Fall 1996 Human Rights Magazine

By Verna Williams

Far from being an aberration, the experiences of students in these cases mirror those of many girls and young women attending schools across this country. According to a study commissioned by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation (AAUW), 85 percent of girls surveyed had experienced some form of sexual harassment. By far, most of the harassment occurs at the hands of other students. AAUW found that, of the students reporting harassment, four out of five had been harassed by a fellow student.

For many students, sexual harassment is a daily occurrence, affecting children of all ages. African American girls reported experiencing sexual harassment even before reaching grade six. This misconduct exacts a serious price from its victims, with girls losing interest in school and, as a result, performing below their capabilities in school. Strikingly, however, few girls report harassment to school officials when it occurs: only 14 percent of girls surveyed by AAUW told a teacher they had been harassed, very likely because of schools' reluctance to address this issue.

Unfortunately many schools do nothing in the face of sexual harassment. Despite Title IX's implementing regulations, which require schools to formulate policies to address sex discrimination in all its forms, most schools do not have policies on sexual harassment. Only 8 percent of respondents to a study conducted by the NOW Legal Defense Fund and Wellesley College Center for Women had such policies.

In the absence of a policy, schools are less likely to take action against an alleged harasser: according to the NOW/Wellesley study, schools with policies took action in 84 percent of cases, compared to schools without policies doing so only 52 percent of the time. In the face of such inaction, reporting sexual harassment to school officials must appear to be a futile exercise for students.

The reasons for schools' failure to act are many--a lack of understanding about what constitutes sexual harassment and a school's obligation to address it, reluctance to discipline boys for engaging in what is viewed as "harmless teasing," or adherence to outmoded beliefs concerning the manner in which boys and girls relate to one another.

Irrespective of the underlying rationale, knowing inaction by school officials in the face of such misconduct sends girls and boys the powerful message that sexually abusing girls is acceptable behavior that need not be taken seriously--not the type of lessons schools should be imparting to students. By taking steps to ensure that students treat one another with respect and demonstrating that sexual harassment will not be tolerated under any circumstances, schools could prevent hostile environments from developing in the first place, and, in so doing, fulfill their obligations to carry out Title IX's broad mandate against sex discrimination in education.

As published in Human Rights, Fall 1996, Vol. 23, No. 4, p.21.