Juvenile Sex Harassment : In Downey Case, a Girl, 9, Got Explicit Note From a Classmate

After a boy in her Downey elementary school planted a sexually explicit note in her desk, 9-year-old Jennifer Reichert felt humiliated, confused and sick to her stomach.

But after she complained to school authorities, she said, things got worse.

Although the note contained language worthy of a pornographic movie, the vice principal told Jennifer to “respect” the boy and “give him his space,” the girl said.

Jennifer’s parents pleaded with school officials to expel the boy, but they suspended him for 2 1/2 days. The boy’s mother said six other boys helped write the note, but none were disciplined. Jennifer said two of those boys threatened to kill her.

Fearing for her safety, her parents pulled Jennifer--a straight-A student--out of school in early April. For the rest of the school year, she studied at home. Rather than place her back among her tormentors, her family is considering a move to another city.

Jennifer’s experience is not unusual, according to experts. Despite state and federal laws prohibiting students from sexually harassing other students, enforcement mechanisms are balky and often backfire on victims.

While many educators are sensitive to the issue, some school officials still do not take it seriously, leading them to ignore festering problems or to under-discipline young offenders, authorities said.

Few teachers and administrators are properly trained to handle such delicate situations, and their inexperience can have severe repercussions for young victims, perpetrators, parents and school officials.

“I think the whole arena is confusing for administrators and teachers,” said Mary Jo McGrath, a Santa Barbara attorney who has represented both students and schools in harassment cases. “People don’t know what they’re doing.”

Regardless of their elders’ spotty record in addressing the issue, pupils say sexual harassment is rampant in schools, according to surveys.

In a 1992 poll published in Seventeen magazine, for instance, 83% of the 2,000 teen-agers surveyed said they had experienced physical harassment, including fondling, grabbing or pinching. Eighty-six percent said they had been subjected to non-physical harassment such as inappropriate comments, notes or staring.

Forty-five percent said school administrators did nothing to stop the harassment when they were told of it.

The stakes can be high for both students and schools. For pupils who are targets, unrelieved harassment can mean depression, lost friends, plummeting grades or even a move to another school system. For schools, a mishandled complaint can lead to hefty damage awards in court or civil-rights investigations jeopardizing millions of dollars in federal funds.

Schools increasingly are aware that not protecting children against harassment can have serious consequences, authorities said, but enforcement actions still vary widely.

At one end of the spectrum are districts that take the problem seriously--and respond with Draconian countermeasures. A Massachusetts district, for example, went so far as to ban student hand-holding, said Nan Stein, a senior research associate at Wellesley College’s Center for Research on Women.

At the other end are teachers and administrators who dismiss harassment as mere flirting or sexually charged horseplay. Others, even though they believe harassment is wrong, refuse to intervene because they don’t want to assume the role of “morality police.”

“There’s always [school officials] in the audience who feel that this thing is overrated, that it’s just been blown out of proportion and that it’s going to go away,” said Joseph Jones, who gives seminars on handling sexual harassment for the Assn. of California School Administrators.

Part of the problem, experts said, is widespread confusion and disagreement among school authorities over what actually constitutes sexual harassment.

Federal law prohibits “conduct of a sexual nature that is sufficiently severe, persistent or pervasive so as to interfere with a student’s academic, educational, extracurricular or other participation or performance” in school activities.

Federal and state laws do not bar specific behaviors. However, many California school districts have adopted a model anti-harassment policy drawn up by the California School Boards Assn., which lists 11 acts that “may constitute” sex harassment.

But some--such as “overly personal conversation” and “unwelcome leering”--are ambiguous standards at best.

Lacking firm guidelines, teachers and administrators often disagree sharply over the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, especially for adolescents awkwardly struggling to relate to members of the opposite sex.

“People ask me . . . ‘Can I say, ‘You look nice today?’ ‘Does this mean I have to stop touching people?’ ‘Am I allowed to have a pinup poster in my locker?’ ” said Kit Goldman, a consultant to school districts whose San Diego firm uses skits to teach school personnel about harassment situations.

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Most teachers and administrators have not been properly instructed in handling harassment complaints--even though the consequences of bungling one can be serious.

If schools do not investigate properly, the wrong person may be punished, or others who are guilty may escape unscathed. Parents angry at a school’s anemic response to harassment of their child may file a lawsuit. If a school ignores harassment or metes out light punishment, a harasser may redouble his efforts.

“It’s pretty amazing what kids will do if they sense . . . somebody’s a target. They get really vicious,” said McGrath, the Santa Barbara attorney.

Under Title IX of a 1972 federal anti-discrimination law, school districts are required to appoint a coordinator to handle sex harassment complaints, and most have complied. But administrators appointed to the job often are personnel directors or other executives with multiple tasks to juggle and little or no experience in dealing with harassment, authorities said.

“They don’t really have knowledge of all the laws; they just have this extra title,” said Alicia Hetman, who has reviewed school compliance with anti-harassment laws for the state Department of Education. “So it doesn’t work well.”

Under federal and state law, districts must have a written policy on harassment that includes information on how to lodge a complaint.

But schools often leave out important details, such as whom students and parents should contact with a complaint and how to appeal school district decisions to federal authorities, Hetman said. The federal Office for Civil Rights has the power to suspend a school system’s federal funding.

While schools have a sketchy record in enforcing anti-harassment rules, they also do a poor job of educating students about why harassment is wrong, authorities said.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is a case in point. In 1992, the Los Angeles school board ordered that students in its 49 high schools and 129 middle schools be taught about harassment and its adverse effects.

But three years later, only students at one school--Woodrow Wilson High--have received such instruction, according to Donna Cassyd, director of the district’s Commission on Sex Equity.

“It’s not a high-priority item,” said Cassyd, adding that the district has not set aside any funds for such classes.

Prim and precocious, Jennifer Reichert sits in her family’s modest home, talking about the note she found in her desk at Downey’s Gallatin Elementary School four days before her 10th birthday.

“I want to have sex with you,” it said. “I love you babe. You are all I think about. I want to have your kids.” The writer also described sex acts he wanted to perform.

A friend of Jennifer saw the boy--an 11-year-old classmate--plant the note and told Jennifer. Shaken, she showed it a teacher, who sent her to the school’s vice principal.

The vice principal, Jennifer said, asked her if she did anything to provoke the boy. When Jennifer answered no, she said, the vice principal told her, “Well, the No. 1 thing you need to do is respect him and give him his space, because he probably was just goofing off on this.”

The vice principal could not be reached for comment, and the school’s principal declined to be interviewed. According to Jennifer, the vice principal reprimanded several boys involved in concocting the letter. Later, two of them approached Jennifer as she played outside.

The boys accused her of “ragging” on them. One said: “We’re gonna kill you,” according to Jennifer. The other said: “Yeah, you’re gonna get it.” Frightened, her parents began keeping her home.

The parents of the boy who wrote the note later forced him to apologize. But Jennifer’s mother, Annette Reichert, said that boy’s mother told her that six other boys had helped him cook up the note scheme.

Jennifer’s parents peppered school officials with phone calls and faxes, urging expulsion of the boys. The boys, her parents argued, had turned Gallatin from a comfortable learning environment into a dangerous prison for her.

Instead, the principal briefly suspended the note writer and banished him to another Gallatin classroom, according to a letter from the school to Jennifer’s parents. None of the other boys were disciplined.

In a separate letter to Jennifer’s parents, Downey Unified School District Supt. Edward Sussman said he had reviewed the principal’s disciplinary actions and felt they were correct. In an interview, Sussman said he believed only one boy was involved.

When Jennifer’s parents protested the punishment as too light and refused to return her to Gallatin, a district official said she was truant. Later, the district agreed to provide a home-study teacher. But home lessons occupied only two hours a day. Jennifer stopped attending choir practices and no longer went to Student Council meetings.

“They have taken her most successful year, academically and socially, away from her,” said Annette Reichert. “They need to do whatever it takes to make the environment emotionally and physically safe for Jennifer.”

Supt. Sussman complained that Annette Reichert was hurting her daughter by demanding further punishment.

“She’s the most irrational parent I think we have in this school district,” he said. “Why would you want to pursue this? . . . You have a child that’s a victim of the parent now. You’ve got to get on with your life.”

Jennifer said she wants to do just that. But the note and its aftermath, she says, keep preventing her. Besides the missed classes and other school activities, she said, several of her girlfriends sided with the boys and shunned her. She still feels angry and humiliated.

“I just want this dealt with,” she said. “I want him expelled so I can go back to school and be with my friends. . . . Because school’s, like, one of my hobbies. I like school.”