Courtroom to Classroom: There Is More to Sexual Harassment

Abstract

The legal recognition of sexual harassment has been an impetus for educators to grapple with the problem in public school settings. Long before the American Association of University Women (AAUW) surveyed students, legions of teachers, counselors, administrators, and parents knew that some level of sexual teasing, humiliation, and bullying characterized the daily lives of some students. The clarification of the terms and consequences of such behavior supplied much needed names and procedures, raised the awareness of both students and staff, and provided some guidelines for intervention. Catharine MacKinnon, a feminist legal theorist who has done much to put sexual harassment on the legal agenda, comments, Law is not everything in this respect, but it is not nothing either (Feminism 116). However, even as case law continues to evolve, it is clear that a legal approach to the issues of student-to-student sexual harassment in a public school setting is not sufficient. When language is transferred from the courtroom to the classroom without recognition of key differences in the populations being addressed, it loses its effectiveness and applicability. A school environment is different from an adult workplace; developing adolescents differ from adults, and the social context of a public middle school, while reflective of the larger adult culture, has some distinctive characteristics that must be considered in an effective sexual harassment policy. My purpose in this paper is to demonstrate the inadequacies of current legalistic school policies, to argue that such policies, while useful, do not justify confidence that some of the most troublesome and prevalent forms of sexual harassment in schools will be curtailed. I begin with a brief review of the legal definitions and decisions that have contributed to our current understanding of sexual harassment and that have influenced public school policies. Recognizing that there are several problems associated with laying the clean legal template over the messiness of life, I will discuss the specific area of (male) student to (female) student harassment in middle schools. Finally, I suggest a better way to frame student-to-student harassment in school policies. Two further points bear clarification. It seems to me that the voices and stories of students are most effective in illuminating the situations students experience. I will use examples drawn from published enth-