Some have argued that even consensual sexual interactions between students and teachers constitute harassment because the inherent power differential creates a dynamic in which "mutual consent" is impossible.
For example, this could be seen if a male is exhibiting behavior not seen to peers as being masculine, so others may label him with homophobic slurs in order to reinforce gender conformity through a form of nonphysical sexual harassment.
In the interview, Shakeshaft also states that the problem seems to be increasing from the 9.6 percent figure she found in 2004 to a 17.4 percent of students in public schools who have experienced educator sexual misconduct as found in a study "Title IX Policy Implementation and Sexual Harassment Prevalence in K-12 Schools"[16] by Billie Jo Grant et al published in the 2023 Educational Policy publication using data from the 2018-2019 year.
For example, she states hugs can be a boundary violation but if no one mentions the red flag, this is seen as standard conduct, and a potential abuser can move on to more touching after having normalized it with the students and also the observers.
In addition, she notes administrator resistance, staff and student support for the perpetrator, mass outrage by parents, and punishing of the victim as possible outcomes in the cases she's researched.
[17] In a national survey conducted for the AAUW Educational Foundation in 2000, it was found that roughly 290,000 students experienced some sort of physical sexual abuse by a public school employee between 1991 and 2000.
[6] Most complaints about a teacher's behavior tend to center around what is felt to be inappropriate speech in a class or discussion, such as using sexist or sexual references to make a point.
This may involve close working relationships in tutorials or laboratories, individual meetings to discuss projects or essays, and more casual occasions for intellectual give and take.
In her September 2001 essay in Harper's Magazine, The Higher Yearning, academic Christina Nehring celebrated the educative nature of such sexual relationships: "Teacher-student chemistry is what fires much of the best work that goes in universities, even today".
(Gallop, 1997) However, it is this parallel that many say is the reason teacher-pupil sexual contact and relations are immoral because they are too closely akin to incest, and similar long-term damages can result.
'In an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education, a dean at the University of Texas at Austin stated he'd like to crack down on consensual relationships between professors and students.
James got a new teaching job in Colorado [47] at the Alexander Dawson school and later "pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and sexual exploitation of a child, according to online court records" as stated in the Colorado Hometown Weekly [48] In 2018, a law called Pass the Trash was in effect in New Jersey[49] that sets guidelines for reference checks that includes looking into sexual harassment, and also encompasses nonpublic schools.
[50][51] A 2016 USA Today piece[52] on how teachers who abuse find new jobs in education stated that, "Private schools and youth organizations are especially at risk.
They are left on their own to perform background checks of new hires and generally have no access to the sole tracking system of teachers who were disciplined by state authorities."
[60] A 2020 study by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights based on data from the 2017-18 school year on sexual assault and rape also showed a growing problem.
One rector of St. Paul's in 1996 published an article that stated, ""Although the old-monied families still exert a considerable influence and control over their alma maters, they often do so in ways that reflect their own social and financial insecurities.
A book written about student sexual misconduct in 1990 at St. Paul's that was met with administrative inaction is Lacy Crawford's "Notes on a Silencing".
In 2023, Prout's parents wrote an opinion article in the Citizen Times that described an institutional approach to treating victims of sexual assault as DARVO, a term coined by psychologist Jennifer Freyd that stands for deny, attack and reverse, victim and offender[68] A related concept is institutional betrayal another term coined by Jennifer Freyd or Organizational Betrayal, the name for a book coming out on the subject by Carol Shakeshaft,[69][70] who studies how to prevent educator sexual misconduct.
In 2017, the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office started a criminal investigation into St. Paul's sexual misconduct going back decades but prompted by the Owen Labrie case.
"[79] The Venture County District Attorney's office said in December 2022 that it found more than 50 instances where the school failed to make a mandated report but that it was past the statute of limitations for those issues.
[86] Vanity Fair covered similar scandals in feature articles "The Prep School and Predator"[87] about Marlborough School in Los Angeles in March 2015, "St. George's Hidden Dragons" about St. George's in Rhode Island in 2016, "Dangerous Privilege" in 2016 also about St. Paul's, "The Code of Silence" in 2019 about Brett Kavanaugh's Georgetown Prep in Bethesda, Maryland, and "Mr. Weber's Confession" about Phillips Exeter in Exeter, New Hampshire in 2021.
To report such behaviour is difficult for those concerned, given that scientists-in-training often dependent on a single high-profile mentor for research funding, job recommendations and fieldwork.
The Department of Education has redefined the term sexual harassment in a Dear Colleague letter in 2011[108][109] and 2020 during the Trump administration,[110][111] and again in April 2024 issued more regulatory changes.
[115] A reanalysis of the AAUW data found that victims of sexual harassment by teachers reported experiencing adverse health effects because of the abuse.
Of the women who have approached her to share their own experiences of being sexually harassed by their professors, feminist author Naomi Wolf wrote: I am ashamed of what I tell them: that they should indeed worry about making an accusation because what they fear is likely to come true.
[122] In Kansas, for example, a private school teacher is being charged under outdated breach of privacy law for recording over 100 female students in a state of undress over a period of 5 years.
[126] When a sixth grade girl was sexually harassed by some of her male peers, under Title IX, she was able to file charges against her school district, teacher, and assistant superintendent, and receive compensation for the damages.
[126] Schools, under Title IX, are required to investigate a situation where there is a report of sexual harassment as well as formally addressing the issue to students, staff, and parents as a preventative measure.
The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has mandated that schools create policies for sexual harassment as well as procedures for how to handle reports of these instances.
[129] It is often recommended that consistent anti-sexual harassment workshops begin in the younger grades so that students remain informed and the policies are strongly enforced.