ROMNEY WORDSWORTH - The former Chairwoman of the Philosophy Department at Rutgers-Newark University, Anna Stubblefield, was ordered to pay a civil judgment award of $4 million dollars this week ($2 million compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages) to the family of a juvenile boy with Cerebral Palsy, whom she was convicted of raping. Stubblefield is currently serving a 12 year prison sentence for that crime.
Stubblefield was the kind of preachy liberal academic who looked down on Conservatives while hiding a dark secret. She was secretly sexually abusing the children she was supposed to be teaching.
Stubblefield was a proponent of facilitative communication, a technique that purportedly helps disabled people communicate, often through the use of typing. The victim’s brother was a student in one of Stubblefield’s classes at Rutgers. He asked Stubblefield if the technique could be used to help his sibling, and she began working with the disabled juvenile (hereafter “D.J.”) victim regularly at the Rutgers-Newark campus and at the family’s home.
While alone with the minor boy, Stubblefield sexually assaulted him repeatedly. The controversial communication technique would form the core of Stubblefield’s defense at her criminal trial, during which she claimed D.J. had communicated his consent to sexual activity. The family’s lawsuit alleged that Stubblefield’s communication with D.J. was all an act, that she violated his rights and that she targeted him for exploitation based on his disability. Ultimately a Jury agreed with the family. Stubblefield, formerly a highly paid tenured professor at Rutgers, has assets that may be seized to satisfy the judgment.
Stubblefield, formerly of West Orange, New Jersey, is currently incarcerated at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Hunterdon County. Stubblefield is merely the latest and one of the higher profile cases involving female educators who have been convicted of having sexually assaulted their students. There is no end to the current epidemic in sight.