COLUMN: Michigan sex laws create trouble, tragedy for high schoolers
Samantha Kelly’s death can be attributed, at least in part, to laws and social practices that create hapless victims where there should be none.
Kelly was a 14-year-old student at Huron High School in Ann Arbor who had engaged in sex with Joseph Tarnopolski, an 18-year-old student at the same school. The Detroit News reported that both teens told police and school officials that Kelly participated consensually.
After Kelly’s parents filed charges of third-degree criminal sexual conduct against Tarnopolski, she began to be bullied and harassed endlessly at school. She was in an environment where, by the nature of public schools, she could not escape her harassers.
One week ago, Kelly hanged herself in her mother’s trailer-park home, choosing to take the ultimate drastic step to escape the bullying, embarrassment and shame of her situation.
There is so much wrong with this situation that it is hard to even list everything.
It is obvious and easy to blame the bullies. Most high school students do not understand the laws about statutory rape, and would assume that this young girl was trying to attack or harm their friend.
The unfortunate situation itself was created by Michigan’s age of consent law, which stands in complete contrast with the layout of the public school system.
The age of consent in Michigan is 16. That creates an environment in high schools where hundreds of teenagers are packed in close proximity, hormones and sexual discovery taking its hold to some degree in each of them. However, if a person from the older half, one way or another, has sex with a person from the other half, that person is liable to be charged with a felony and have their name and picture listed in Michigan’s sex offender registry for 25 years.
Furthermore, the high school environment makes ridicule and having to face the situation every day unavoidable once it becomes public knowledge. There is no law on the books to relocate either party or keep them separate once something as serious and personal as sex-crime charges are filed.
Laws and practices in Michigan need to be changed to protect young people from such ugly happenings.
In Canadian law, there is a close-in-age exemption for minors under the age of consent — which is also 16 — where a person aged 14 or 15 can consent to sex with somebody up to five years older than them.
It may seem drastic or strange, but in the current high school environment cases such as Kelly’s are unavoidable. Change needs to happen, and that could come either by adjusting the law or restructuring public schools to keep students over the age of consent separate from those under.
If that cannot or does not happen, special provisions should be taken for young people in situations similar to Samantha Kelly. The court of public opinion is cold and remorseless, more so in high school, when most are not emotionally equipped to face its judgment.
