Schools’ paid $9M to five students raped by their former teacher, then tried to keep it quiet
Miami Dade County School Board paid $9 million to five survivors of Wendell Nibbs, a former physical education teacher at Brownsville Middle School who has been convicted of sexually assaulting students. The settlement came with an attempt to silence survivors’ disclosures.
The Miami-Dade County School Board’s multi-million dollar settlement with the rape victims of a former P.E. teacher came with an unenforceable gag order that prevented the survivors from disclosing the
settlement amount and disparaging the school district to the media.
The victims are survivors of former Brownsville Middle P.E. teacher Wendell Nibbs, who is serving an eight-year prison sentence for three counts of sexual battery with a child in familial or custodial custody. In his 15 years as a teacher, Nibbs was accused of sexual misconduct by nine female students at Brownsville.
Now all in their 20s, five survivors sued the School Board in federal court, claiming their Title IX rights were violated and the school district was negligent. The case was settled in March, though documents weren’t made available until later.
Three of the survivors who endured the worst of Nibbs’ abuse and were raped multiple times each were paid $2,332,750. Another survivor who was raped once received $1,167,250. A fifth survivor who was sexually harassed got $584,500.
But according to the settlement, the survivors and their attorneys are not allowed to disclose their settlement payouts — which are publicly available — or “impugn or disparage” the School Board to