Story Archive

Reporting Abuse

Oregon law requires teachers to report any sexual abuse of minors. Oregon law also says that people under 18 can’t consent to sex. Salem-Keizer School District officials looked at those two rules and drew a logical inference: anytime a teenager has sex, including with another teenager, that “child” is being abused, and district employees, if they find out, must report it. The district’s policy even requires teachers to report suspicions and rumors. Students and educators are objecting. “This leaves students with no one,” high-schooler Kimberly Schott, one of the organizers of a protest at the state capitol, wrote in a petition. “The students no longer have that safe teacher they can talk to.” Some may not even have a safe parent: the policy requires district employees to report their own sons and daughters for having sex. (AC/Salem Statesman-Journal) ...Message to teenagers: Your sexuality doesn’t belong to you; it belongs to the adults who have power over you.