guess his life isn’t over after all.

Okay, she was a girl then, but presumably is a woman now?

...after his release [he] returned to Steubenville High School where he played football in his senior year.

Student athletes are supposed to be role models. They represent your school to everyone in the country. A convicted rapist does not equal a good role model. You’re choosing a sport over common decency and morality. This is fucking egregious and makes me want to burn the world down.

“Does he deserve a second chance? Yes, he does, and he is receiving that second chance by furthering his education on YSU’s campus. Does he deserve the privilege of playing on a football team and representing a university? Absolutely not. Education is a right, whereas playing on a sports team is not.”

Meanwhile the young woman that was raped will live in her own prison for the rest of her life.

When the judge read the sentence, Richmond told his lawyer, “My life is over.”

Not just students, but their parents need to protest this. A few letters from parents to the board of regents saying they won’t let their kids go to school there will have more weight than the voices of the students.