Abstract
The first national study of sexual harassment in public schools indicated that eighty-five percent of girls and seventy-six percent of boys in grades eight through eleven have experienced sexual harassment; seventy-nine percent of those reporting sexual harassment said that other students were the perpetrators.' With so many students being harassed, it is no wonder that some of them have turned to teachers, principals, and parents to remedy the problem. However, what should a child and her parent do when a principal responds by asking, "Why is [your daughter] the only one complaining?, 3 or when a teacher says, "Boys will be boys."? In situations where parents have found the schools' solutions, or lack thereof, wanting, they have turned to the legal system to protect their children. Federal district and circuit courts, however, have had difficulty setting standards for when and if a school district is liable for studenton-student sexual harassment. At least one court has held that school districts can never be liable, while others have held that a school district can be liable for failing to respond to harassment of which it has knowledge
Recommended Citation
Monica D. Hutchinson,
What You Know About and Don't Deal with Can Cost You: A School District's Potential Liability for Student-on-Student Sexual Harassment,
65 Mo. L. Rev.
(2000)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.missouri.edu/mlr/vol65/iss2/4