PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A distraught high school student asked school officials for help when another student videotaped him having sex on a school trip to Morocco but was instead suspended over the off-campus behavior, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Philadelphia.

Anders Hemdal, 16, accuses the Schuylkill Valley School District of unfairly suspending him for "disorderly conduct," when he said the sexual activity with his girlfriend of two years, a fellow student, was consensual and legal.

Rules for the Spanish Club trip to Spain and Morocco in April said students would be sent home — not suspended — if they engaged in sexual activity and other proscribed behavior, according to a document attached to the lawsuit. And the student code of conduct prohibits sexual activity only on campus.

Hemdal wants the four-day suspension removed from his academic record and seeks more than $75,000 in damages for being denied an education without due process and for emotional distress and invasion of privacy.

"He's the victim. He self-reported this. And now you're going to suspend him?" family lawyer Joshua Prince said Monday. "He didn't cause the criminality to occur."

Superintendent Warren Mata declined to comment Monday, saying the district hadn't seen the lawsuit.

Hemdal's then-girlfriend was also suspended, as was the third student, who is accused of making the video on a cellphone and distributing it to other students. That student also faces unspecified juvenile charges in Berks County, according to the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Schuylkill Valley High School officials told teachers there was a sex tape circulating involving Hemdal and the girlfriend and asked them to report anything they heard about it, Prince said Monday. The school unnecessarily named them, prompting the lawsuit's invasion of privacy claim, he said. The lawyer didn't know how the other student was able to make the video, but he said it was probably not done out of malice.

"He was probably goofing around and never thought twice about the criminality of it. I don't think he meant any ill will by it," Prince said.

Hemdal's father, Niklas, is a former school board member and mayor of Leesport, where the family lives. He didn't immediately return an email, but the parents told The Philadelphia Inquirer on Saturday that they were concerned about their son's emotional welfare when they told school officials about the videotape in April.

"It was devastating for all of us," his mother, Stephanie Hemdal, told the newspaper. "We had many meetings with the girlfriend's family to talk about what we were going to do and how we would support our children through this. Our primary concern was their emotional health."

They were also thinking of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, who had committed suicide shortly after his roommate used a computer webcam to watch his sexual encounter with another man.

Instead of offering help, high school officials suspended Hemdal without a proper hearing or appeal process, the lawsuit charges.

All three students involved remain at the high school, though Hemdal and the girl are no longer dating, the suit said.
http://www.chron.com/news/article/Pa-teen-sues-over-school-trip-sex-tape-suspension-3970627.php