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.

In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld immigration laws which make it much more difficult for foreign-born individuals with American fathers to obtain U.S. citizenship than for foreign-born individuals whose mothers are American. The National Women’s Law Center had argued that sexual distinction violated the guarantee of equal protection before the law.

For children born of mothers who are American citizens, citizenship is all but automatic. For a child born outside the United States whose father is an American citizen, but whose mother is not, however, the barrier is much higher. Specifically, somebody must begin a formal action to prove paternity before the child reaches his or her 18th birthday.

The case before the court involved Tuan Ahn Nguyen. Nguyen was born in Vietnam to an American serviceman and a Vietnamese mother. Nguyen’s father, Joseph Boulais, obtained custody of the Nguyen and brought him back to live in the United States at the end of the Vietnam War. Boulais failed, however, to establish legal paternity and and never attempted to have his son made a naturalized citizen.

In the early 1990s, Nguyen plead guilty to two counts of sexual abuse of a minor and was sentenced to 16 years in jail. In 1995, the Immigration and Naturalization Service decided to deport Nguyen back to Vietnam. Boulais went to court and DNA evidence proved that he was indeed Ngueyn’s father, but the INS ruled that since Boulais failed to establish legal paternity before his son’s 18th birthday that the results of the DNA test were irrelevant.

In upholding the INS rules, the Supreme Court did little more than argue on behalf of age-old sexual stereotypes. According to the majority opinion,

A gender-based classification withstands equal protection scrutiny if it serves important governmental objectives and the discriminatory means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives. United States v. Virginia, 518 U.S. 515, 533. Congress’ decision to impose different requirements on unmarried fathers and unmarried mothers is based on the significant difference between their respective relationships to the potential citizen at the time of birth…

Writing for the dissenters was Sandra Day O’Connor who wrote,

Under the present law, the statute on its face accords different treatment to a mother who is by nature present at birth and a father who is by choice present at birth even though those two individuals are similarly situated with respect to the “opportunity” for a relationship. The mother can transmit her citizenship at birth, but the father cannot do so in the absence of at least one other affirmative act. The different statutory treatment is solely on account of the sex of the similarly situated individuals. This type of treatment is patently inconsistent with the promise of equal protection of laws.

Source:

Parent’s Sex May Be Factor in Citizenship, Court Rules. Charles Lane, The Washington Post, June 12, 2001.

Tuan Anh Nguyen v. INS (PDF). Supreme Court of the United States.

UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh has an interesting look at the next big thing in web filtering — if you don’t filter access, you or your company may be subject to sexual harassment lawsuits.

Writing for Reason Volokh details a case involving a Minnesota library that offered unfiltered access to the Internet. Of course inevitably some patrons browsed sexually explicit materials on the web terminals and printed out those materials on printers supplied by the library, which apparently offended several of the librarians. They filed sexual harassment complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

And the Commission agreed with their claim. According to Volokh, “In late May, the EEOC agreed, concluding that the library’s toleration of unfiltered access created a ‘sexually hostile work environment.’ … According to press accounts, the EEOC is encouraging the library to settle the case by paying the librarians a total of $900,000.”

As Volokh puts it, “When the federal government insists that even libraries must become offense-free zones — on pain of massive liability if the libraries should choose a more liberal approach — our First Amendment rights are in serious jeopardy.”

Source:

Squeamish librarians. Eugene Volokh, Reason, June 4, 2001.

In a move unprecedented in professional sports, the Women’s National Basketball Association is explicitly reaching out to the lesbian community to try to increase both ticket sales and television ratings. The Los Angeles Sparks recently participated in a rally and market promotion at a West Hollywood lesbian bar, the Girl Club.

Last year the WNBA’s Seattle Storm featured a controversial Gay Pride Night event, but this year the league seems to be taking the homosexual community more seriously as a market, with reports that marketing to the lesbian community was a major issue at a recent league meeting.

About to begin its fifth year, the WNBA has begun to see its popularity stagnate. Average attendance at games has stalled at a mere 9,100 and last year its TV ratings on NBC earned only a 1.4 share. It is true that this is a higher share than the NHL on ABC or even women’s college basketball on CBS, but the WNBA doesn’t have the sort of competition from other sports events that the NHL and women’s college basketball have. The bottom line, however, is still that the WNBA has yet to turn a profit.

Some marketers believe that the gay community is a promising demographic for sports teams. As Howard Buford, CEO of New York-based advertising agency Prime Access, told ESPN, “Many of these households don’t have children and thus there’s a higher dispensable income, especially for entertainment. In addition, there’s a higher amount of dispensable time that is available. It’s the perfect fit and is one of the reasons sports is so attractive to the gay community.”

The fear and the risk of such promotions, however, are the possibilities that more conservative fans who disapprove of homosexuality will stay away from the league because of its outreach efforts. Personally, I can see how that might have been an issue 15 or 20 years ago, but that sort of reaction is becoming increasingly irrelevant. This is a very smart move by the WNBA which really does nothing more than acknowledge what has been widely known about the WNBA for the past couple years — a large number of its fans are lesbians. Big deal.

Source:

A coming-out party for professional sports. Wayne Drehs, Espn.Com, May 24, 2001.