Sexual Harassment in Schools

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Sexual Harassment in Schools 

Nan Stein, Ph.D. 

National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center

Wellesley Centers for Women, Wellesely College Stone Center 

What is sexual harassment in schools?

• Sexual harassment in schools is unwanted and unwelcome behavior of a sexual nature that interferes with the right to receive an equal educational opportunity. It is a form of sex discrimination that is prohibited by Title IX, a Federal law establishing civil rights in education that addresses issues of sex discrimination and, by judicial precedent, sexual harassment. Sexually harassing behaviors that can interfere with one’s educational opportunity range from words (written and spoken) and gestures to unwanted physical contact. Some of the behaviors may also be criminal acts (assault and rape, attempted or completed and child sexual abuse).

•  Both the Federal courts and the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the United States Department of Education (ED) recognize two forms of unlawful sexual harassment in education. The first form is quid pro quo harassment as defined by the guidance in the "Federal Register," issued on March 13, 1997, by the OCR (ED, 1997). Quid pro quo harassment occurs when a school employee explicitly or implicitly conditions a student’s participation in an education program or activity or bases an educational decision on the student’s submission to unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature. Quid pro quo harassment is equally unlawful whether the student resists and suffers the threatened harm or submits and thus avoids the threatened harm (ED, 1997).
•  The second recognized form of sexual harassment in schools is hostile-environment harassment. Hostile-environment harassment includes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct of a sexual nature by an employee, another student, or a third party. This form of harassment requires that the harassing behavior be sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive so as to limit a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from an educational program or activity, or to create a hostile or abusive educational environment (ED, 1997). Typically, in school settings and particularly between students, allegations of hostile-environment harassment are more commonplace than allegations of quid pro quo harassment.

How common is sexual harassment in schools? 

Hostile Hallways, released in June 1993, was based on a survey conducted by Louis Harris and Associates, Inc., in partnership with Scholastic, Inc., with funding from the American Association of University Women Foundation. The national probability sample of schools and students is generalizable to all public school students in the 8th through 11th grade at the 95 percent confidence level, with a margin of error of ± .04 (AAUW, 1993, p. 5). This rigorous survey firmly established that there was a universal culture of sexual harassment with no significant racial differences flourishing in America’s secondary schools.

•  Hostile Hallways randomly sampled 1,632 boys and girls (828 boys and 779 girls) in grades 8–11 in 79 public schools; classes and grades were also randomly selected within the schools. A random sample of schools was selected from the database of public schools at the National Center for Education Statistics with a proportionally drawn sample by grade and regional location. African-American and Hispanic students were over-sampled. The sample was 15% African American, including 120 African-American females and 138 African-American males, and 9% Hispanic, including 70 Hispanic females and 78 Hispanic males.

According to Hostile Hallways, 83% of the girls and 60% of the boys reported experiencing sexual harassment in school.

• A similar study, conducted in Connecticut during the 1993-94 school year and released in January 1995, surveyed 547 public high school students in grades 10 through 12 . (In Our Own Backyard: Sexual Harassment in Connecticut's Public High Schools, Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, 1995) The representative sample of students from seven school districts selected by the Connecticut Department of Education included 308 females, 235 males, and 4 students who did not indicate their gender. Participating school districts were judged to be representative of the socioeconomic status and age of students throughout the State. The sample was 78% Caucasian, 8% African American, 6% Latino, 4% Asian, and 4% other or unidentified. No age range was provided in the report. Seventy-eight percent of students reported experiencing at least one incident of sexual harassment since starting high school, including 92% of the females and 57% of the males (Carlson, 1995; Potopowitz, 1995). Female students reported, on average, a higher number of incidents of unwanted behavior (since they started high school) than male students (4.5 incidents for girls and 1.6 for boys).What types of school sexual harassment are most common?