COURT OKS HARASSMENT SUITS/ JUSTICES: SCHOOLS LIABLE FOR DAMAGES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 27, 1992                   TAG: 9202270106
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
COURT OKS HARASSMENT SUITS/ JUSTICES: SCHOOLS LIABLE FOR DAMAGES
In a decision hailed by advocates for women's rights, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that students can collect monetary damages from schools in sexual harassment cases.
The justices overturned a lower court decision and reinstated the lawsuit of a former Georgia student who says she was harassed by one of her high school teachers.
The court said Congress had implied that victims could sue for money when it passed a 1972 law prohibiting gender discrimination in public education.
The case, Christine Franklin vs. Gwinnett County Public Schools, "supports a claim for monetary damages," wrote Justice Byron White for the court.
Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 outlaws sex-based discrimination in public schools.
A federal district court had dismissed Franklin's $6 million lawsuit against the suburban school system outside Atlanta. The case now will go to trial.
The ruling is "a long-overdue victory in the struggle to eliminate sexual harassment from the schoolyard and the workplace," said Judith Lichtman, president of the Women's Legal Defense Fund.
Gwinnett School Superintendent George Thompson expressed disappointment at the ruling and warned it could have adverse economic consequences for education across the country.
Added interest in the case arose because it was the first involving the issue of sexual harassment to face the court since Clarence Thomas became a justice. During his confirmation hearings, Thomas was accused by a former aide, law professor Anita Hill, of having sexually harassed her verbally.
In the Gwinnett County case, Thomas and Chief Justice William Rehnquist signed a concurring opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia.
Franklin was a student at North Gwinnett High School from 1985 to 1989. Beginning in the 10th grade, Franklin said, she was sexually harassed by Andrew Hill, an economics teacher and coach.
Franklin said that Hill engaged her in sexually oriented conversations, phoned her at home, got her out of other classes, and on several occasions "subjected her to coercive intercourse," according to court documents.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB