BOSTON (MA)
The Berkshire Eagle [Pittsfield MA]
June 1, 2024
By Bill Everhart
It took too long for Massachusetts to wrap its head around the reality of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests. That was something that only happened “elsewhere” to “other children,” and this willful blindness allowed a horrific problem to go unaddressed for far too long.
Sadly, this pattern appears to be repeating itself when it comes to efforts to protect children from being sexually abused in schools. Massachusetts has fallen behind states across the nation, and attempts to catch up are bogged down legislatively on Beacon Hill.
It has been eight years since state Sen. Joan B. Lovely, an Essex Democrat, introduced legislation that would mandate policies preventing sexual abuse of students by school employees and educating students and staff about the problem. Beacon Hill is notorious for foot-dragging, but if there is money to be made from sports gambling or marijuana it will get motivated. In this case, there are no dollar signs attached and the subject makes people uneasy.
Lovely told Eagle reporter Heather Bellow that “People want to run away from this topic.” Discomfort with a difficult topic and denial that it could actually happen in a child’s school create the dangerous illusion that the problem can be run away from.
Two graduates of Miss Hall’s School in Pittsfield have accused a now-former teacher at the all-girls school of sexually exploiting them when they were students. In a May 17 interview with Bellow, two other alumnae claim that school administrators were unresponsive when they brought to school leadership’s attention what one called an “open secret.”
In the wake of these allegations, the school has begun working with the nonprofit Learning Courage to head off incidents of sexual exploitation. While welcome, this action could have come before newspaper headlines made it a necessity.
For a state that likes to think of itself as enlightened, Massachusetts has been disappointedly sluggish on several fronts in addressing the sexual exploitation of children. Erin’s Law, named after abuse survivor and activist Erin Merryn, establishes benchmarks for kindergarten through eighth grade to help children, teachers and parents recognize and confront sexual abuse in schools. It has been signed into law in 37 states; Massachusetts is among the 13 states that have not done so.
The Enough Abuse campaign is a community-based effort to confront sexual abuse in schools that began in Massachusetts through a program called MassKids. But the Enough Abuse website actually chronicles the state’s failures.
Massachusetts is one of only 11 states that has not passed laws criminalizing educator sexual misconduct. Fourteen states not including Massachusetts have passed laws screening employees to try to weed out sexual predators. Twenty-eight states, Massachusetts not among them, have passed laws mandating instruction in schools on child sexual abuse and awareness.
Of the states in the last two categories that have not passed needed legislation, only Massachusetts has legislation pending. This is where Sen. Lovely’s bill and other proposals on Beacon Hill offer hope.
The two bill introduced by Sen. Lovely (S.314) and another bill on the matter introduced in the House (H.194) are together known as the Shield Act. They require adoption of an abuse prevention policy and mandatory prevention training for all public and private schools. It would require age-appropriate education for children and teens, similar to the aforementioned Erin’s Law, and would provide educators with a code of conduct for interactions between adults and students.
Lovely, a survivor of sexual abuse as a child, observed in The Eagle that an academic institution’s first instinct is self-preservation when allegations emerge. However, establishing and enacting policies that anticipate problems could enable schools to avoid the scandals that cause them to circle the wagons. If, as MassKids Executive Director Jetta Bernier says, “It’s not a question of [whether] it will ever happen in your school — it’s a question of when,” then enacting policies could protect children and academic institutions alike.
Lovely’s legislation, introduced way back in 2016, now sits in a Senate committee. There is no organized opposition to it, as is often the case with legislation on Beacon Hill. Why would there be? What is preventing Massachusetts from keeping up with other states are denial, discomfort and institutional inertia. That is a recipe for tragedy for children, parents and schools alike.