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Notes -
Was she on the wrestling team?
My point was that every teacher on duty at a school is in authority over every student at that school. A random teacher in the hallway says "Stop doing that, come over here," and you are expected to obey. A random teacher coaching practice in the gym says "I'm writing you up for that," and you are written up.
You imagining that the students would instead get to say "Haha you may be A math teacher but you're not MY math teacher this specific year, nyah nyah"?
How is he still in power over her two months after she leaves, though? Even if he was flirting with her inappropriately earlier, she clearly had the opportunity to tell him to go to hell with no adverse consequences if she didn’t like him.
This is not some ancient stinky guy. ‘Girl attracted to 26 year old wrestler with decent manners and stable job’ is not an impossibility requiring secret brainwashing.
The original ragebait angle was "clearly this man has done nothing wrong." All I'm saying is that if he was using his teaching office to flirt with a student athlete during the school year, such that he had her personal number and could send her romantic texts on the day of graduation, then move on to sex within two months, then that is "something wrong" and deserves punishment.
For the rest, there's a plausible version of this case where he was a messed-up predator picking out a vulnerable student from the herd and grooming her for later consumption; there's also a version where he's just a bad teacher and immature dude with low self-control, but the girl was a level-headed participant and is largely unharmed. Which one is the case would presumably come out in the trial via their (13,000!) text messages, testimony from family/ friends, etc.. We just don't know, because this case hasn't gone to trial; the guy was just arrested. The headlines catastrophizing about his "facing UP TO 20 YEARS IN PRISON OMG" are just standard journo misinformation, amping up the drama by imagining he'll receive the maximum penalty available under a law that also covers far more heinous instances of sexual misconduct by teachers. If your imagined scenario is true and this was highly inappropriate behavior but not really abuse, then I think it's likelier he'll be allowed to bargain down to a lesser charge and/or receive a light suspended sentence.
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