The folks at Courage Is A Habit have released a thought-provoking guide called “Beyond the Workplace: A Parent’s Guide to Recognizing Sexual Harassment at Schools”.
The premise of the guide is pretty simple — what if students were protected by the same HR harassment policies and federal laws that workers are protected by in their places of employment?
As parents already know, students are often subjected to potentially “invasive” topics at school — their place of employment — including discussions about sexuality, the presence of obscene materials, an obsessive focus on race and gender, surveys about sexual behavior and preferences, and pronoun enforcement.
The guide highlights the Society for Human Resource Management’s definition of sexual harassment, and details how sexual harassment creates a hostile work environment and how it violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Then it offers some scenarios that might play out differently at work and at school.
Imagine what would happen if an employee brought the sexually-explicit book Gender Queer into the office, and left the book lying open to “that page” featuring a graphic depiction of oral sex. What if another employee saw that book and it made them feel uncomfortable?
Well, HR would likely step in and give a warning to the first employee about pornography in the workplace, and ensure the book was immediately removed. They might even send that employee for some extra sensitivity training.
But complain to a school board about the sexually-explicit content in that particular book, and you might get gaslit and told that, “you see much worse on the Internet”. You might get called “anti-LGBTQ” and accused of not being “inclusive” enough. You might get shunned as a “book banner” and possible domestic terrorist. And most definitely you would need some "implicit bias" training.
Why is there a double-standard about what is considered “harassment" in schools versus what is considered “harassment” in the workplace? Should there be a double-standard?
By the way, if you do feel like you and/or your children's rights have been violated, please make sure to report it to the Department of Justice. The DOJ is required to investigate all claims, so do not remain silent.
