Legal Implications And Consequences Of Teacher-Student Sexual Harassment In Educational Institutions

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Legal Implications and Consequences of Teacher-Student Sexual Harassmentin Educational InstitutionsLEGAL ISSUEIn what grounds should a teacher be dismissed for lack of classroom management or inwhat grounds can a teacher be dismiss if astudent’sclaims that she was sexuallyharassedby a teacher?Sexual harassment is a serious offense and in case of children it is more hideous as theyare innocent. Children are vulnerable and thusthey can be trapped in situationswheretheybecome an easy target for sexual assault.Children canget exposed to sexual harassment invarious situations likeschools, hospitals and sometimes in neighborhood as well.They are aneasy target because they are young and mostly too weak to respond or even confront to their dearones.This makes the problems of sexual harassment with children very grave. Thus it isrecommended thatthere should be strict laws to tackle with such issues.Teacher studentrelationship is very pure but sometimes it is corrupted too.Teachers are found to be conductingunethical practices worst for of which is sexual harassment.A teacher hasto face serious implications if he was found doing unethical practices andunder thedomain of law sexual harassment have specific punishment.There are manyimplications to the problems. The firstconsideration wasby the school, they have to decidewhether they want to take the liability of the teacher’s wrong doing.There are again certaindisagreements to this. While many courts find it appropriate that theteacher should be held

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responsible but in certain cases the school or the educational institutions are held responsible forhiring such a teacher.It is big offence and sometimes a promiscuous teacher can become the liability of theschool and the school can be interrogated that people of such conduct should not have beenappointed as teachers. The responsibility is thus of theteacher and of the school as well. Sexualharassment is no smallercrime;the person needs to be unethical to be able to conduct suchcrime.There should be proper screening and interview taken before hiring the teachers. If aperson with a bad personal record is somehow taken in the school, then the sole responsibilitygoes to theschool who has appointed him.These things matter when appointments aredoneforhiring the teachers.Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1971is responsible for suchaction. It states that the organization is held responsible when a person with bad personal recordwas found committing a crime and the charges are serious when the working scenario is teachingand the crime is sexual harassment.The problem also becomes complicated when the actions are done deliberately as an actfor sexual discrimination. Sexbased discrimination are most clear by theuse ofinappropriatewords, signs, leer, sexual comments andinappropriatetough by the teacher to the students.Theseall haveconsequenceswhich can be brought under theTitle IX of the Education Amendmentsof 1971for sexual discrimination and sexual harassment.The law makes the student claimagainst the school for conducting abusive misconductby a teacher and thus the school is liable toa legal action.There should be restrictionson the teacher’s part if there is a complaint registeredfor the teacher. There are many cases in which the student filed a report for the misconduct of ateacher which might include a lewd remark, an inappropriate or categorized conduct towards herwhich was an indication that the teacher’s intentions are not right in which case the responsibility

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of the institution is to remove the teacher from working. The school can face severeconsequences if therewerereports chargedagainstthe teacher and it was not removed and therehave been cases like that. The school is fully held responsible for the kind of act his employeesasteachersdo and they are not exempted if found guilty.I.Statement of the IssueThe statement of the issue is clear that theteacher is a very responsible position andany teacher taking unfair advantage of student has serious implication sunder law.The law has statements for teachers as well as for theeducational institutions hiringsuch teachers.There is a great responsibility which comesalong with every positionand teaching is a professional which includes children from very young age.Involving with them in any sort of sexual interactions or just intending to do soresults in a legal action. The actions of sexualharassmentrange fromrape tobeingsexually discriminated in the class,or passing remarks which have sexualconnotations to it.A.What is the Legal Issue Involved?The legal issue involved is the victim being juvenile. Teacher being in apositionwhere he should not be conducting suchbehavior as it is a position ofdignity.Thereare severe punishments depending on the severity of the case. A rape case resultsinlong term imprisonment,whilesexually discriminated remarksin a studyingenvironmentmight just result in a warning.The court cases pay attention to the age ofthe victim, intention of the teacher and the situation in which a crime is done. There isa responsibilityof the institution as wellto hire teachers of good ethical conduct and
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