Poor Lenore Skenazy and Jonathan Haidt. They put a great deal of work into their post at Reason about the harm done to young people by bubblewrapping them from harm, whether physical or emotional, whether real or imagined. Despite the best of intentions, we’ve created the Fragile Generation.
We’ve had the best of intentions, of course. But efforts to protect our children may be backfiring. When we raise kids unaccustomed to facing anything on their own, including risk, failure, and hurt feelings, our society and even our economy are threatened. Yet modern child-rearing practices and laws seem all but designed to cultivate this lack of preparedness. There’s the fear that everything children see, do, eat, hear, and lick could hurt them. And there’s a newer belief that has been spreading through higher education that words and ideas themselves can be traumatizing.
How did we come to think a generation of kids can’t handle the basic challenges of growing up?
Teachers in one Oregon school district who fail to report the sexual activity of their students could be at risk of being fined or losing their jobs.
The Salem-Keizer district officials told teachers that if they hear about their students having sex they must report it to law enforcement or Department of Human Services officials. District officials say they are just following state law that has put them in a bind with their students.
Teenage sex is a controversial issue in many respects. Safe sex? Vulnerability? But then, it’s also the stuff of legend. And now it’s a crime.
Oregon law says that sex under the age of 18 is considered abuse and teachers have to report their students, according to the district. Teachers risk a misdemeanor charge if they don’t.
Not sex between a child and an adult, a teacher and a student, an older teen and a younger teen. Just sex. Not sex where someone complains, whether because they feel badly about it or enjoyed it but it didn’t last long enough. Even if it was totally consensual under the most stringent of social justice standards, it’s “abuse” because they’re children. Not so much children when it comes to life in prison, but children when it comes to sex.
And if a teacher comes into possession of knowledge that someone is committing sex, they can be imprisoned for failure to tell the sex police of this abuse. Poor Lenore Skenazy and Jonathan Haidt, whose post came out just a tad too soon.
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The article does not reveal what counts as “having sex” for this purpose. Do teachers have to turn in students for holding hands? For kissing? For mutual manual/digital? For the Bill Clinton? Or, if a student is stupid enough to use conclusory words about “having sex,” does the teacher simply have to assume it is true and turn them in without parsing details?
On one hand, this is laughably moronic, but on the other, an excellent prospect for lawyer full employment in at least one state.
As Bill Clinton explained, it all depends on the meaning of the word “is.”
As Jerry Seinfeld explained, sex has taken place “…when the nipple makes its first appearance.”
Sounds like a personal problem to me.
That locker room talk will bite you in the ass.
Sorry, but ass-biting is now illegal too.
Only when it’s without enthusiastic consent.
Unless you’re in Oregon.
So the scarlet letter is back in fashion. And warlock burnings are surely a coming attraction, because what could be more woke and enlightened than burning male warlocks in lieu of female witches! Resurrected puritanism sure provides excellent entertainment!
Not sure this is a scarlet letter opportunity.
And I’m 100% sure this will be applied in an entirely even-handed, gender-neutral fashion in determining who is the “abuser” and who is the “abused.” Yup. Totally fair.
Know what else is cool? That’s my daughter’s school district. And yet I hear about this via Newsweek (via SHG). FML.
No doubt it won’t suffer from the infirmities of Title IX bias. Sorry that you had to hear it here. That’s disgraceful.
Hey, better I hear it from you than a friendly neighborhood social worker, right?
Another fun tidbit: Just asked a friend about this who works at the district. They recently had the training and are furious, because as interpreted by the district whey would be required to report their own children, even if they were okay with the behavior. i.e. as a mandatory reporter you’d have to report your daughter asking you for birth control.
Suddenly looking forward to the upcoming meeting with the Principal for entirely new reasons.
There is nobody better at mindlessly ahering to ridiculous rules than a school admin. It’s the air beneath their wings.
“Maybe you don’t need my consent to an abortion in this state, young lady, but just you wait ’til your homeroom teacher finds out about this!”
I guess we are all needing to wear body cams with any interaction with anyone.
How dare you support white male cishet efforts to oppress marginalized identities with mass surveillance. Your comment is literally violence. Thwack!
I’m sorry, next time I’ll “mansplain” for you.
It’s not just a matter of school rules I checked and, indeed, oregon’s Law says a person under 18 is unable to give sexual consent. Bring back the Puritans!
You’re right, a person under 18 can’t consent. But the part of the law that says they can’t consent (2015 ORS 163.315) isn’t defining any crimes. That statute is a definition statute that is referenced by the statutes that actually define crimes. Sexual abuse is further defined in 2015 ORS 163.760, and in 2. (b it is specified that sex between minors is NOT abuse under the circumstances defined in a further statute (2015 ORS 163.345), which generally establishes defenses for minors having sex when they’re within 3 years of each other. I’m no lawyer, but it sounds like the issue isn’t as clear cut as the school district busybodies are trying to make it out to be.
Maybe that’s why no other school district in Oregon has such a boneheaded interpretation of the law?
Haters gonna hate…
Rule makers make rules….
(whether needed or not)
Thanks for the clarification. But what if an 18 year old has sex with a 17 year old. Is it a crime?
Again, not a lawyer, so I trust our host to prevent me from making people stupider…
The wording of 2015 ORS 163.345: “… in which the victim’s lack of consent was due solely to incapacity to consent by reason of being less than a specified age, it is a defense that the actor was less than three years older than the victim at the time of the alleged offense.”
As an ignorant software engineer, my plain reading of the law there says an 18 year old (or even 19 year old) could have sexual relations with a 17 year old. Probably even a 20 year old if they’re less than 36 months apart in age.
You’re correct. This is the “Romeo and Juliet” defense.
Our love’s gonna be written down in history
Just like Romeo and Juliet