Foleygate and School Sex Scandals

I found this article in the New York Times illuminating on the matter of school sex scandals, with a particular focus on an incident in Bayonne, New Jersey:

After Ms. West was arrested, school officials insisted for more than a year that the allegation was the only accusation of misconduct in a sterling 24-year career. They allowed her to take an early retirement package that fattened her pension, and gave her a farewell party with cake and ice cream. When Ms. West pleaded guilty in 2005 to sexual assault charges, glowing references from co-workers, supervisors and friends helped persuade a judge to sentence her only to probation. She was also spared the ordeal of having to register as a sex offender.

Now, with Mr. Castlegrande suing the school district for failing to protect students from a woman with a sexual appetite for under-age boys, this city of 62,000 has been forced to examine how little was done to stop her earlier. Even as the news media were saturated with coverage of teachers like Pamela Smart and Mary Kay Letourneau who slept with their students, Bayonne averted its eyes for years.

Anyone else find this story interesting, especially in light of the current fascination with the Mark Foley scandal? I do; especially because of the way the media covers stories dealing with people using and abusing their positions of authority to take advantage of children.

Mark Foley was run out of Congress for sending inappropriate emails and sexually suggestive instant messages. There are even claims of sexual contact with pages after they turned 21 and after they left the Page program. Yet, we repeatedly see the media and school officials turn a blind eye to sex abuse of students by teachers, administrators and other school officials, especially when the person committing the abuse is a woman, and the abused individual is a boy.

Can you say double standard? I knew you could. But it gets better because West was politically connected and protected:

The school principal at the time, Daniel Doyle, swore in a statement to prosecutors last year that he spoke to a half-dozen teachers and became convinced that she and the student were sexually involved. “Diane has a thing for young boys,” Mr. Doyle recalled being told, according to court records.

Mr. Doyle said in the statement that he wrote to the superintendent asking that Ms. Cherchio be fired, but was startled to learn, upon returning to school in the fall, that she had instead become a guidance counselor at the high school.

“I accepted it as a political maneuver,” said Mr. Doyle, now retired, who grew up near the Cherchio family. He added that he suspected her father’s business and political connections allowed her to escape punishment.

Will we hear calls for the heads of all those involved in the decision that let this sexual predator continue working in a school, including those politically connected individuals that let this continue. These people knew of West's activities and did nothing. They continued to let West interact with children, despite the predeliction and evidence showing her to be a sexual predator.

And this is far from an isolated incident. Teachers abusing their students happens fairly regularly, and more often than people are willing to admit. Should we hold politicians to the same standards we hold our teachers? Mary Kay Letourneau. Debra Lafave. These are people we entrusted our future to - and they violated that trust. Yet, courts, prosecutors, and the public seems to lack the outrage that they're now tossing the way of Hastert and company. It's an interesting question, because it seems that we only get our hackles up when it's a man doing the abuse, but not when a woman is the predator. Sexual predators are predators regardless of the gender of the predator.

My take on this is simple. If you're a sexual predator, engaging in illicit sexual conduct with someone under the age of consent, you are engaging in criminal activity and should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. It doesn't matter whether you're a female teacher/guidance counselor abusing boys, or a Congressman who was going after underage pages.

As for those who knew, had reason to know, or otherwise sought to coverup the activities of sexual predators, they too should be punished to the fullest extent of the law for putting children at risk. It is absolutely inexcusable. Period.

Technorati: mark foley, email, im, instant message, congress, foleygate.