Stupid and Irresponsible Responses To Sexual Harassment
While victims and targets get all the flack, administrators win hands down in the “stupid responses to sexual harassment” contest. Whether they are over-reacting, or ignoring blatantly serious problems, no one comes close when it comes to irresponsible, ignorant, or just-plain-lazy approaches to the problem.
Of these, administrators in Education are the kings and queens of stupidity. It’s scary that those in charge of teaching kids to think do not seem to be able to think themselves. (Seems that educators have not considered “education” as a method for dealing with SH.)
I’m starting this as a build-on-it post, and will be adding press releases, links to articles, and anecdotes of good examples of stupidity in dealing with/not dealing with sexual harassment.
If you come across any, or know of any, add them by posting a comment here. (Please note, all first comments must be approved by the admin before they will appear on the blog.)
Below are a few of what I’m sure will be many additions.
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Ignoring Serious Problems:
School officials ignore repeated complaints of teens exposing themselves to autistic classmate
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In a Communications course I took, one man complained that his grade-school-age son was getting in trouble at school for chronically molesting his female classmates. The father was positive that this was happening because of the extreme adult content in the R-rated movies they (father and son) watched together. He was really frustrated about it all. But when it was suggested that the father quit watching those kinds of movies with his son, he replied, shocked, “but I want to watch those movies!” –Ceara
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School board ignores complaint about sh by chairman, then suspends president for blowing the whistle
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The principal wouldn’t do anything because there were only two days of school left (from the SHS Stories and Experiences site)
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Six young men claim sex abuse by former East Stroudsburg University VP; cover-up alleged
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Over-reactions to Sexual Harassment: Can we even call any of these “sexual harassment?”
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Maryland 5-year-old accused of pinching buttocks
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Four-year-old suspended for hugging teacher’s aid
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“(This is) sort of like how I heard our custodian, Mike, was actually fired… it explains his absense. I heard the reason why is because he hugged a student, but everyone knew Mike and hugged him all the time. He didn’t make innapropriate advances to any student, and now he’s not there anymore.” –Lacune (Update: Mike was suspended, not fired, still it’s pretty extreme for this kind of “hugging.”)
