For those who thought the sexual abuse of minors...

...was or is just a "Catholic thing," they should carefully read this lengthy October 20, 2007, Associated Press report about the "plague" of sexual misconduct in American public schools. A couple of snippets:

Students in America's schools are groped. They're raped. They're pursued, seduced and think they're in love.

An Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic.

There are 3 million public school teachers nationwide, most devoted to their work. Yet the number of abusive educators — nearly three for every school day — speaks to a much larger problem in a system that is stacked against victims.

Most of the abuse never gets reported. Those cases reported often end with no action. Cases investigated sometimes can't be proven, and many abusers have several victims.

And no one — not the schools, not the courts, not the state or federal governments — has found a surefire way to keep molesting teachers out of classrooms.

Which means, I suppose, that school teachers will soon be routinely mocked as perverts, smirking jokes about lustful teachers with fly on late night television, and there will an explosion of law suits against public schools. Don't bet on it. If there is one thing that seems nearly as inevitable as taxes and death, it is that most Americans will go to the rack for the public school system, which is seen by many as the one and only way to properly educate children. Which is not, by the way, a condemnation of the public school system per se (that is a topic for another time and another post), just an observation about how deeply ingrained public education is in the national psyche (see this excellent short column by Jeff Jacoby about this fact and how irrational it is). But if the numbers reported by the AP are accurate, folks will need to start questioning some of their cherished assumptions:

Clergy abuse is part of the national consciousness after a string of highly publicized cases. But until now, there's been little sense of the extent of educator abuse.

Beyond the horror of individual crimes, the larger shame is that the institutions that govern education have only sporadically addressed a problem that's been apparent for years.

"From my own experience — this could get me in trouble — I think every single school district in the nation has at least one perpetrator. At least one," says Mary Jo McGrath, a California lawyer who has spent 30 years investigating abuse and misconduct in schools. "It doesn't matter if it's urban or rural or suburban."

One report mandated by Congress estimated that as many as 4.5 million students, out of roughly 50 million in American schools, are subject to sexual misconduct by an employee of a school sometime between kindergarten and 12th grade. That figure includes verbal harassment that's sexual in nature.

And:

For one, many Americans deny the problem, and even treat the abuse with misplaced fascination. Popular media reports trumpet relationships between attractive female teachers and male students.

"It's dealt with in a salacious manner with late-night comedians saying 'What 14-year-old boy wouldn't want to have sex with his teacher?' It trivializes the whole issue," says Robert Shoop, a professor of educational administration at Kansas State University who has written a book aimed at helping school districts identify and deal with sexual misconduct.

"In other cases, it's reported as if this is some deviant who crawled into the school district — 'and now that they're gone, everything's OK.' But it's much more prevalent than people would think."

The AP investigation found efforts to stop individual offenders but, overall, a deeply entrenched resistance toward recognizing and fighting abuse. It starts in school hallways, where fellow teachers look away or feel powerless to help. School administrators make behind-the-scenes deals to avoid lawsuits and other trouble. And in state capitals and Congress, lawmakers shy from tough state punishments or any cohesive national policy for fear of disparaging a vital profession.

The criticism has often been made (and properly so) that some Catholic bishops and leaders did not or have not taken seriously the charges against abusive or allegedly abusive priests. Many have complained, including many Catholics, that there was (and is) stonewalling and, yes, "deeply entrenched resistance" to getting at the truth of the nature and extent of the sex abuse scandals within the the Catholic Church in America. Will there be the same sort of outcry and demand for transparency, justice, and accountability when it comes to sexual abuse of children by public school teachers? I suspect that the power and money of the Catholic Church will look like the small peanuts it is when compared to the power, money, governmental clout, and cultural security enjoyed—speaking generally—by public schools.

Much more could be said about this and likely will be in the weeks and months to come. Meanwhile, on a related note, The Telegraph recently reported:

Child abuse has gone unchecked in the Church of England for decades amid a cover up by bishops, secret papers have revealed.

Information that could have prevented abuse has been "lost or damaged", concerns about individuals have been ignored and allegations have not been recorded. It means that the Church has no idea how many paedophiles are in its midst.

Lawyers warned last night that the Church faces a crisis as catastrophic as the one that engulfed the Roman Catholic Church and cost it millions of pounds in damages.

Here is a modest theory: the sexual abuse of children and young adults is not the result of religious dogmas that wrongly suppress sexual desires, nor is it the result of authoritarian structures that encourage the powerful to dominate the weak—even if those structures can be misused for that end. It is the result of man's sinful nature, of his twisted desires, and of his hunger to satisfy himself rather than die to himself. It is encouraged and often promoted—hyped!—by a culture that so often revels in sexual freedom without responsibility, in the glorification of a guilt-free, self-pleasuring existence that doesn't really exist, but actually leads to spiritual death, destroyed lives, and social chaos.

The question is: are we willing to address it as such?

Comments

[Dan]

It will be interesting to see how much attention this gets. Prediction: it will get little attention and a not insignificant portion of the attention it does get will be devoted to denouncing the investigation and defending the public schools.

I base my prediction on what happened when Hofstra University Professor Carol Shakeshaft published a report in 2004 about abuse in the public schools. The report, which was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education pursuant to a mandate of the "No Child Left Behind" legislation, found that sexual abuse in the public schools was widespread. Generally speaking, the reaction to the Shakeshaft report was to denounce it and rush to the defense of the public schools. The irony is that those had this reaction were in many cases the loudest in denouncing Catholic bishops for looking the other way with regard to sexual abuse.

The scandal in the Church of course will always be worse because the Church is, and should be, held to a higher standard. Although statistical evidence about the incidence of sexual abuse in the public schools is sketchy (the Shakeshaft report was very preliminary), it appears that at the nadir of the Church's sex abuse scandal the incidence of sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic priests approached or equaled that of society at large. In my opinion it is not a coincidence that this descent to worldly levels of sexual sin was perpetrated in large part by priests who advocated that the Church conform to the standards of the world.

[Rory]

Now we can look forward to the discussions about doing away with the requirement of celibacy and allowing school teachers to be married ... oh ... wait ... right!

And I wonder if the states will change the statute of limitation laws to account for longer periods of time between the abuse and when the lawyers can sue the pants off the schools ... oh ... wait. I'll get blue while holding my breath.

And I'm sure you intended no pun with "modest theory" in that modesty is not much admired nor advocated by society at large ...

[Christine the Soccer Mom]

I wonder how many of the same people who left the Church because of the Scandal would also be willing to suddenly switch to homeschooling in order to get away from predatory teachers?

Or will they be able to separate the message from the messengers?

[Michael Joseph]

If people raise a louder outcry over priestly child-abuse than they do over teach child-abuse, it is because they hold the Catholic Church to a moral higher standard. And why shouldn't they? Do we not believe that we are the church founded by Jesus Christ, supported by His sacraments and the ongoing guidance of the Holy Spirit? I think the saddest thing one can say about all this is that Catholics (even priests) turn out to be no better, on average, than the non-catholic population. One had hopes for so much more.

[Carl Olson]

If people raise a louder outcry over priestly child-abuse than they do over teach child-abuse, it is because they hold the Catholic Church to a moral higher standard.

That is true for some people, and I understand and respect this line of thinking. We Catholics should hold ourselves to a higher standard, not because we are naturally better than others, of course, but because we should know better than most the reality of sin and should being living lives of notable holiness. But if, as all reasonable and decent people agree, child abuse is one of the most henious of crimes, shouldn't people be gravely concerned that it is apparently so widespread (and so often ignored) in the public school system? Especially when some 90% of America's children will, at some point, be within that system? Especially when that system enjoys an incredible amount of power and influence? Especially when it is widely assumed that the public school system is a sort of semi-sacred sanctuary of the enlightened secular state?

I say "true for some people" because it is clear to me that some people have taken a vicious delight in exposing sex abuse among Catholic clergy, as though they have more interest in using the mortal sins of certain priests to denounce or destroy the Catholic Church as a whole than they do in exposing evil and protecting children. I suspect that many of those who hate the Church will have little interest in addressing the abuses occurring within the school system; in fact, I won't be surprised if they attempt to deny or downplay what is happening there.

This isn't an issue of "tit for tat," nor should it be used by Catholics as a way of distracting from real problems within the Catholic Church. But there is nothing wrong in being concerned about what may very well be (and I strongly suspect is) a dark story of immense proportions. Citizens and parents—whether Catholic, Protestant, Jew, atheist, etc.—should have no reservations about demanding the truth about what has happened and is happening to children in the public school system. But I suspect that little to no transparency or accountability is going to be forthcoming, although I hope I am dead wrong on that count.

[Paddyjoe]

If people raise a louder outcry over priestly child-abuse than they do over teach child-abuse, it is because they hold the Catholic Church to a moral higher standard.
And why shouldn't they?
Why not, but you overlook something. The media touted as their main concern the injustice done to the victims. They show no such concern when dealing with the schools. Therein lies the inconsistency.