Sexual harassment: Education and the law

Shortly after sexual harassment was recognized by the courts as a violation of Title VII's ban on sex discrimination in the workplace, it was also acknowledged as a violation of Title IX, which seeks to eliminate sex discrimination in education. Over time, an increasingly wide range of conduct has been recognized as "sexual harassment"; the class of persons thought capable of perpetrating and suffering this abuse has expanded as well. Early in the concept's history one could claim intelligibly that sexual harassment occurred when a teacher overtly blocked a student's educational aims, based on the student's sex. Now, sexual harassment is conceived to include verbal and symbolic expression that creates a "hostile school environment"; and students, as well as teachers, are thought capable of creating such an environment.The legal status of sexual harassment has influenced the way in which educational institutions and academicians have framed the problem of sexual harassment and shaped perceptions about how it can best be addressed. Schools receiving federal funds are required to develop policies forbidding sexual harassment and grievance procedures for reporting policy violations. However desirable such policies and procedures may be, they do not cover all the educational concerns at stake regarding the problem of sexual harassment. The more inclusively sexual harassment is conceived, the less adequate are existing measures intended to redress the problem.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio