Tuesday, May 25, 1999
Schools ahead of court on sexual harassment
Justices expand districts' liability
BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
In March, when Cincinnati Public Schools administrators revised the district's sexual harassment policy, they knew the U.S. Supreme Court was looking at a Georgia case regarding school response to student-on-student complaints of sexual harassment.
“We knew the case was pending,” CPS general counsel John Concannon said, “but we didn't know which way it would go.”
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court made its decision, ruling that educators who fail to stop students from sexually harassing other students may be violating a federal anti-bias law and can be forced to pay victims.
The 5-4 decision is enormously important for all schools — from elementary to university levels — that accept federal money.
CPS is ready. Its policy reads that sexual harassment “is also prohibited among students, and an employee's failure to respond to possible sexual harassment among students is subject to intervention and discipline.”
The court's decision didn't surprise Mr. Concannon.
“It's not really different than if there were a big hole in the playground and administrators refused to do anything about it,” he said. “When kids are at school, we're their caretakers, and it's our responsibility to protect them from violence, injury or mistreatment by other students. It just makes sense to do this.”
Miami University already
covers student complaints about other students in its sexual harassment policy, spokeswoman Holly Wissing said.
“It applies to all faculty, staff and students, and can lead to a letter of reprimand, to dismissal to suspension,” she said.
The Supreme Court ruled that a Georgia school district can be held financially responsible for the sexual harassment of a fifth-grade girl if officials with the authority to help her knew about the harassment but were “deliberately indifferent” to it.
Such harassment has to be severe and pervasive, the court said as it revived the girl's lawsuit against her school district and sent the case back to a lower court for more study.
That legal standard is a difficult one to prove, and is the same standard the justices adopted last June when ruling that school districts can be held responsible when teachers sexually harass students.
“Recipients of federal funding may be liable for subjecting their students to discrimination where the recipient is deliberately indifferent to known acts of student-on-student sexual harassment and the harasser is under the school's disciplinary authority,” Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote for the court.
Aurelia Davis had sued the Monroe County school board and two officials over a five-month “barrage of sexual harassment and abuse” her daughter LaShonda allegedly endured from a fellow fifth-grader at Hubbard Elementary School in Forsyth, Ga. in 1992-93.
The boy, identified in court papers as G.F., allegedly touched LaShonda's breasts, rubbed against her suggestively and repeatedly told her he wanted to have sex with her.
Scott Greenwood, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer in Cincinnati, said Monday's Supreme Court ruling “is logical. When schools are in the position of parents, they have to follow federal statutes.”
Bob Chase, president of the 2.4 million-member National Education Association, issued a statement supporting the decision. “The lesson here is that school districts should work to prevent sexual harassment from occurring in the first place through education and training programs for students and staff.”
Said Mr. Concannon, the CPS lawyer: “We're going to do extensive training. We're going to find a way for classroom teachers to explain it (to elementary school students).”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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