Bipartisan bill would extend sexual harassment protections to private school students

MADISON - A bipartisan group of lawmakers is proposing to make it a felony crime for school staff or volunteers to create an intimidating or hostile environment by sexually harassing students — expanding protections against harassment that exist for public school students to all children who attend private schools.

Bill authors Reps. Tod Ohnstad and Tip McGuire, both Democrats from Kenosha, told reporters Wednesday the bill addresses a gap in Wisconsin's criminal statutes that do not cover all variations of sexual misconduct that students have experienced in schools.

"Every child has the right to a safe learning environment regardless of what type of school they attend," Ohnstad said in a press conference in the state Capitol in Madison. "Protecting children from sexual misconduct is a shared responsibility of the community, schools and lawmakers."

According to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau, Wisconsin does not have a law explicitly targeting sexual harassment in schools but federal law prohibits sexual harassment of students in schools that receive federal education funding, which includes all public schools.

Title IX protections apply to schools receiving federal funding, which covers all public schools but does not include all private schools, according to the reference bureau. Sex discrimination explicitly includes sexual harassment, defined as “unwelcome conduct determined by a reasonable person to be so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to the recipient's education program or activity.”

The bill also would require law enforcement officers or public employees to notify the state Department of Public Instruction about the alleged violation. DPI also would be required to automatically revoke a teaching license of a school employee convicted of certain felony crimes against children.

Sen. Jesse James of Altoona and Rep. John Spiros of Marshfield, both Republicans, joined McGuire and Ohnstad in authoring the bill.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bill would extend sexual harassment rules to private school students