Political Quotes

“the Supreme Court begins its session today and has announced a set of cases it will decide, among them another troublesome sexual harassment case, this one called Davis versus Monroe County Board of Education. It involves student-on-student sexual harassment under Title IX. We have here a student who was making As and Bs but fell to failing grades, to writing suicide notes, a fifth grader, after 5 months of groping of her breasts and other parts of her body. There were constant complaints from her parents, there were vulgar comments and the rest, until finally the parents simply sued the school after the school ignored the complaints. We have a split in the circuits based on how we have written Title IX, two circuits saying damages are recoverable, two circuits are saying they are not. Well, Mr. Speaker, I hope there will be no split here in this body. If the Supreme Court rules that Title IX does not cover this kind of action, we must take action next term. Why do I raise this now? Because the Court has already moved in an unacceptable direction on a not dissimilar case last term in the case of Gebser versus Largo Vista School District. There we had a ninth grader whose teacher sexually assaulted and harassed her, and yet the Supreme Court set a standard that makes it almost impossible for a parent and a child to recover against a school system.”