an Innocent Hug or Sexual Harassment?

Great Debates
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  1. The hug itself would not qualify as sexual harassment. If he had done it in the past and the teacher has told him that he shouldn’t do it again because it makes her uncomfortable and he continued the behavior, then yes it would be sexual harassment. She says that she did warn him in the past. He says he had never been warned about it in the past…he said, she said.

If she had warned him about it in the past, she should have documented it and it be put in his school record.

If I was on the school board, I would have issued a formal disciplinary warning but not had suspended him, unless the teacher could prove that she had warned him previously and it was documented. The teacher has some responsibility to follow some sort of protocol here as well.

  1. Yes, lacrosse is a scholarship sport at many colleges and universities in the US.
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A male here. I didn’t read much of this thread and when I saw the video and him coming up behind her and hugging her up high, near breast level, I immediately thought inappropriate.

If you want to give someone a greeting hug or a sympathy hug, you approach from the front, or at least from within the reciipient-to-be’s eyesight. Not from out of sight and behind her.

Given the teacher-student relationship, and assuming she had previously warned him, then IMO the next step would be for her to have brought him to the principal’s office to document her requirement that his hugs are not welcomed. Seems this was not done, given the apparent he-said, she-said stances regarding the supposed warning.

To me, the video looks on the surface like he’s trying to cop a quick “near feel” from behind her.