Genital exams for preschoolers?

As many as 20 children, ages 3 through 5, were exposed to genital
examinations without parental consent at a Head Start program at
Roosevelt
Elementary School in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The exams, sanctioned by Head Start administrators, has prompted a
lawsuit by the parents of at least 10 children, but more may join in the
suit at a later date.

The exams occurred November 5, 1998, but parents had no idea Head
Start
planners had scheduled them until afterward, when they picked their
children up from school. Notification of the exams went out to parents
two days later.

School officials and Head Start administrators said they performed the
exams because they wanted to check for sexual abuse and whether or not
the testicles of the male children had properly descended. Legal
sources who
spoke with WorldNetDaily said no complaints of sexual abuse had been
raised
by either the parents of the children or the school district.

Christopher Goree, a Tulsa-based lawyer and affiliate attorney with
the
Rutherford Institute, a non-profit civil liberties organization based in

Charlottesville, Virginia, will file the lawsuit. Rutherford spokesman
Ron
Rissler said his organization is currently handling similar cases in
Pennsylvania and West Virginia, but he said there are distinct
differences
between those cases and the Tulsa case.

“First of all, these children [in Tulsa] are much younger than those
in our
other cases,” Rissler said. “Also, this was a mix of children — boys
and girls. Plus there was no prior parental consent or notification, and
the manner in which the exams were conducted was appalling.” He also
said there was no physician present, while in the Pennsylvania cases a
licensed gynecologist was performing the examinations.

Rissler told WorldNetDaily that two licensed practical nurses
performed the exams, and the manner in which they were done was
“completely unacceptable” by normal medical standards.

Goree said the examination process was divided into two stages.

“In the first room all of the kids had their fingers stuck with a
needle to get a
blood specimen, which caused emotional distress,” he said. “Following
this procedure, they were taken to another room for their genital
exams.”

He confirmed that while the LPN drawing blood wore gloves, the second
one
performing the physicals did not. Furthermore, he said, children in the
second room were examined on a dirty sleeping mat that had been placed
atop a desk.

“They just set them up on this dirty mat, disrobed them and examined
their
genitals,” Rissler said.

An independent medical source, who requested anonymity, said she is
intimately familiar with the program and the exam processes which all
children must undergo before they are accepted into Head Start.

“I’ve done physicals on Head Start participants,” she said. “All
children
have to have them before they can become completely qualified for the
program.”

“Most LPNs are not adequately educated to perform sexual abuse
exams,” she said. “Specialized training is required so you can detect
whether or not
any real sexual abuse has occurred.”

She also said many doctors, while qualified, are very uncomfortable
with
these kinds of exams, especially on children. Even they must get special

training in both examination and documentation in order to recognize
sexual
abuse and to legally protect themselves.

“As far as little boys are concerned,” she said, “their testicular
check
should have been done during their initial physical” to get into the
Head
Start program. “In fact, that kind of check really should be done well
before the age of two.”

When asked why Head Start officials would need to do another,
separate exam of this type after kids enter the program, she simply
said, “I don’t know. I can’t think of any logical reason for it.”

Even if officials suspected abuse, “proper authorities should have
been contacted and a thorough sexual abuse forensic exam performed at
that time.”

“In our practice, we just don’t do exams — especially those kinds of

exams — on preschool kids without having a parent in the room.”

“During the exam some of the kids cried,” Rissler said, “and at least
one
of them asked (school officials) to contact his mother and have her
present
during the exam,” but that request was refused.

Misti Dubbs, parent of one of the children and the assistant Head
Start
teacher, was aware of the exams beforehand and did go into the room with

her daughter. When one of the LPNs began to check her daughter’s
genitals,
Ms. Dubbs immediately removed her from any further examination. Later in
the day she also informed other parents what had happened when they came
to take their children home.

“The parents were understandably upset,” Rissler said. “One of them
even
took his child to his own family practitioner to check for sexual abuse
and
another parent reported the incident on a sexual abuse hotline in Tulsa
County.”

Rissler said he had no information about any penetration of any
of the children.

Goree said he expected to file his lawsuit “within the next two
weeks.”
The suit will be filed in the U.S. 10th Circuit Court, in the northern
district of Oklahoma. And he said the Rutherford Institute was providing
“great assistance” in the case.

“They’ve sent me information from the other cases of this nature that
they’re currently involved with,” he said, “and after we go through some
of
those briefs, along with a lot of other information, we’ll be ready.”
Rissler said Rutherford would be providing the funding for the case,
such as out-of-pocket and court expenses, and will also “be giving Mr.
Goree plenty of supportive legal research.”

He also said other Tulsa attorneys turned down many of the families
because
they were low-income parents and because other law firms “didn’t want to

take on Head Start and the federal government.”

“We’ve taken on the president,” Rissler said, referring to
Rutherford’s
representation of Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against Bill

Clinton, “so we’re not too intimidated by Head Start.”

Goree said that shortly after the November incident, Head Start
officials
held a meeting with parents to apologize and to try to allay frustration

and anger. But at that meeting “parents were talked down to,” Goree
said, “and I can tell you firsthand they didn’t appreciate it very
much.”

“It was almost like a party environment. They gave away door prizes
and
everything, as if getting a trinket of some sort would make it all go
away,” he said.

Though Head Start Director Jerome Lee told parents he was sorry that
he
“dropped the ball on this,” he also said that there was nothing strange
or
unusual about the physicals. Goree confirmed that other schools in the
Tulsa area perform genital exams on their Head Start participants, and
Lee
does not anticipate ending the examinations at Roosevelt.

School district officials were contacted by WorldNetDaily but did not

return phone calls.

“This is the most egregious act of government intrusion that I have
witnessed in my tenure at the Rutherford Institute,” Rissler commented.

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See Jon E. Dougherty’s daily column. He may be reached through E-mail at [email protected].