A Maine high school sophomore took a stand against what she says is her school’s inaction toward sexual assault and harassment — and ended up suspended for bullying.

Aela Mansmann, 15, was disturbed by her classmates’ stories of sexual abuse, as none of their alleged abusers had faced consequences, she told BuzzFeed News.

So the teen put an anonymous sticky note on the bathroom wall at Cape Elizabeth High School with the glaring message: “There’s a rapist in our school and you know who it is.”

Mansmann’s mom, Shael Norris, tells PEOPLE, “In this day and age of social media and all other vehicles, she went old school. I am very proud of her.”

However, the school administration quickly launched an investigation as to who had posted the message, which inspired many similar sticky notes, according to the report.

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Mansmann was called in for questioning after surveillance tapes caught her exiting the bathroom, and was put through interviews for three weeks. She was then reported to administrators as a bully, she told BuzzFeed News.

She was soon suspended along with two other students for three days for violating anti-bullying policies.

“That kinda confuses me, right? Because this person wasn’t identified in the sticky notes. In fact, there’s more than one person that was being referred to. Yet this person self-identified feeling targeted, so the school took steps to suspend me versus further investigating that self-identification,” Mansmann said.

In a statement obtained by NBC affiliate WCSH, Superintendent Donna Wolfram defended the decision to suspend Mansmann, citing the school’s anti-bullying policies.

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“The Cape Elizabeth Schools have never disciplined a student for advocating for their peers or their views on cultural, social and political matters,” the statement read. “It is important to understand, however, that when a student’s speech bullies another student, we are required by law and by School Board policy to investigate and take prompt action, even if the same student has also spoken out on a matter of public concern.”

The school’s policy defines bullying as physically harming a student or damaging a student’s property, placing a student in reasonable fear of physical harm, creating an intimidating or hostile educational environment for the student, or interfering with the student’s academic performance or ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities or privileges provided by the school, among other things.

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