NCJ Number
213053
Journal
Law & Policy Volume: 28 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2006 Pages: 31-59
Date Published
January 2006
Length
29 pages
Annotation
This paper shows how peer-to-peer sexual harassment was quickly transformed from an unremarkable reality of secondary school life into a serious social and legal problem.
Abstract
Findings point to appearance that school policies on peer-to-peer sexual harassment influenced the creation of law at the level of doctrine, and not simply at the level of meaning, enforcement, or application. Specifically, schools responded to something other than legal mandates or calculable liability risks as they created policy on the issue of peer-to-peer sexual harassment, and courts looked to schools to determine the scope and content of the related law, Title IX. Real and significant legal and organizational change is documented, however it remains to be seen whether legal liability, school policies, and grievance procedures can produce meaningful social change for students who are sexually harassed by their peers. The analysis focuses exclusively on Federal law under Title IX, which protects individuals from sex discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. This paper reveals how the endogenous relationship between law and organizations produces both formal law and law in action from the same set of social, legal, political, cultural and discursive processes. References