Downunder: Six-year-old accused of (sexual) harassment

News.Com (Australia) ^ | November 21, 2004 | Darrell Giles

[Stoat]

Six-year-old accused of harassment

By Darrell Giles
November 21, 2004

THE Queensland Government has ordered an investigation into why a six-year-old boy was suspended from school after being accused of sexual harassment.

The Year 1 student was sent home this week after he poked a female classmate on the bottom.

The one-day suspension sparked outrage with parents angry at what they saw as extremely harsh punishment for the youngster.

Queensland's Parents and Citizens Council said it was political correctness gone mad with school officials exhibiting a "knee-jerk reaction" out of fear the victim's parents might sue.

The boy spent Monday at home following the incident at Kimberley Park State School, in Brisbane's south, the previous Friday. After the six-year-old girl complained to a teacher, the boy confirmed he had touched her on the bottom, on the outside of her clothes.

Principal Annette Murray deemed the boy's behaviour as sexually inappropriate and handed out the suspension.

"Everyone has the right to feel safe at school and the only way that's going to happen is to make sure all children keep their hands and feet to themselves," Ms Murray said.

But the boy's parents - who asked not to be identified - accused the school of over-reacting.

"It's just ridiculous," the boy's shocked mother said yesterday. "It's over the top.

"They are implying my son is some little sex monster. He is nothing of the sort. He is just a normal little boy.

"Sex and six-year-olds do not go together. He has no concept of sex . . . my son knows that you don't touch a girl's or boy's private parts."

The mother said to suggest his actions had sexual connotations was mind-boggling.

The victim's mother agreed. She sent a letter to the other family on Friday saying there had been no physical or mental harm done to her daughter and the touch had been innocuous.

The boy's mother said: "I have been in contact with her every day. She's fine. She said her daughter had forgotten about the matter."

The family had received dozens of calls of support from the school community. They welcomed news that State Education Minister Anna Bligh had intervened in the case.

"I just want my son's name cleared," his father said.

Ms Bligh said principals had a responsibility to "maintain the good order of their school" but she expressed some reservations about the boy's punishment.

"While suspensions are a valid disciplinary measure, I can understand that some parents may have concerns about the value of suspending Year 1 students," she said.

"Therefore, I have asked the department to examine the circumstances surrounding this case."

Ms Bligh had requested the investigation report be filed with her as soon as possible.

The boy's mother said she was first told by a school official that her son had "hurt" another student. Her son was then given the telephone to explain his actions to her.

"I asked him what had happened and he said, 'I don't know, I just poked her on the bum'. He said all the children had been mucking around. My son would never do anything to intentionally hurt another child."

The mother was particularly angry that a school official had drawn a picture of a naked person and asked the boy to point on the diagram where he had touched the girl.

Ms Murray told the Albert and Logan News that the boy's age was irrelevant. She said the suspension gave the family an opportunity to discuss why it was not appropriate to touch girls in personal places.

But P and C state president Wanda Lambert said it was inappropriate to banish a child who probably did not understand what the fuss was about.

"This reflects society today . . . this over-reaction, all for the sake of political correctness," she said. "People are jumping the gun rather than investigating something properly."

Ms Lambert said the school would have been better calling in both children and parents to discuss the incident before handing out the punishment.

"We don't want children as young as that suspended every time they do something wrong," she said.

Education Queensland's annual report, tabled in Parliament this month, revealed there were more than 37,000 cases where students were suspended for between one and 20 days.

Most of the offences were for physical misconduct.

Although no ages were given, department insiders said there would only have been, at most, "a handful" of Year 1 students suspended.

The Sunday Mail (Qld)

[Stoat]

Although I'm a big fan of our Aussie friends and sincerely appreciate their tremendous support in the war on terror, this sort of thing really needs to stop. When we start using words such as "sexual harrassment" in the context of a six year old, this is assigning far more culpability to the boy than what is generally regarded as being physiologially possible. This sort of thing can follow someone for the rest of their life, and a small child doesn't deserve such a stain on his record for a naive and innocent bit of inappropriate play. Hopefully steps will be taken to clarify the injustice of this, and soon.

[jocon307]

Yes, well give the Aussies a break. It's we who started this cr*p.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #1

Their vaunted "femocracy" is really alive, even though the Australian left is out of power.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #2

The cr*p has a name: Anita Hill

[endthematrix]

"The mother was particularly angry that a school official had drawn a picture of a naked person and asked the boy to point on the diagram where he had touched the girl."

Government psychology in action. The wedge between children and parents to destroy the family.

[codyjacksmom]

If all this PC BS was around when I was that age, they would have suspended the whole damn school at one point or another.

[jocon307]

Tiger, you are right about that.

[angel-of-death]

stoat, that most australians agree with you. the problem is that our government and public schools have gone MAD with political correctness.

did you know:
- you cant mention "christmas" in public organizations or schools
- you cant "villify" another person because of their religion: currently two christian preists are on a CRIMINAL TRIAL because they talked about why the koran was so violent in their sermon, and they may well go to jail

basically the screaming immigrants and minorities in australia run the show.

whilst most australians try to stand up against this, the problem is that 38% of the country is either first or second generation immigrant, and so they have a tremendous voting power which steers australia in the PC direction.

how they got to this sorry state of affairs i dont know. australians will soon be a minority in their own country.

but trust me the "real" australians are on your side, stoat (presuming you are american).

cheers
angel of death.

[angel-of-death]

not to mention the craziness in schools.

in australia, did you know:
- your kids dont get "grades" (A, B, C, etc). they just get "Satisfactory" or "Not satisfactory". Some government idiot decided it was demeaning for some kids to get "lower grades" than others. This is socialized education in action !! The result: you dont know how well your child is doing at school
- teachers cannot defend themselves against violent students. if a 16 year old student kicks a female teacher, and the teacher raises an arm to defend herself, she will be charged with assault. crazy world.

dont send your child to a state school in australia! pay for a private school... many families that are not millionaires put themselves on the poverty line in order to send their kids to private schools. a worthwhile sacrifice in this education system gone mad.

[Stoat]

Hello,
Welcome to Free Republic, and thank you so very much for your thoughtful replies (this goes to everyone else as well).

I wish that I could do more than sadly shake my head in utter bafflement when I hear you recount such a litany of insanity in your beautiful country.

When I visited in 1987, I noticed that there were lots of very small businesses and lots of very very large businesses, but I didn't notice a lot of "medium sized" businesses. I was told that this was because when a company hires more than 'x' number of people, they're required to provide a complete range of health insurance coverage and who knows what else. So, either you kept your business very small or you were a huge corporation that could simply afford it....everyone else did business elsewhere.

Australians are wonderful people and you deserve far better than what you are being subjected to on the economic as well as the social front. My great hope is that eventually some sane voices will prevail.

May God Bless you all.

[Brian Allen]

<< Yes, well give the Aussies a break. We started this cr*p. >>

Took the words oudda me mouth.

It's New Zealand that has the femmunist gummint, TLR, although it, like Australia -- and despite that John Howard both champions and epitomises the average Aussie Battler -- has only lefty gummints.

Apart from the alternatives offered by Byron and shaggy and their too few mates, socialist, very socialist awfully bloody socialist and communist about cover the political choices down there.

[cb]

You know, when I was a kid, I don't think there was ANTHING that I could do that would get me suspended, punished...yes, but not suspended.

Hell, if we'd known we could go home by touching some girls ass, we'd been outta there!!!!

[Allosaurs_r_us]

Looks to me like the powers that be need to get their minds out of the gutter. They are the one's who put a sexual conotation to this. Niether the little boy nor the little girl thought this was sexual (I doubt either even knows what it is). Looks to me like the principal is a pervert. Any one of us who has raised children knows this whole bit is rediculous. Sexual harrassment INDEED!

[Syncro]

"The mother was particularly angry that a school official had drawn a picture of a naked person and asked the boy to point on the diagram where he had touched the girl."

The teacher should be charged with pedophilia for showing a drawing of a naked person to a 5 year old child.

[shaggy eel]

,,, this ridiculous treatment of a child will serve as a wake up call to a growing number considering the merits of home schooling. It will be pleasing confirmation of the right path taken for those who already do. Push a bit at a time and keep pushing and intelligent, motivated parents will respond by decreasing State school rolls.