Since she pushed him off as soon as he hugged, it at least was harassment. I don’t think hugging qualifies as sexual harassment in most cases I think including this one.
The only thing that I don’t like about this is it is okay to punish someone for a hug, although if it was to intentionally harass her and he has been warned before that is a slightly different story.
Yes because hugging is very serious. :rolleyes:
On further thought, yes, hugging can be sexually harassing. There is a line, in particular if you have been warned. I forgot about a time in high-school where this gangster looking dude kept hugging me. It was weird. I think he was in jail or something before. That to me was sexual harassment.
I think the second (?) time he pulled me into him I almost did a leg sweep on him to slam his head into the locker, but I didn’t want to get jumped later on. Maybe I should have.
I’d like to propose “physical harassment”. Distinguishes both from “but I didn’t touch him!” kinds and from sexual kinds.
I like this. I’ve got a male coworker who sometimes touches me in ways that I really find uncomfortable. They aren’t sexual in nature, but definitely overly familiar (like catching me by the upper arm so he can fix the collar of my shirt or poking my belly like I’m Poppin’ Fresh.) I’d be uncomfortable if a straight woman did these things to me too, so while “sexual harrassment” fits, it is also a bit ambiguous in this context.
I’m been swayed by the posts here. One year suspension is over the top if he’d been a younger kid (12 or younger) and hadn’t been warned. Also, kissing definitely makes it creepier. Shame on you, young man. And shame on your family for defending you like this.
That’s one of those “big bro/lil sis” hugs that you used to see in high school.
“Yo dawg, what’s up with ol’ girl?!”
“Man, she’s like my little sister.”
Those hugs can last tens of seconds. Especially the full frontal hug with side to side rocking. And no one is surprised when the two end up dating.
Video is inconclusive except that a hug did get initiated by him. But what it means depends on the past history of these 2 people and their interaction and communication with each other.
I’m also not clear on how this case is more than superficially similar to the case of the six-year-old boy who kissed a girl on the hand.
FTR, a year suspension strikes me as a bit extreme, but we really don’t have the school’s side of the story.
The mom keeps calling it “year-long” but he’s a senior and the son refers to the school taking “five months” from him. The school can’t say anything. I suspect it’s actually a suspension for the rest of the school year, not for a year. That is generally how it works.
For relatively small values of many. Remember, you were ridiculed heavily for that opinion. No one on the board stood up for you. People don’t get ridiculed for opinions that are really common. I mean, people will stand up for me even.
Honestly, it seems like a Roma-only thing. And this makes sense, since one of the defining traits of Roma culture is the extreme reluctance to adopt the cultural values of those around them. So of course you are going to have some cultural things that are very different from the majority culture.
But this teacher is not Roma. She is subject to the consensus morality of the majority culture. And hugging, by itself, is not inherently sexual. And, if anything, the way he approached her made it even less sexual, since a sexual hug is usually head on and squeezing the breasts to your chest (or grabbing a butt). Sideways hugs are the type of hugs you are specifically taught to do to avoid making it sexual.
Don’t get me wrong–unwanted touching is still a problem. But calling it sexual harassment changes the kid from someone with boundary issues into a potential rapist, and those just aren’t the same thing.
Sexual harassment is about using sexual things to harass. Saying it has to involve intercourse may be too far, but saying it has to involve things that can imply a desire for intercourse is not wrong. When you ask someone on a date, you are doing it to possibly have sex with them at some point in the future, even if that’s not your primary concern right now.
Sexual harassment is about behaviors that can be used to get sexual gratification, whether because you actually want said gratification, or because you want to make the other person feel bad because you apparently got unwanted sexual gratification.
The thing is, though, that there can be a sexual issue there even if gratification/desire aren’t at play. I’ve had students will “boundary issues”, that miss cues. And I’ve had kids who bully women. They aren’t the same thing. The former is awkward with everyone: his peers and all his teachers. He’s clueless, and even if there’s “inappropriate touching”, it doesn’t feel personal. The other kind of kid has perfectly normal ideas about boundaries with his peers, with his male teachers, but is horrible with women. He does this physically over-whelming thing, where he hugs you, or stands a little too close. He compliments you in ways that are a little too personal. When he’s called on misbehavior he does this teasing/joking thing that’s very similar to flirting, and when you ignore it, he reacts like you’re the frigid bitch with a problem. None of these behaviors show up in his interactions with men.
I deal with a kid like this every couple of years. He’s not pursing sexual gratification: he certainly doesn’t want to fuck me. But there’s a sexual element to it, a thrum of “As a big macho alpha man, I could fuck you but chose not to. In fact, you’d be honored if I did. And deep down inside, we both know that makes me the more powerful one in this relationship.” I don’t think the kid thinks that out to himself: these are not generally self-reflective types. But their relationships with woman are all shaped by this dynamic.
It’s not about sexual gratification, but it is about sex.
Not quite: I’ve helped women who could not talk to an unrelated male (specifically, the bagger at the supermarket) but who could use evidently-female me as a go-between. They were Muslim immigrants to the US whose husbands used the combination to keep them scared witless :mad: On one occasion the grandfatherly gentleman tried to touch the woman’s sleeve (“miss?”) and she almost jumped through me.
As a female, American, black cashier once put it after I’d explained “hell, I’m a Muslim and if my man tried that he’d wake up in the hospital!”; it’s not a religion thing, it’s a cultural thing, but in any case the branch of Roma ZPG Zealot belongs to isn’t the only culture that’s got higher barriers between men and women than you and me are used to. I can see where it could be a more frequent problem for ZPG Zealot than for those women, but because of “camo”: she and her relatives do not dress in a way that’s evidently different from those in “mainstream America”, those immigrants did (mind you, there’s many others who dress similarly and who don’t have a problem talking to shopkeepers).
This has got nothing to do with Roma values. Most school districts have rules about physical contact between students and teachers largely as a result of highly publicized cases of teachers and students being inappropriately romantically involved or the very real problem of sexual harassment can occur in situations where one individual is in a position of power over another. Many if not most businesses have similar rules about not touching people, especially if you have been warned not to it. This kid was already warned not to do this, but persisted. He got what he deserved. If anything his punishment was rather lenient.
Regarding the statement that the family members are huggers, this is not valid. People aren’t “huggers”, hugging is a chosen behaviour, not a trait like skin colour, handedness or gender. There is also a gender issue to this as well. I as a male, will not initiate a hug with a female (or anyone else for that matter) unless I we’re close friends because I believe that a person’s personal space is their choice and I don’t want to be threatening or intrusive. At the same time “when in Rome” is not a bad rule to follow.
A hug from the back pressing one’s crotch up to a teacher’s butt when you’re an 18 year old 6’2" 220 pound football team member and the teacher is a dainty, slender female is hardly the same thing as a five year old forgetting not to hug teacher in kindergarten. Give odds this ‘child’ ends up doing a term for rape down the line because he doesn’t understand that women are entitled to be safe from unwanted sexual attention.
I was a little surprised and skeptical about the suggestion of a “lacrosse scholarship”.
Do schools actually have athletic scholarships for lacrosse.
I went to a high school that had great lacrosse teams and during the four years I was there cranked out two players who were high school All-Americans and neither of them got athletic scholarships.
Granted that was twenty years ago.
Lacrosse, tennis, golf, cheerleading… and often they’re better financially and get better treatment, such as being allowed more make-up-classes than non-athletes, than the scholarly fellowships.
A 17 year old who doesn’t know that its unacceptable to hug an unsuspecting woman from behind, who he’s not related to, and who as his teacher he owes a degree of respect ?
Sorry not buying it .
He’s a creep around women and its lucky that he was caught on camera or no doubt he’d have denied it until he was blue in the face, or said that as an innocent student she initiated it.
One to watch in the future I think .
Find me a male teacher he hugs like that, and I won’t call it sexual harassment. Is he planning on hugging his professors? His bosses? Keep yer damn hands to yourself.
Find me a male teacher who hugs like that and you’ve shown me sexual harassment.