When a six-year-old boy was suspended from his elementary school in 1996 for stealing a kiss from a female classmate, social critics expressed surprise, consternation and amusement. Outside such rare cases, however, sexual harassment in elementary schools has a far more serious side, and the U.S. Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will tackle the issue in its upcoming term.
The case in question stems from a complaint filed by a Georgia woman claiming that her daughter, a fifth-grader, was the subject of a "barrage of sexual harassment and abuse" from a fellow student. No harmless schoolyard bully, the boy allegedly made repeated unwanted advances and apparently drove his victim to the brink of suicide.
The girl's mother says she reported each incident to school officials but the boy was not disciplined until she complained to the county sheriff. The school's indifference prompted her to sue the school district.
A federal appeals court ruled earlier this year that federal anti-discrimination laws do not apply to student-on-student harassment. However, legal precedent and the common good both support the female student; the Supreme Court will hopefully rule in her favor.
In a separate case decided in June, the court said school districts are liable if an administrator "has actual notice of or is deliberately indifferent to" sexual harassment of students by teachers.
Although the alleged harasser in the Georgia case was a student and not a teacher, the school district clearly failed in its duty to prevent problems they knew were occurring.
Authorities must avoid prosecuting children for benign, albeit unwanted, explorations of the opposite sex but a mechanism must exist to protect all victims from behavior that makes them uncomfortable, and in which all grievances can be heard fairly.
This mechanism cannot exist if teachers refuse to address sexual harassment complaints simply because they find such proceedings unpleasant.
Some critics contend that a ruling in favor of the Georgia lawsuit would lead to a bizarre sexual kindergarten McCarthyism in which terrified teachers fear forfeiting their jobs for not prosecuting sexual harassment vigorously enough.
But a favorable decision from the high court would not mandate that teachers automatically punish every student accused of sexual harassment. Instead, it would merely stipulate that they offer each complaint fair attention. Attentive teachers should already be handling sexual harassment in this fashion.
With this ruling, the court has the opportunity to prevent students from making unwanted advances without the spectacle of very young children facing disciplinary action for a very adult offense. It has the opportunity to ensure that teachers cannot turn their backs on students who need help. And it has the chance to make sure that the first environment that children encounter after leaving home is nurturing, not hostile.
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