ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 15, 1997 TAG: 9703170027
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
You must remember this. A kiss is sometimes just a kiss. Especially when it comes from a friendly first-grader and the target is a classmate.
So says the Education Department in new guidelines aimed at helping school officials figure out what is sexual harassment and what is not.
In the case of Johnathan Prevette, the first-grader who was punished last year for kissing a girl at school, it was not harassment.
``He's very happy. He said, `See, I told them I was just trying to be friends,''' his mother, Jackie Prevette, said Friday morning. ``It makes everything we went through and everything we fought for worth it. Maybe other children won't have to go through this.''
The guidelines, published Thursday, call upon the ``judgment and common sense'' of school officials when fighting harassment. The department told officials to consider the alleged offender's age.
``The factors in the guidance confirm that a kiss on the cheek by a first-grader does not constitute sexual harassment,'' the department said, mentioning the case but not Johnathan's name.
``In order to give rise to a complaint ... sexual harassment must be sufficiently severe, persistent or pervasive that it adversely affects a student's education or creates a hostile or abusive educational environment,'' the guidelines said. ``For a one-time incident to rise to the level of harassment, it must be severe.''
Johnathan was separated from his class at Southwest Elementary School in Lexington, N.C., for a day and banned from an ice cream party after kissing a classmate in September 1996.
The case drew worldwide attention - and ridicule for schools nervous about the strings attached to federal aid. The guidelines attempted to clarify some real situations besides Johnathan's.
``A high school athletic coach hugging a student who made a goal or a kindergarten teacher's consoling hug for a child with a skinned knee will not be considered sexual harassment,'' the guidelines said.
However, ``a teacher's repeatedly hugging and putting his or her arms around students under inappropriate circumstances'' could be.
Students who tell gay or lesbian students they are not welcome at a cafeteria table are not sexually harassing them under federal law. Male students who target lesbian students for sexual advances would be harassing them.
A creative writing class in which students read classic works or student works that are sexually derogatory would be protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution.
A group of male students that targeted a female student on her bus ride home, making sexual comments about her body or following her home, could not be protected.
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