Well, if you have school aged children you probably don’t. And here is yet another reason why:
A 33 year old high school music teacher diddles an 18 year old student on school grounds and the Washington Education Association writes an amicus brief to the state court of appeals in his favor during his appeal asking them to toss out his conviction on first degree sexual misconduct charges because the girl was only a student and not a minor.
Lovely.
If he was 33 and she was 18, no crime was committed.
Was it wrong? Yes.
Should he be fired and have his teaching credentials revoked for diddling a woman while she was a student in his high school? Most certainly! I’m quite certain the school has rules against teachers banging students, and I’m certain that rule is listed under, “shit that will get your ass fired”.
Should he be charged with a crime and all the fun that comes with it? Nope. 18 is the magic age. I don’t care if they were having nasty animal sex with car batteries, handcuffs, and jumper cables on the principles desk at 12:01 on her birthday. As long as she was legally 18 and they were not exposing minors to their shenanigans, no sex crime was committed.
Personally, Mad, I don’t care about people’s ages when it comes to gettin’ it on, so long as everyone is of age.
However, there is an abuse of position factor here that I find particularly distasteful. That is the thing I believe should be illegal.
I agree with you that the abuse of authority is there, but if it isn’t illegal for a college professor to have sex with an 18 year old freshman, it should not be illegal for a HS teacher.
I do think such an act should result in dismissal, and the law should protect the school from a lawsuit for unfair dismissal. But I can’t stomach such an act being illegal (which means the teacher becomes a sex offender, a label that is as already overused as terrorist).
I’d agree, except for the fact that, depending on the district, a college professor does not have three or four years to groom his quarry.
Granted, we don’t know if that is what this teacher had done, but someone who does so is a sexual predator.
Also remember, that because of the rules accepted by the state because of the teacher’s union, a teacher could do this repeatedly and the people in the new school district would never once hear about it until after the next at took place.
Also remember, that because of the rules accepted by the state because of the teacher’s union, a teacher could do this repeatedly and the people in the new school district would never once hear about it until after the next at took place.
That is wrong. If a teacher is dismissed for this reason, it should revoke his state certificate and follow him. If he wants to teach again, he can work at a community college.
I do agree that a teacher who grooms a student for four years is a predator, but I don’t recall having any teacher all year long for every year of high school, and I went to a small high school (60 kids in my graduating class), so I find it unlikely any teacher would have access to a student like that for four years. Not saying it couldn’t happen, but it would be damned hard to prove unless the victim was willing to testify about a rather close relationship that no one noticed for that long. Also, such a predator would likely have more than one conquest so he could have a new toy every year as they turned 18.