Sex assaults by teachers on students an 'epidemic'

Sex assaults by teachers on students an 'epidemic'
Organization fights uphill battle in system that protects predators
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Posted: January 23, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Editor's note: At this link, WND has documented an alarming list of female teachers who have assaulted male students, part of the problem of teacher-on-student assaults estimated to include millions of victims.

By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

An estimated 5 million students in United States schools have been assaulted sexually by teachers, according to a congressional report. But no one is calling for investigations or law enforcement crackdowns, there have been no campaigns to ban the offenders from schools, and in many states there aren't even any requirements such predator attacks be reported to education licensing agencies.

"We have approximately 5 million children suffering and no one is calling for an investigation, for any kind of data to be collected to find out why that many children are being hurt by teachers," said Terri Miller, who runs probably the only organization in the nation that focuses specifically on assaults by educators on students. "This is an epidemic."

In fact, in many cases, especially where the attacker is a woman and the student a male, such assaults are treated as a joke, with a hand-slap for the teacher, and some ribald locker room humor directed at the student.

WND has documented in recent months an alarming string of dozens of cases of female teacher-on-male student sexual assaults, but those are just part of the overall problem, Miller said.

Her volunteer group, called Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation, often feels overwhelmed by the dearth of information, injuries to students, and obstacles posed by opponents such as the National Education Association.

But she says it's a do-or-die battle.

"I won't give up trying. I have vowed to keep trying until we have good strong legislation to hold the perpetrators criminally responsible," she told WND.

She said the problem easily could be many times larger than the scandals involving Catholic Church priests molesting children, and the hundreds of millions of dollars in civil liabilities already determined in those cases.

"You are not mandated to send your children to church, but you are mandated by law to send your children to school," she said. "And, by God, schools better be mandated to keep them safe."
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