Tackling sexual harassment by students
Employers need to fulfil their legal obligations to prevent the sexual harassment of teachers by students, writes Andrew Taylor in the latest edition of ie.
Women teachers, principals and school staff across Australia face increasing rates of violence and harassment from students, mostly teenage boys, but also from primary school children.
Highly publicised incidents include the expulsion of a male student from Melbourne’s Salesian College in 2024 after he created fake explicit images of a female teacher that were circulated around the school.
A national survey found teachers – overwhelmingly female – were subjected to routine sexual harassment.
The shocking findings prompted IEU Federal Secretary Brad Hayes to call for immediate intervention from governments and school employers to address the issue.
“Our members tell us they are experiencing increased incidences and types of verbal and physical attacks and intimidation, which experts confirm is fuelled by online anti-feminist activists operating in the ‘manosphere’,” Hayes says.
Safety compromised
The Sexual Harassment of Teachers report, published last year by Collective Shout, found teachers are propositioned, threatened with rape, subjected to sexist slurs, mimicking of sex acts, sexually moaned at, asked for nude photos and intimidated.
Collective Shout director Melinda Tankard Reist said the sexual harassment of female teachers by students was a “crisis”.
“Schools have become sites of abuse,” she said. “The safety of teachers and female students is significantly compromised.”
The Sydney Morning Herald last year reported a spike in sexual offences, including at NSW schools amid a surge in reports of school violence in the past two years.
The National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety found women teachers across all sectors are seeking greater support and professional development to counter sexual misbehaviours by male students.
Hayes says urgent action is required to address the increase in harmful sexual behaviours in Australian schools and end the sexual harassment of teachers.
“Schools will play their part, but we need parents and the wider community, including sporting organisations, to call out bad behaviour and mentor positive role models for boys and young men,” Hayes says.
' The safety of teachers and female students is significantly compromised. '
Bystander inaction
The national curriculum, along with state education programs such as Respectful Relationships in Victoria, includes specific focus on consent and respectful relationships, making social media safer for students and making women’s lives safer.
Hayes says teaching resources and education programs are an important part of the solution, but school employers must also show clear leadership on these issues.
“Employers must take immediate and decisive action in response to any cases of harassment of school staff,” he says. “There must be a policy of zero tolerance of harassing or worse behaviour in every workplace, and in every school.”
However, research led by Adelaide University Associate Professor in education Samantha Schulz highlighted the issue of bystander inaction when it came to complaints about sexual harassment.
“This is when school leaders, other teachers, or parents downplay what is happening or do nothing or little in response,” she wrote in The Conversation.
Monash University’s School of Education, Society and Culture lecturer Stephanie Wescott says research shows women in schools are “far less respected” than men, and the authority of men is more understood and respected.
“Boys were learning how to openly display sexism and misogyny towards women and then trying this stuff out in schools,” she told ABC Radio National in November 2024.
Dr Wescott says schools could do more to stamp out this behaviour including calling it gender-based violence and believing women rather than dismissing or undermining them.
“There also needs to be proper consequences and procedures,” she says. “We don’t have, really, in Australia, schools that are recording this behaviour accurately.”
Teachers worried
Teachers are increasingly worried about the rise of harmful sexual behaviours by students, which they attribute to early exposure to pornography, the malign impact of social media influencers and sexist attitudes still prevalent in the community.
IEU members last year described how an alarming number of schoolboys had been radicalised by online content pushed by misogynist influencers, causing some women teachers to give up the profession.
IEUA NSW/ACT Branch Deputy Secretary David Towson says members are reporting increasing incidents of violence and sexual harassment by students directed towards teachers and other staff in non-government schools.
“This problem is escalating in all school sectors, and it is unacceptable,” he says.
“Violence and sexual harassment is never acceptable. Everyone has the right to a safe workplace, and it is the union’s job to ensure employers fulfil their legal responsibilities to ensure a safe workplace.”
The problem is not new. A 2021 Monash University study, The erasure of sexual harassment in elite private boys’ schools, found female teachers in elite private boys’ schools were vulnerable to sexual harassment due to the school’s status.
“If elite private schools are run like ‘businesses’ and ‘bad news’ can spread, then it stands to reason that market pressures might lead administrators to play down or ‘disappear’ sexual harassment before these incidents come to parents’ attention,” said the study’s authors, George Variyan and Jane Wilkinson.
The Age in 2016 reported Melbourne’s Brighton Grammar had expelled two senior students who set up a social media account featuring photos of young girls and invited people to vote for “slut of the year”.
Concerns about violence and sexual harassment by students, particularly towards female teachers and support staff, last year prompted members of the NSW/ACT Branch’s Mid North Coast Sub Branch to forward a resolution to the branch’s governing Council.
Consequently, a four-part motion was passed at a NSW/ACT Branch Council meeting in August 2024 demanding action from employers and the government to address the issue.
“The members called on employers to provide confidential reporting mechanisms, prompt and thorough investigations and appropriate action against perpetrators,” Towson says.
“We’re also asking for training programs for all staff and students to raise awareness about harassment and its impact, as well as strategies for prevention and intervention.”
Employers must act
After the Council meeting, IEUA NSW/ACT Branch Secretary Carol Matthews wrote to employers to request meetings to discuss what steps they have taken to stamp out violence and harassment and what more is needed to ensure a safe workplace, including clear data derived from robust reporting mechanisms.
There has been a range of responses so far. The Diocese of Bathurst was open to sharing data and working with the IEU so that all employees are aware of the support and processes available to ensure matters are addressed.
The Association of Independent Schools encouraged the union to discuss any specific cases in which the school has not responded appropriately with it, so it can offer advice and assistance to the school to implement strategies to deal with and prevent sexual harassment of teachers by students.
Matthews says schools need to implement measures to ensure employees are safe and free from harassment.
The Respect@Work reforms, passed by the federal Labor government in 2022, impose a positive duty on employers to eliminate unlawful behaviour in workplaces, including:
discrimination on the grounds of sex
sexual harassment
sex-based harassment
conduct creating a workplace environment that is hostile on the grounds of sex, and
related acts of victimisation.
“This positive duty imposes a legal obligation on employers to take proactive and meaningful action to prevent unlawful conduct from occurring in the workplace including behaviour by students towards employees,” she says.
