Hundreds of students at San Francisco high schools staged a walkout on Friday to protest officials whom they say are ignoring claims of sexual harassment and even assault.
The students gathered in front of San Francisco City Hall chanting and carrying signs that said “No means no.”
“People have been pushing for change for so long and SFUSD isn’t listening,” Aliyah Baruch, a senior at Lowell High School and one of the organizers of the Friday protest, said in a San Francisco Chronicle report.
“It’s to the point where we need to miss our own education to tell SFUSD there needs to be change,” Baruch said. “I pretty much don’t know a single girl on campus that hasn’t been harassed sexually.”
“I’ve been harassed on campus and off campus. It needs to change,” Baruch said.
The Chronicle reported on the students’ grievances, including being groped in school hallways and suffering verbal abuse:
District officials have acknowledged the issue and say they are working to respond to student demands and ensure those reporting incidents are supported:
The issue of sexual harassment and assault is not new, students said. It was happening before the pandemic, through distance learning online and has continued as students returned to in-person learning in August. The students from many of the district’s high schools have organized using social media and online message groups to coordinate and support each other’s efforts
The walkouts have renewed a youth “me too” movement, spreading from one high school to another, offering students not only a sense of empowerment to address the ongoing crisis of sexual assault and harassment, but arguably giving teens a unifying purpose after months of isolation.
The report includes staggering statistics representing thousands of — and increasing — attacks on women:
It’s unclear whether there are more assaults and harassment, or simply increased awareness of incidents. According to the most recent national data available, there were 14,938 incidents of rape, attempted rape or sexual assaults reported in K-12 schools in the 2017-18 school year, up from 9,649 in 2015-16 — a 55% increase. That jump coincided with awareness raised through the #MeToo movement.
“I think that students, adolescents have felt relatively abandoned,” Dr. Jeanne Noble, director of UCSF Emergency Department COVID-19 Response, said in the report.
“There’s certainly a lot of pent-up fear, anxiety and anger. [A]nd that fuels the fire,” Noble said. Noble joins a growing number of experts who are noting the devastating toll on young people as schools were shut down and children faced isolation at home during the coronavirus pandemic.
School supervisors Hillary Ronen and Myrna Melgar both spoke at the rally.
“It is absolutely unacceptable that 1 out of 2 women are sexually assaulted in their lifetime,” Ronen said. “We stand behind you in this struggle.”
“Being safe at school is a minimum,” Ashley Chan, a Lincoln High School senior, said. “Without action being taken, I can’t be the person I want to be.”
School Superintendent Vince Matthews sent families a letter addressing the issue:
“Sexual harassment has no place in our schools. SFUSD is committed to taking all appropriate steps to make sure we educate, prevent, and address any incidents of sexual harassment that occur in our schools,” Matthews said.
Matthews said the district will convene a sexual harassment student advisory group.
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