New Term for Old Boy-Girl Ritual: Sexual Harassment : Schools: Offense is grounds for expulsion beginning in 4th grade. Critics of new state law doubt that youngsters can understand it.

On playgrounds and school buses around California, where boys and girls chase and torture each other, a new description is being being applied to their age-old behavior: sexual harassment.

Under a new state law that went into effect Jan. 1, students in fourth through 12th grades may be suspended or expelled for engaging in sexual harassment. While backers of the measure believe it will teach students to treat each other with more respect, critics doubt that the younger students will even understand what it means.

Children on the playground at Commonwealth Elementary School in Fullerton were eager to share their concept of what the term means.

Asked if they knew what “sexual harassment” was, two fourth-grade boys simply shook their heads silently. Sixth-grade boys knew that it had something to do with the way boys treat girls, specifying that “bad words” and “bad things like rape” would qualify as sexual harassment.

The girls had their own ideas.

“It’s like, girls can’t chase boys,” said Amanda Dalton, 9, a fourth-grader. A beat went by and she added: “And it means that boys can’t punch boys in the face or tackle them and stuff.”

Classmate Heather Baldini, 10, offered this: “It’s when people tease you about your different sex. Like a boy told me one time: ‘You’re ugly.’ ”

“What I mostly think is it’s bad abuse, more like a hitting kind of thing,” said Brenda Llamas, 9. But she drew vigorous nods of agreement from her chums when she offered her theory about why boys tease girls:

“Boys feel happy when they do that because it makes them feel like they have the power.”

Feelings of powerlessness and victimization are what the law’s proponents hope to eliminate by enforcing new codes of behavior.

“We need to treat each other with the utmost dignity and respect, even in the fourth grade,” said Duncan Johnson, superintendent of the Fullerton School District.

Johnson and others who support the new law view it as a welcome opportunity to teach appropriate behavior and more sensitive attitudes to students who are called on the carpet for sexually offensive conduct.

He said he expects few expulsions to result, since most problems can probably be solved simply by talking with offending students. Expulsion would be a final resort, employed when all other attempts to curb the behavior have failed, he said.

School boards would be unlikely to expel a student for one comment or act unless it constitutes a danger to others, like rape or assault, lawyers said. Ellen J. Vargyas, senior counsel of the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, said it usually takes a pattern of offensive behavior to violate sexual harassment laws.

Sen. Gary K. Hart, D-Santa Barbara, who wrote the new legislation, said it requires students, teachers and parents to change their views about behavior long dismissed with a smile and a roll of the eyes.

“In some elementary schools, there is something called ‘flip day,’ where boys can flip up girls’ skirts,” Hart said. “In some cases, you could view that as innocent behavior. But in most cases, I don’t view it that way. It starts a pattern of behavior that is degrading and inappropriate.”

The clash between Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas inspired Hart to write the law, he said, because it showed him that women might be hurt or offended by comments or conduct that some men consider harmless. Talking with his teen-age daughter, he was “appalled” when she told him that many of her friends at school had been sexually harassed, he said.

The California director of public policy for the American Assn. of University Women, a national group that has studied the way girls are treated in school, said the new law will make students more considerate of one another. Acts like hiking up a girl’s skirt, long viewed as harmless and dismissed with the remark, “boys will be boys,” are damaging and insulting to girls, said Krys Wulff.

“When you allow that type of behavior to exist, you are permitting a lower value to be placed on girls and their dignity,” she said. “It affects their self-esteem and their school performance.”

The statute revises the state Education Code, allowing school boards to use their harshest disciplinary tool--expulsion--against students who are deemed to be sexual harassers. Expulsion or suspension are disciplinary actions reserved for the most serious student offenses, ranging from assault and selling drugs on campus to repeatedly defying authority.

Critics of the law complain that it is unfair because it does not require districts to educate students about sexual harassment, but allows expulsion for it anyway.

But its backers believe that even though the law requires no formal education of students on the sexual harassment issue, they will have plenty of opportunity to become acquainted with it. Another new law requires all schools, public and private, to develop written policies on sexual harassment, post them in public places and inform parents about them.

Many agree that sexual harassment should be curbed in middle and high schools, but are skeptical that the law can be applied as well to those in sixth grade or lower. Ron Wenkart, senior attorney for the Orange County Department of Education, includes himself in that group.

“Are we now going to expel kids because they say things like, ‘Eeeww, girls have cooties?’ ” Wenkart asked.

No comprehensive surveys have been done reflecting the frequency of sexual harassment in schools. The California Assn. of Student Councils interviewed about 200 students at four high schools last year and found that 10% had experienced sexual harassment, said Mimi Modisette, legislative consultant to the state Senate Education Committee, which is chaired by Hart. Surveys in Minnesota and Massachusetts have reportedly found that 50% of female students have been sexually harassed.

Students across the country have sued their districts for doing too little to stop sexual harassment against them. These include a 7-year-old Minnesota girl who recently drew national attention for suing over crass remarks by boys on the school bus. Recently a teen-ager in Petaluma sued her junior high for failing to stop sexual taunting by classmates.

JoAnne Lowe, deputy general counsel to the California Department of Education, said the revision in the education code offers a new legal remedy for students suffering from sexual harassment: It can result in the expulsion of the perpetrator. Previously, she said, a student could sue and win damages under the gender-equity provision of federal law, but courts are generally reluctant to intrude on a school’s authority by ordering an expulsion.

But some feel the Hart law was unnecessary, saying districts who wanted to expel a sexual harasser could have done so under other sections of the education code, such as those barring obscene acts, habitual profanity or vulgarity, disruption of school activities or defying the authority of supervisors.

Margaret Pena, legislative director for the state division of the American Civil Liberties Union, which opposed the law, worries that the law is so vague and broad that students could find themselves in the principal’s office for conduct they never knew constituted sexual harassment.

“Most adults don’t understand what sexual harassment means, so it’s difficult to expect fourth- or even 12th-graders to understand it,” she said.

The state Education Code defines sexual harassment as “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, visual or physical conduct of a sexual nature.” That conduct “must be considered by a reasonable person of the same gender as the victim to be sufficiently severe or pervasive to have a negative impact upon the individual’s academic performance or to create an intimidating, hostile or offensive educational environment.”

The Parent-Teacher Assn. objected to the law because it felt that if students are engaging in that kind of behavior, they deserve help, not punishment.

“If a kid is acting out enough in a sexual way to get expelled, we think he needs something more than being sent home. He needs counseling,” said Diane Brahams, who represented the PTA’s position on the bill in committee.

Among high school students, the law is being greeted with a mixture of gratitude and skepticism. They said sexual harassment runs rampant on their campuses and expressed a desire that something be done about it. But some still harbor reservations about the new law.

Catherine Price, 15, a sophomore at Costa Mesa High School, said girls are “conscious of feeling sexually harassed all the time,” adding that she is glad the law has provided “someone to turn to.” But she fears it could create a “politically correct police force,” making students fearful of opening their mouths.

“A guy can’t always know if he’s going to make a girl feel uncomfortable,” she said. “It’s like saying you can’t make fun of somebody because they’re sensitive. You don’t know that.”

Morgan Howard, 17, a senior at Huntington Beach High School, welcomed the new law, saying some students in his classes seem to have a problem knowing when they have crossed the line from acceptable behavior into sexual harassment. He cited a recent discussion he had on the topic with classmates.

“Someone gave the example of a guy who keeps telling dirty jokes even though a girl says she doesn’t want to hear it anymore. Another person in class said: ‘Well, it’s her choice not to listen.’ I think that’s missing the point.

“Ninety-nine percent of the people will know what’s going too far and going beyond the line,” he said. “I’m worried about the other 1%.”