New York City is protecting teachers who sexually harass or abuse students as the city's arbitrators fail to properly enforce regulations about sexual misconduct, Campbell Brown writes in a New York Post op-ed.
Despite regulations introduced nearly a decade ago to prohibit and punish sexual misconduct by teachers, arbitrators have failed to put force behind those rules, Brown writes:
In 2008, (arbiter Howard) Edelman found that a teacher who rubbed the back and neck of a student in an empty classroom while speaking in threatening sexual innuendo — "I can make you do things you don’t want to do" — should get a mere two-month fine. The teacher had twice before been cited for improper touching.
Edelman’s terse rationale: "A teacher rubbed a student’s back. He did not have sex with the student or ask the student to have sex with him."
In 2010, Edelman found that another serial abuser should be returned to the classroom after touching the bare shoulders and neck of a student while telling her she could strip for him.
A mere quarter of teachers found with probable cause to have exhibited sexual misconduct have been fired by the city, according to Brown.
