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Show _The Salt Lake Tribune OPINION Thursday, May 27, 1999 Court Shows Common Sense About School Sex Harassment HINGTON — Regardless of what s you might hearor read elsewhere ling the Supreme Court's decision ) hold school districts liable for severe first-“grader|who was punishedinthe fall CLARENCE PAGE of 1996 for kissing an unsuspecting classmate. Afterlittle Johnathan spent ada: yd pervasive sexual harassment, thereis Sime SZough-and-tumble place where students Spractice newly learned vulgarities. erupt with anger, tease and embarrass each Sether, share offensive notes, flirt, push Zand shovein the halls, grab andoffend,” “Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for tle dissent in the 5:to-4 dec x He went on to bemoan“thefloodof lia “Mility the court today begins.” moan no more, Mr. Justice, sir “Whe majority opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connorissignificant not aiily for the lawsuits it allows butalsofor where they are deliberate ly indifferent to sexual harassment. of whic v have ment and common sense, the case would actual have ic cized was the Depart ment of Education's announcement a few monthslaterthat sided with Johnathan. Without specifically mentioning Prevette’s case, the department issued new uits it prevents. it is quite proper for the federal government to step in when fundamental rights are in jeopardy. But O'Conno guidelines thatcited it as thesort ofinci opinion thoughtfully limits the liability ment must besufficiently severe, persis: tent orpervasive that it adversely affects a student's educationorcreates a hostile of schools only fenses, “pervasive” dent that is not harassment. “In orderto give rise a complaint,” the new guidelines sé ‘sexual harass ment that denies equal ac ess te orabusive educational environment. For a one-timeincidenttorise to thelevel of ample, such wretchedexcessesas the harassment, it must be severe.” Most significant, the guidelines urge educators to consider the age and matu education, Herlanguage would prevent, for ex- case of Johnathan Prevette. Remember him? He was the 6-year-old Lexington, N.C., agrees guide. ery radio talk-showhost whoeverhad a hools, political and moneyondisciplinary matters CHICAGO TRIBUNE SERVICE O'Connor's opinion essentially with the Department of Ec tues n lines andsets up clear own. Schools are liable. s an incident among students is harass ment or merely inappropriate. tional cause celebre, a poster child for ev creamparty, the lad became an interna ‘sfiat amount tolittle more than child's Jay. matters that mightbetter be handled »cally without federal intrusion. % ~Thereal world of schooldisciplineisa common sense” when deciding whether Judgment and common sense? What a novel notion. Perhaps if the teachers and administrators involved in the Supreme Court case had shown little better judg- from his class, missing out on to panic Critics fear the case opens schooldisup to a waveof lawsuits. Fear of suits could mean teachers and adanistrators will be spending too much and colleges that recei that se eventually pleade battery rity of students andto use “judgment and been settled more quickly and knowledge, that is so severe, per vasive and objectively offensive that it quietly can besaid to deprive the victims of ac At issue was the case of LaShonda Davis. who allegedly was harassed re. cess to the educational opportunities or benefits provided by the peatedly over the course of several If you still don’t get the message, O'Connor further explains that “simple acts of teasing and name nong schoolchildren.” even when the com months by a boy in her fifth-gradeclass in Forsythe, Ga., beginning in December 1992 The offenses included rubbing against ments target differences of gender. are not “severe, pervasive and objectively offen: sive” enough unless they deny someone's her and asking for sex. Her previously high grades dropped as she became un ableto concentrate on her studies and in equal access to education Attention, all teachers and adminis: trators: Read, learn and discuss the guidelines Avoid overreacting Avoid underreacting. April, 1993, her father discovered she had written-a suicide note, according to court testimony It was only after her mother called the sheriff and LaShonda filed a federal law suit under Title IX of the 1972 Amendments to the Civil Rights Act Don’t panic. which bars sex discrimination in schools Most important: Use common sense. 4'linton Lied About the Gravest Issue of National Security Imaginable \SHINGTON— nd Thelawyers,flacks, Whatis more, Clintonhadreceived, in seas ney good Democrats who assured January 1999, a yee executive summaryof the classified ion of the Cox Report, prepared by the president's na tional security staff. Again, such a sum. Sthat it didn’t really matter that the »vesident was liar a pathologically dedicated because, you will recall, he only lied about that which gentlemen should bout might nowwish, in light of the vx Report on Chinese espionage, to reisit their position. On March 19, in the wakeof press rents disclosing an ongoing campaign by he People’s Republic of China to steal \merica’s nuclear secrets, the president veld a news conference. He carefully hayacterized China's espionage as oc. urring “in the mid-80s, notin the 1 I not, in other words, during the years in “hina was funneling cash into ampaign coffers and Clinton Chinaas America’s “strategic Sam Donaldson askedthe obvijuestion: “Can youassure the Amerpeople that, under your watch, no iliable nuclear secrets were lost?” ton was unequivocal in his answer. it asked me [a] question, which is: Can I tell you that there has beennoespi ol it the labs since I have been presi- sent?” Clinton said.“I cantell you that no one has reported to me that they suspect sucha thing has occurred.” Later, another reporter returnedto the mary surely included the report’s conclu sion, written in the declassified version, that “the People’s Republic of China has THE WASHINGTON POST WRITERS GROUP subject. This time, Clinton prefaced his denial with a bit of his patented weasel Ik: “Tothebest of my knowledge, no one id nage, anything fo me about any espio- which occurred by the Chinese against thelabs, during mypresidency.” At this time, Clintonhadalready been briefed by his national security adviser, Samuel R. Berger, about Department of Energyand FBI investigations into ongoing Chineseespionage at the laboratories. The Cox Report, r that Berger informed the commit he had briefed Clinton“about thetheft of U.S. nuclearinformationinearly 1998.” A last-minute footnote reports that Berger changedhis story in recent weeks, and “advised the Select Committee that the president was briefed in July 1997, althoughno written record of this meeting exists.” stolenclassified information onall of the United States’ most advanced thermonuclear warheads, andseveral of the associated re-entry vehicles [in] an intelligencecollection program spanning two decades, and continuing to the present. The PRCintelligence program included espionage . and extensiveinteractions with scientists from the national weaponslaboratories. Indeed, any competent summary must have gone into some detail on the subject of continuing Chinese espionage in the Clintonyears. In the declassified version, the Cox Report states that “in the mid- 1990s, the PRC stole froma U.S. national weapons laboratory classified U.S. thermonuclear weapons information”; that “significant secrets are known to have beenstolenas recently as the mid-1990s": that Lawrence Livermore scientist Peter Lee had in 1997 passed to Chinese weap- onsscientists classified research on submarine detection; that intelligence agen. cies had reported in 1996 the Chinesetheft of neutr ‘on lab bomb technology from a U.S. So, on the day before the release of the declassified Cox Report, White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart faced a press corps that wanted to know why the president, on March 19, had asserted that no one had reported to him. ever, even suspicions of “espionage at the labs since Thave beenpresident.” Clearly incredulous reporters spent 57 questions trying to worm the truth out of Lockhart. The president’s man evaded obfuscated andretreated on occasioninto outright misstatements of fact sked about the case of Peter Lee, Lockhart pretended that Clinton had been speaking in his March 19 statements only to theissue of nuclearespion at the labs, not espionage in general. (Cute, huh?) Asked about Clinton's briefing by Berger, and about the January summary of the Cox Report, Lockhart again hid behind the pathetic claim that Clinton’ March 19 statements had been“accurate” because Clinton had been asserting ignorance ofspe cts of espionage, not ofa general knowledge that espionage might have occurredonhis watch Bill Clinton about thegravest issue of national secu rity imaginable. Congress should force Bergerto testify as to what precisely he told Clinton, and when. Congress should also subpoenathewritten si n yof the Cox Report that Clinton received in Jan. uary. Congress should not let this lie pass. 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