MORRIS — Independent School District #3 of Okmulgee County, commonly known as Morris Public Schools, has been embroiled in legal turmoil for two years and will remain so for at least several more months.
As an illustration, former Morris High School student Natalie Parker filed a formal complaint on April 29, 2021, alleging that Clayton Swem, identified as a school district monitor, sexually harassed her and attempted to initiate a “sexually inappropriate conversation” with her three days earlier.
“Can I pull your hair?” Parker claims Swem asked. “I’ve never pulled pigtails like that before.”
After Parker’s mother complained to the school, then-High School Principal Andrew “Buck” Ewton subsequently summoned Swem to a face-to-face meeting with the girl and her mother. During the recorded meeting, Swem is heard to apologize and claimed, “I was joking around. … My emotions have went up and down a little bit lately.”
According to Mvskoke Media, the complaint was to be forwarded to the school’s Title IX coordinator, who would appoint a complaint Investigator and Decision Maker to investigate the complaint. “The first and only Title IX training they received at that time was on May 4, 2021, five days after Parker had filed the complaint.”
Mvskoke Media also reported, “At the time of the incident with Parker it appears that Morris School District had no Title IX policy in place. No policy was posted on the Morris School District site nor was there contact information for a Title IX Coordinator provided as is required.”
Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the U.S. that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government.
Morris School District is located within the boundaries of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Reservation. As of 2017 it had an enrollment of 1,026 students, 28.9% of whom were Native American.
Morris Public Schools sued by former student
Natalie Parker, now 18 or 19, filed suit in Okmulgee County District Court against Clayton Swem, 60, and Morris Public Schools on Oct. 6, 2022, but the school district got the suit moved to the Eastern District federal court at Muskogee.
On March 31, 2023, the school district asserted that Parker “fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted,” failed to establish she has suffered a recognized deprivation, failed to establish that any conduct by the school district “rises to a level sufficient to ‘shock the conscience’,” argued that the district’s acts or omissions “were not the proximate cause” of Parker’s “injuries, if any,” and claimed the school district is exempt from liability for “actions taken by its employees outside the scope of their duties” for the school.
In her lawsuit, Parker also alleged that Morris Public Schools “failed to conduct a background search of Mr. Swem.” If they had, they would have discovered that he “pled guilty to a charge of indecent exposure.”
Mvskoke Media, citing court testimony printed in a Colorado Springs newspaper, reported that Swem was arrested and convicted in Pueblo, Colorado, in 1984 and served 10 days for indecent exposure.
While on probation he was charged with robbery, attempted sexual assault, soliciting a juvenile for prostitution, armed robbery, indecent exposure, sexual assault, and a crime of violence. Those events occurred on Oct. 18, 1984.
Swem pleaded guilty to a single count of robbery in exchange for dismissal of the other charges, and was sentenced in March 1985 to four years in a Colorado prison. He was released before serving the entire sentence, but after a parole violation in 1986 he was ordered in 1987 to complete his prison term.
It is unclear from the school district’s website whether Swem is still an employee.
Morris schoolteacher indicted on 17 counts
On July 1, 2021, Morris High School teacher Dallas Tyler Ewton was charged in Muskogee’s federal district court and was indicted two weeks later on 17 felony charges.
He was named in six counts of aggravated sexual abuse in Indian Country; six counts of sexual abuse of a minor in Indian Country; four counts of abusive sexual contact in Indian Country; and one count of tampering with a witness.
Ewton pleaded with the 10th Circuit of Appeals on Sept. 29, 2021, to overturn the district court’s pretrial detention order, but the 10th Circuit upheld the order.
“Mr. Ewton has failed to show that the district court erred in concluding that the government met its burden of showing he poses a serious risk of danger to the community if he is released and that no condition or combination of conditions could assure the safety of the community,” the appellate judges wrote.
Ewton, 41, son of Buck Ewton, pleaded guilty on July 7, 2022, to two counts of sexual abuse of a minor in Indian Country and one count of abusive sexual contact in Indian Country. He has not yet been sentenced, court records indicate.
Buck Ewton resigned as MHS principal and was succeeded by Kevin Younger.
Parent of abused child sues Morris schools, teacher, administrators
Meanwhile, the parent of one of the minor children abused by Dallas Ewton filed suit in federal district court at Muskogee on Oct. 12, 2021, against Dallas Ewton and his father Buck Ewton, the former high school principal, along with Morris School Supt. Chris Karch and the school district itself.
“Jane Doe” accused Dallas Ewton, formerly a math teacher, of “repeated assault and harassment” of her daughter; charged MPS with fostering an “atmosphere of ignoring signs of sexual assault”; and claims the school, Buck Ewton and Chris Karch “were well aware that Dallas Ewton posed a danger to female MPS students.”
The lawsuit petition says the MPS Student Handbook “makes no mention of Title IX or the procedures for how to report an alleged Title IX violation.”
A section of the MPS website is labeled as “Title IX” but the webpage “contains nothing but printouts of a Title IX presentation made by an attorney for the Oklahoma State School Boards Association.” The PowerPoint “is clearly intended for use by school administrators, not the general public.” The document “does nothing to inform students about the Title IX standards or how to submit a complaint.”
Also, “[u]pon information and belief, MPS did not even have a Title IX Coordinator during the period Dallas Ewton was sexually preying” on her daughter, Jane Doe alleges. Additionally, Morris Public School District “was aware that its Title IX policies were lacking…”
A pretrial conference in that case is scheduled for Jan. 4, 2024. A jury trial estimated to last four to five days and presided over by U.S. Magistrate Judge Jason A. Robertson is tentatively set to begin on Jan. 15, 2024.