Schools

Harassment & Bullying in Schools

If we can’t turn to our principals and they’re not going to do anything for us, what’s the point?
That’s what they’re there for. They’re supposed to help us learn and we can’t learn in an environment
where we’re being called names and stuff. They’re not doing their jobs. ~ High School Female

Dr. Susan Strauss has a great depth and breadth of experience in the educational environment. She served as a high school teacher for 14 years, as a school nurse for one year, and enjoyed teaching as an adjunct university professor for several years. Additionally, in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), she delivered sexual harassment training to school districts throughout the state, wrote the middle/high school sexual harassment curriculum, and co-authored the elementary sexual harassment curriculum published by the MDE. She has been a featured speaker at K-12 and higher education educational conferences in Minnesota and other states. Susan serves as an expert witness for lawsuits dealing with sexual and other protected class harassment and negligence (bullying) in education.

Susan was invited to present at an international conference
in Bali to address harassment and bullying.

Participants were school officials from different countries in Europe, Indonesia, and Asia. She has also consulted with and
or presented about sexual harassment at conferences in
Canada, St. Maartin, Botswana, Thailand and Israel.

Susan consults with school districts to assist them in their discrimination, harassment and bullying prevention and intervention strategies, including the following examples:

Conducting harassment and bullying training for administrators, faculty, and staff
Providing input on districts’ policies and procedures
Identifying the Title IX Coordinator’s role and responsibilities
Facilitating strategic planning workshops for districts to establish measureable prevention and intervention strategies
Encouraging school districts to establish a harassment and bullying task force
Soliciting student voices in creating steps to minimize such misconduct
Assessing the district’s anti-harassment/bullying plan
Surveying students to determine the extent of bullying and harassment
Establishing a process for the district to examine how its climate creates and sustains bullying and harassment
Ensuring that district investigators are trained and competent in conducting investigations

Unfortunately, sexual and other protected class harassment, as well as bullying, continue to plague the K-12 school environment, at times rising to the level of criminal sexual assault or physical assault. The harassment can be male to female, female to male, female to female, and male to male; it occurs among both heterosexual and LGBT students, faculty and staff.

While the approaches used by many school districts to address harassment and bullying are consistent with the U. S. Department Office for Civil Rights (OCR) Guidance, Title IX, and other civil rights laws, Susan frequently observes in her role as expert witness that many schools conflate bullying and harassment, which interferes with how these two forms of misconduct are addressed. In many cases, policies and methods of discipline may not appropriately remedy the situation as required by OCR. It is not only the schools who conflate the terms bullying and harassment; the media and parents also use the words interchangeably. With the term bullying captivating the social narrative, confusion subsequently abounds. Furthering the confusion, there is no consistent definition of bullying neither in the research, nor in states’ school or workplace anti-bullying laws

There are many similarities between bullying and harassment, however, harassment is based on a student’s protected class, while bullying is not. A protected class - of which we all belong to many - refers to a “class” of characteristics in people that are legally protected from discrimination (which includes harassment). For example, race, religion, disability, sex, color, religion, sexual identity, and sexual orientation (Though OCR protects students based on their sexual orientation, there are only a handful of states and federal courts that do so). Less than 50% of states and a handful of federal courts legally protect gay, lesbian and bisexual students (and employees) from discrimination and harassment, but all students, including the LGBT student community, are federally protected from sexual harassment and harassment based on whether they fit the sex stereotype of masculine or feminine.

If a student is called names based on their protected class, such as “the N word”, or other religious, sexual, or disability-related words, the behavior may be harassment, not bullying, and requires the district to look to its harassment policy as a guideline in how to respond to the misconduct. If a student is “bullied” because of their protected class - even if there are no racial, religious, or sexual words used - it may be harassment, not bullying. Harassment is a violation of students’ civil rights. Even though all 50 states have school anti-bullying legislation, no laws on the books are actionable at this time, meaning that if the schools do not abide by the law, there is no legal redress for parents or students. Some anti-bullying laws go so far as to state that if a school does not abide by the law, they will not be held liable.

Dr. Strauss is available as a plaintiff or defense expert witness for school harassment lawsuits.

In Dr. Strauss’ work as an expert witness, she observes that only some schools provide training for teachers, staff, and administrators, and the training focuses solely on bullying. Likewise, educational programs for students also focus only on bullying. Susan does not see comprehensive sexual, or other protected class harassment training occurring in schools; districts may review the harassment policy in the beginning of the year and call it training, but such a review does not constitute training. As a result, teachers and administrators do not understand how to determine whether misconduct is bullying or harassment, which leads to further misunderstanding regarding the proper response, and may lead to further violations of students’ civil rights.

OCR requires a different response to harassment than bullying - the district must remedy the hostile academic environment. There are no requirements for bullying, although districts would be well advised to institute strong prevention and intervention strategies for both bullying and harassment. Merely encouraging students to wear orange during Anti-Bullying Month will not change behavior. Read more about OCR requirements.....

Further, there is regrettably no employee within most school districts who is competent in conducting investigations related to bullying and harassment. The issue is concerning enough that, in October of 2010, OCR sent a letter to all U.S. schools and universities who receive federal funding, explaining that even if they label harassment as bullying, they must know the difference between the two forms of misconduct, conduct an investigation, and remedy the environment.

In 1992, Dr. Strauss wrote the first book on sexual harassment published in the United States, Sexual Harassment and Teens: A Program for Positive Change. Her second book, Sexual Harassment and Bullying: A Guide to Keeping Kids Safe and Holding Schools Accountable, was published in 2012. Susan has also written over 30 book chapters and articles on sexual harassment and bullying and related topics.

Susan’s book, Sexual Harassment and Bullying: A Guide to Keeping Kids Safe and Holding Schools Accountable delves into these issues in great depth. Susan wrote this book in reaction to what she was observing in her work as an expert witness. The bullying framework is like a tsunami that has engulfed popular media and schools. It is true that bullying requires our attention, but far more kids are sexually harassed (50%) than bullied (30%), and 60% of students with disabilities are harassed. New research also demonstrates that kids who are sexually harassed suffer more severe emotional consequences than those who are bullied. Sadly, there are also younger and younger victims of sexual and other forms of harassment that are victimized. There appears to be an increase in same-sex harassment - not LGBT harassment. This harassment is generally seen in heterosexual boys harassing other boys because the targeted boy doesn’t fit the stereotype of what a boy should be. Girls are also harassing other girls, generally using sexually derogatory name-calling, rumors, and cyber harassment.
Read more about Susan's book......

Dr. Susan Strauss has many years of experience working, consulting and training in school settings,
and continues to provide her services in Minnesota and internationally.
Contact Dr. Strauss for your schools' harassment and bullying prevention and intervention strategies.