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Sexual Harassment
Policies Need Reform
Parents -- lock up your sons
and daughters! From grade school to grad
symposiums, school corridors are more sexually
dangerous than city streets. That's the message
some parents will take away from two recent and
closely connected events. It is a wrong message,
based on fear mongering and bias rather than
fact.
The two events: On January
30th, www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,184261,00.html
a 6-year-old Massachusetts schoolboy allegedly
slipped two fingers into the back waistband of a
female classmate who was in front of him in class;
he said she'd poked him first. The school reported
the boy to the police and the local district
attorney's office for sexual harassment. Perhaps
because Massachusetts' criminal law does not apply
to anyone under 7, no charges ensued. Instead, the
boy was suspended from school for three
days.
A week earlier, on January
24th, the American Association of University Women
(AAUW) Education Foundation released a report:
www.aauw.org/research/dtl.cfm
"Drawing the Line: Sexual Harassment on Campus
(2006)". The gist: despite decades of aggressive
and hugely expensive anti-harassment campaigns,
children have a 62% chance of suffering sexual
harassment if they step onto a campus.
"Drawing the Line"
continues a theme advanced by the AAUW in an
earlier report www.aauw.org/research/girls_education/hostile.cfm
"Hostile Hallways: Bullying, Teasing, and Sexual
Harassment in School" (2001). From elementary
school onward, "Hostile Hallways" found 83% of
girls and 79% of boys experienced sexual
harassment.
The AAUW usually follows
such reports with policy recommendations or
guidebooks that detail how to crackdown on
harassers. For example, "Hostile Hallways" was
followed by the guidebook www.aauw.org/ef/harass/pdf/completeguide.pdf
"Harassment-Free Hallways" (2003). The AAUW is
widely credited with spreading awareness of and
zero tolerance toward sexual harassment throughout
the education system.
Greg Lukianoff, President
of the Foundation for Individual Rights in
Education (FIRE), thinks they should be credited
with spreading gross misinformation and wholesale
panic. Lukianoff www.thefire.org/index.php/article/6727.html
attacks "Drawing the
Line" (and other AAUW material) on the
fundamentals. He rejects their definition of sexual
harassment.
Lukianoff starts with the
www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/qa-sexharass.html
Department of
Education's definition: "unwelcome conduct of a
sexual nature…so severe, persistent, or
pervasive that it affects a student's ability to
participate in or benefit from an education program
or activity, or creates an intimidating,
threatening or abusive educational environment."
This is a legal definition which many, like me,
would argue is far too broad and vague.
The definition offered by
the AAUW is broader and vaguer. "Drawing the Line"
defines sexual harassment as "unwanted and
unwelcome sexual behavior which interferes with
your life" (p2). Fifteen types of behavior
constitute sexual harassment. Topping the report's
list are "sexual comments, jokes, gestures, or
looks."
In short, if someone
shoots an unwanted "sexual look" your way, you've
been sexually harassed. (Presumably the recipient
of the look judges the sexual content as well as
the 'welcome factor'.)
"Drawing the Line" then
asks surveyed students, "During your whole college
life" has anyone ever directed "sexual comments,
jokes, gestures, or looks" toward you or anyone you
know personally? (pp.2-3)
The question echoes one
asked in "Harassment-Free Hallways." Right after a
'stats panel' stating that over 80% of their peers
report harassment, students are asked about their
own experience of "sexual comments, jokes, teasing,
gestures, or looks." In essence, they are asked,
"are you like other kids?"
Given the broad definition
and how questions suggest their own answers, it is
not surprising that AAUW finds sexual harassment
running rampant.
It is surprising that
schools so often use AAUW-style definitions to set
policy. At best, the AAUW reports are interesting
sociological surveys of how students view their
environment. Realistically, they are biased and
self-administered reports from students, who are
often children. They should never be a basis for
law or policy.
As Lukianoff observes,
this is precisely what has happened. "With millions
of students allegedly believing they were
'harassed' by merely rude or bawdy speech, it is no
wonder that colleges and universities are inundated
with frivolous harassment claims and lawsuits."
Thus, the created hysteria "endangers free
expression while trivializing actual
harassment."
In grade schools, it also
criminalizes normal childhood behavior like poking
a boy or girl you like. Some view the suspended
Massachusetts 6-year-old as an extreme example to
be dismissed as an aberration.
The facts frown upon this
interpretation. The school's reaction was not
isolated. Since 1996, when www.time.com/time/international/1996/961007/education.html
6-year-old Johnathan Prevette was separated from
his classmates in Lexington, N.C. for kissing a
little girl on the cheek, similar reports have been
in the news. (And they are only the ones that are
noticed.)
Moreover, the
Massachusetts School Committee in question defines
sexual harassment as "uninvited physical contact
such as touching, hugging, patting or pinching."
The boy's behavior fit that description. When
confronted by an outraged mother, school officials
defended their actions as 'by the book.' Indeed,
school superintendent Basan Nembirkow
www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/02/11/in_brockton_boys_parents_hire_lawyer/
said the matter "got out of hand" because the
district's sexual harassment policy was closely
followed.
What does it say of a law
that is blatantly unjust when enforced as
written?
I think it says the law
should be scrapped along with the assumptions it
rode in on. The law should be ripped to shreds, not
just modified.
The Massachusetts school
is modifying its policy in the face of
overwhelmingly hostile media coverage and
www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/02/11/schools_change_policy_parents_hire_lawyer/
a pending lawsuit. That's an inadequate step in the
right direction.
Another step is to hold
the AAUW responsible for the harm wrought to
children by biased reports that lump "comments,
jokes, teasing, gestures, or looks" in with real
violence.
©2007, Wendy
McElroy
* * *
Wendy
McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com
and a research fellow for The Independent Institute
in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of
many books and articles, including her latest book,
Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the
21st Century. She lives with her husband in
Canada. E-Mail.
Also, see her daily blog at www.zetetics.com/mac
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