Why Do Teachers’ Unions Want It to be Legal for Teachers to Have Sex with Their Students?

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There’s currently a bill in Rhode Island that seeks to make it illegal for school employees to have sex with students. The state teachers’ unions and the ACLU have decided to oppose it.

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Last year Alex Marszalkowski, a representative in the Rhode Island legislature, attempted to pass a bill that would have criminalized sexual relations between all adults with custodial and supervisory responsibilities and those in their care. According to Rep. Marszalkowski, the ACLU objected to this bill saying that the prohibition was too broad.

This year, Marszalkowski introduced a replacement bill designed to narrow the scope. And now the ACLU claims that the new bill is “arbitrary and capricious.” After the bill got to the subcommittee stage, the state teachers’ union went on record objecting to it, too. Their reason: that it unfairly singles out school employees.

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But consistency is not the ACLU’s strong suit. The bill also forbids non-employee volunteers from having sex with students. And the ACLU didn’t like that aspect of it, either. The ACLU said it had “concern about targeting school volunteers, because a volunteer coach could be close in age to a student and run afoul of the law under this bill.”

Terri Miller, president of the Nevada-based advocacy group Stop Educator Sexual Abuse Misconduct and Exploitation calls this cycle “deliberate and calculated child endangerment.”

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