Stop passing the ‘trash’

We’re in the midst of a social revolution on what constitutes sexual harassment and assault. There’s been a sea-change in attitudes in just the few weeks since Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men have been toppled for acting in ways that were once condoned.

The law hasn’t caught up with these changes. And nowhere is that so clear as in Ontario, where the law aimed at protecting students from sexual abuse from teachers needs to be made much stronger. Though Bill 37, the Protecting Students Act, became law only 12 months ago it is already dangerously out of date.

Indeed, even when it was passed, the bill was criticized by the Ontario College of Teachers for not being tough enough.

Chief among the concerns the college did not mention in its critique, however, was the one where the bill is most lacking.

As it stands, Bill 37 only protects students from the most heinous and explicit sexual acts. As the Star’s Victoria Gibson and Vjosa Isai reported on the weekend, if the sexual abuse doesn’t involve a very specific series of acts — intercourse, masturbation, child pornography, or contact such as genital-to-genital and genital-to-oral — the law does not require the offender’s teaching licence to be revoked.

That means teachers can engage in various other sexual acts such as kissing, groping or even (as in a case reported by the Star) licking a student’s breast, and the college is not required to take away their licence. That doesn’t mean it can’t. It just means it isn’t required to do so.

As a result, as examples reported in the Star show, too often a teacher can be found responsible by the college for sexually assaulting a student and still keep their licence.

With that in hand they become the problem of the school board that employs them. Firing teachers who have managed to hold on to their licence is notoriously difficult, and school boards routinely shy away from even trying to get rid of them. Instead, some boards simply transfer them to another school, where they may offend again. So common is the practice that it even goes by a code name: “Pass the trash.”

Even worse, at some boards, principals at the school where an offending teacher is being transferred don’t even have to be alerted. “You have these predators that are in the school system, and everybody wants to give them a chance, but nobody says ‘OK, that’s enough,’ ” says one retired principal.

“Enough” doesn’t even begin to describe it. Consider the case of Richard Knill. The Peel District School Board first became aware of allegations he was sexually abusing his students in 1992. Over the next 25 years, the board transferred him three times — though they refuse to say why.

Among the allegations of sexual assaults unearthed by the Star was that he pulled the front of a student’s top down and began kissing and licking her breast. When his case was heard in 2003, the college merely suspended him for two months and required him to be assessed by a psychiatrist and to take a boundaries course. The school board didn’t fire him.

In June, he was criminally charged for the sexual exploitation of a 17-year-old girl at Turner Fenton Secondary School. After the charge was announced, another woman came forward with allegations after decades of silence. He is now facing additional charges for sexual exploitation and sexual assault related to a 1997 incident.

Knill’s case highlights much that is wrong with both the new legislation, the amount of power that professional colleges have to discipline a teacher and the practice at school boards of transferring teachers rather than getting rid of them.

The first step to correct it all is to strengthen the current legislation. It must require the firing of any teacher the college finds has sexually assaulted or harassed any student or colleague — period. Stating specific sexual acts in the law only implies that other ones are OK. They are not.

Second, the Ontario College of Teachers must recognize that teachers should lose their licence if the college’s disciplinary panel finds that any allegation of sexual misconduct against a teacher is well-founded.

In the meantime, school boards should be prepared to challenge established labour practices in more cases. They should not routinely back down in the face of union grievances and should dismiss anyone the college finds guilty of sexual misconduct.

Indeed, both the college and school boards should be prepared to go to court, if necessary, to stand their ground on this critical issue.

There should be zero tolerance for any kind of sexual assault or harassment in our schools. Students must be protected from predatory teachers and the law should be strengthened to make sure that happens.

Ontario must require the firing of any teacher the college finds has sexually assaulted a student or colleague — period