My Teenage Daughter Is Dealing With Harassment At School From The Boy That Raped Her

Location: Oklahoma.

Throwaway account in case anyone involved finds this.

Looking for some advice here. Approximately 8 months ago, my teenage daughter (16) suddenly broke up with her boyfriend (16) of a few months. It was surprising to us at the time because up until the day they split up, they were head over heels with each other and the explanation we got from our daughter was that they were planning to go to different faraway colleges so it felt like a waste to stay together though highschool. Supposedly the breakup was amicable and jointly decided.

A few weeks after the breakup, she started complaining that he would steal/break her things, so we tried reaching out to his parents (who we previously had a neutral to good relationship with). They were very standoff-ish and refused to meet.

Fast forward to August of this year. My daughter finally got up the courage to tell me that her ex had sexually assaulted her. She refused to go into details about what exactly had happened. Just that he had tried to initiate sexual relations multiple times, and she had always told him no, and that she thought he understood that. Then one day while hanging out at his house, he assaulted her upstairs while his parents were cooking downstairs.

My daughter and this boy are not only in a large extracurricular class together, but also in the same work group. So my first action was to make the teachers aware of the situation and the harassment by her ex.

The harassment has only gotten worse since. The boy has started dating another girl and both of their friend groups have started ridiculing my daughter endlessly.

Tonight, my daughter finally admitted that he raped her via penetration. Our initial advice when she told us about it back in August was to stop telling kids publicly at school because we were afraid of getting hit with a slander lawsuit. We were afraid that without proof, months after the event, that she could be opening herself up to damages.

However, we also found out tonight that she still has text messages from the boy admitting what happened and that there was no explicit expressed consent.

I feel like I have let my daughter down with my handling of the situation, and I'm filled with rage over it all, but I don't know what to do. Where do I go from here?