The Trump administration announced Friday that it is moving to crack down on adult sexual predators in K-12 schools across the nation.
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) said it has issued new guidance aiming to remind “federally funded educational institutions of their legal obligations to safeguard children and appropriately respond to incidents of sexual misconduct” under federal law.
The OCR also noted that it is launching 20 “directed investigations” into U.S. school districts whose 2023-24 Civil Rights Data Collection submissions included “responses that suggest that districts might not be addressing staff on student sexual misconduct appropriately.”
The move comes after the administration recently saw multiple “credible reports of sexual abuse and harassment by adults in positions of authority” at schools “going uninvestigated or of suspected offenders being transferred to new schools or roles in the district,” according to the news release.
“Our schools must protect America’s children. Parents should never have to wonder whether their kids’ school employs and protects sexual predators,” Department of Education (ED) Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “Schools that receive federal funding have a duty to protect students, report sexual misconduct honestly, and follow the law.”
“Through this initiative, we are holding school districts accountable because every child deserves to learn in a safe environment free from sexual abuse and harassment,” she continued.
ED did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Sexual predators in U.S. schools “depend on institutional silence and complacency,” McMahon wrote Friday in a guidance letter sent to educational institutions.
“Such silence is not only a moral failure but also violates federal law designed to protect our most defenseless class of citizens—our children,” the letter states. “Teachers’ unions’ demonstrated commitment to shield their members from disciplinary action for gross misconduct cannot trump basic moral and legal responsibilities to students and families.”
The letter also claims that the department “will fully enforce federal law and employ every resource at its disposal to protect children from sexual predators.”
“Those schools that allow sexual misconduct to occur risk the termination of applicable federal assistance provided by the federal government,” McMahon’s letter adds. “This epidemic of nationwide sexual abuse in our schools must end.”
In May, ED announced it had opened a Title IX probe into the Los Angeles Unified School District, alleging that the district “appears to be protecting sexual predators at the expense of its students.”
A 2023 report from the Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI) alleges that local education agencies (LEAs) in the U.S. “often” act “in concert with the local teacher union leaders, conceals sexual abuse by permitting accused employees to resign and move to a new school or district rather than face investigation and possible punishment—a practice called ‘passing the trash.’”
“LEAs and unions use collective bargaining and nondisclosure agreements to conceal the records of abusive employees, and union leaders wield their powerful influence in many state legislatures to stymie legislation that would hold public employees accountable for their sexual misconduct in schools,” according to DFI’s report.
There was a 55% surge in sexual violence incidents in U.S. K-12 public schools from the 2015-2016 school year to the 2017-2018 academic year, according to a 2024 report published in Taylor & Francis Online.
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