We Can No Longer Ignore the Public-School Sexual-Abuse Problem

T he Chicago Public Schools’ Office of the Inspector General released its annual report on misconduct and complaints in the school system. “Of the 1,825 total complaints,” the report reads, “the OIG opened investigations into a total of 725 cases” ranging from financial mismanagement to fraud.

Notably, the Sexual Allegations Unit received 470 complaints of sexual misconduct and opened investigations into 447 of those complaints. This unit began operations only in 2018, when it was “immediately flooded with complaints,” and much of the report details how the unit is still struggling to manage a continued “high volume.”

The report makes for a distressing read. One teacher “groomed and sexually assaulted a 17-year-old student on three occasions.” Another teacher “had sex with a female high school student over the course of a year,” “provided the student with alcohol,” and “consumed marijuana around her.” The teacher even had the student buy drugs for him. The two exchanged text messages that are too vulgar to repeat in polite company. The teacher went so far as to threaten “to kill the student and her family if she disclosed the sexual abuse.”

In another case, a teacher repeatedly exposed himself to a student who reported the incident to two other staff members. Notably, both of these staff members “failed to notify the school’s administration.” Instead, they “made excuses for the teacher.” In other words, a teacher sexually harassed a student, and the other adults in the buildings did nothing about it.

The report runs for 120 pages, documenting such cases.

While dated, perhaps the most comprehensive review on abuse in public schools more generally is a 2004 commission by the Department of Education. It estimates that 4.5 million students had experienced sexual misconduct in the previous decade — 100 times greater than the number of students who suffered such crimes at the hands of priests, according to the author of the report.

For the past several decades, sexual abuse within the Catholic Church has caused an international outcry — and rightly so. Abuse in our schools is likely even worse, but to bring it up risks accusations that one is a kook or a conspiracy theorist.

To their credit, Chicago Public Schools officials have been exceptionally transparent in their investigations, and this annual report is part of a variety of policies intended to more quickly and accurately process complaints. That being said, this latest report ought to complicate the unquestionable regard with which some public-school advocates defend these institutions.

Consider Elizabeth Bartholet, a professor at Harvard’s Law School, who argued at the beginning of the pandemic that we ought to criminalize homeschooling. According to Bartholet, it violates a child’s right to be protected from child abuse. Suggesting that homeschooling parents are knuckle-dragging child abusers gets one published in esteemed academic journals. Conversely, wondering whether some teachers are grooming children gets conservatives accused of fostering a “moral panic” to appeal to fringe and conspiratorial constituencies.

What’s more, teachers’ unions have a record of opposing policies aimed at more harshly punishing teachers for misconduct. For example, in 2019, the Illinois Federation of Teachers opposed student-sex-abuse bills that protected students filing complaints and enhanced punishments for credibly accused teachers. In 2012, the Wall Street Journal ran an article detailing countless examples of teachers who had sexually abused students in their charge but received only six-month suspensions or reprimands.

Obviously, only a small fraction of public-school teachers are pedophiles. Even so, this latest report from the Chicago Public Schools should act as a model for watchdog groups in other municipalities, prompting investigations across the country that will make this into a rightful scandal. In the end, we may find that when schools closed at the beginning of the pandemic, it really was for the safety of children.