Abstract
Elementary and secondary schools have an affirmative duty to provide all children with an equal educational opportunity; that duty includes identifying and removing harassment from all schools, both public and private. The issue is whether schools and their officials can be held liable for the inequality in educational opportunity that results from peer harassment. A second, less complex issue is whether the students responsible for the harassment, or at least their parents, can be held liable. The well-documented existence of racial and sexual harassment in secondary and elementary schools is summarized in section II of this article. Prevention of harassment is discussed in section III, with emphasis on the efficacy of strong policies, accompanying education, and prompt corrective action by school officials to ensure students harassment-free educational opportunities. Section IV discusses the potential remedies for the student victims of student harassment in schools.
Recommended Citation
Ivan E. Bodensteiner,
Peer Harassment—Interference with an Equal Educational Opportunity in Elementary and Secondary Schools,
79 Neb. L. Rev.
(2000)
Available at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/nlr/vol79/iss1/2