It goes without saying that schools should make every effort to prevent predatory sexual misconduct by educators. But not all educator sexual misconduct is predatory. In fact, most of what I see in my law practice and as an expert witness is “opportunistic” misconduct that does not involve sexual activity at all. The offenders are not pathologically fixated on children, but rather have significant personal issues, often arrested emotional development, that contribute to behaviors taking them down the so-called “slipper slope” and only sometimes culminating in sexual misconduct. When schools focus prevention efforts primarily on predatory sexual misconduct, they risk missing the opportunity to address other types of educator misconduct.
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