The American Association of University Women recently released a follow-up to its 1993 Hostile Hallways study of sexual harassment. The 2001 version claims that sexual harassment in American schools is at almost endemic levels despite widespread adoption of sexual harassment policies in those schools. But there is still a lot of debate over exactly what the AAUW is measuring and what, if anything, should be done about it.
AAUW certainly presents some headline-generating numbers. It surveyed students in the 8th through 11th grades at 2,064 public schools and found that 83 percent of girls and 79 percent of boys reported experiencing at least one incident of harassment. One in four students said they experienced harassment “often.”
A major problem with the AAUW study, however, is that it includes such a wide range of actions under sexual harassment that the reader begins to suspect that the small number of students who said they had never experienced such harassment simply didn’t understand the questions in the survey.
Among other things the AAUW considers sexual harassment, for example, are rumors, sexually explicit jokes and gestures, graffiti (!), and taunting. Even speculation about sexual identity is considered harassment; the AAUW explicitly identified as non-physical harassment statements that claim a given student is homosexual.
Is it any surprise with such a broad definition of harassment that 35 percent of students reported than they experienced their first incident in elementary school?
The AAUW says that it is not interested in a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment, but at the same time Executive Director Jacqueline Woods seems surprised that, “While students say they are aware of school policies dealing with sexual harassment, increased awareness has not translated into fewer incidents of sexual harassment in school life.”
As Cathy Young pointed out to Fox News,
When we discuss this we really have to look at the underlying issue of how we define sexual harassment and bullying. If they basically define bullying as anytime someone says something offensive to you, well as much as I can’t condone that behavior, you’re always going to have kids who say mean and hurtful things. I don’t know if you can police every sexual joke said in the hallway. I’m not sure this is something you can legislate.
Sources:
Critics say politics distorts findings in sex harassment study. Kelley Beaucar, Fox News, June 7, 2001.
Sexual harassment widespread in nation’s schools, new AAUW report finds. American Association of University Women, Press Release, 2001.