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- <text id=92TT1888>
- <title>
- Aug. 24, 1992: Hard Lessons
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Aug. 24, 1992 George Bush: The Fight of His Life
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 14
- SOCIETY
- Hard Lessons
- </hdr><body>
- <p>A federal court says schools are not responsible for sexual
- abuse of pupils
- </p>
- <p> In 1989 two teenage girls reported they had been sexually
- molested over a period of five months in a suburban Philadelphia
- vocational high school. Five male students were convicted of
- indecent assault, and two others pleaded no contest and
- cooperated with the police. The girls' families sued the school
- district, arguing that since the state requires school
- attendance, schools--like mental institutions and prisons--have a duty to protect their charges.
- </p>
- <p> The girls lost in a lower-court decision, and a federal
- appeals court last week ruled against them. In a 7-to-5
- decision, the court held that while school officials may have
- disregarded complaints of the assaults, students are not
- confined in the manner of mental patients or prisoners; in
- short, the victims could have sought help outside the school,
- but failed to do so. The girls' lawyer said he would take the
- case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-