Survey Reports Sexual Harassment in Schools

About 25% of Los Angeles school district employees who responded to a recent survey said they had experienced some form of sexual harassment on the job, according to results released Monday.

Most said they were bothered by jokes or “verbal abuse” while, in the most severe cases, 4% of those responding said they were subjected to “unwelcome demands for sexual relations,” typically from their supervisors, said Abby Leibman of the California Equity Council, who directed the survey for the Los Angeles school board.

However, although she described the problem of sexual harassment as “serious” in the Los Angeles school system, Leibman told the school board that it is “certainly no worse, and in some ways, better” than in other public and private workplaces. Similar surveys at several University of California campuses have turned up an even higher rate of complaints, she said.

Los Angeles school officials, while agreeing that the problem exists, said the survey may have exaggerated its dimensions. The eight-page survey was sent to a sampling of 2,983 teachers and other district employees in December, and 44% submitted replies.

School Supt. Harry Handler questioned whether it was correct to do “an extrapolation” from those responses to cover the district’s 60,000 employees, since those who had the strongest opinions about sexual harassment might have been more likely to respond. He also took issue with the “suggestion” in the report that some female employees have been promoted because they engaged in sex with superiors.

Leibman replied that some respondents had made such suggestions, but added, “That is certainly not what I meant to say.”

Leibman urged the school board to develop “an effective sexual-harassment policy” and to appoint male and female counselors who could investigate allegations of such misconduct. The school board gave no indication as to whether it will take any action based on the study.

More than three-quarters of those who said they were harassed on the job never reported it to anyone, according to the survey. Some did not take action because they did not realize that the behavior--repeated sexual jokes, for example--constituted harassment, she said.

Others thought “nothing would be done, and some acted out of fear of retaliation,” Leibman told the board.

The survey also found that 33% of the respondents said they believed that sexual harassment of students is a “moderate” or “serious” problem in the city schools, although the study concentrated on employees.

‘Rampant for Years’

In anonymous comments returned with the survey, one female administrator said harassment of women has been “rampant for years” in some school district offices. Another female teacher complained that some male administrators insist on using “cocktail lounge jokes and innuendoes” around their female employees.

However, a third female secretary said that, “Compared to private industry, the (school district) has a much more favorable working environment in regard to sexual harassment.”