Eagan case of alleged 'grooming' patterns raises questions about school policies and systems
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An MPR News investigation published this week revealed what Eagan police described as an alleged “pattern of predatory grooming” by former Eagan High School music teacher Brett Benson. No charges were ever filed for any of the allegations and Benson denied doing anything inappropriate.
The Benson case, though, raises questions about Minnesota’s system of laws and procedures designed to prevent inappropriate relationships between teachers and students.
“A lot of the systems that we think would protect students are either not doing anything or actually hurting survivors instead,” said Nicole Bedera, a Minneapolis-based sociologist who studies the issue.
As an example, she pointed to mandatory reporting at the college level, which she said doesn’t increase reports of sexual assault. When they are made, they’re focused on '“surveilling or policing” survivors instead of acts of harm, she said.
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In place of mandatory reporting, Bedera advocates for “mandatory supporting.”
“The focus is on retaining the survivor’s agency, which is the thing that they lost during a sexual assault. And it’s focused on making sure that their needs are met.”
Click the audio player above to hear the full conversation with Bedera. The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
You’ve spent a lot of time examining how these structures meant to protect students in K-12 and college settings protect students. What are your key findings?
One of the findings is that a lot of the systems that we think would protect students are either not doing anything or are actually hurting survivors instead. One of the most obvious examples is mandatory reporting.
On the college level, we find that mandatory reporting policies do not increase reports of sexual assault at all. And that when reports are made by mandatory reporters, they tend to focus on surveilling or policing the way survivors talk about violence, rather than acts of perpetration that people witness for themselves.
In those scenarios, we see that practitioners tend to be reluctant to intervene when they see something with their own eyes.
What are the protections in place for students right now and what are they supposed to do?
One of the most useful protections that some schools have is something called a confidential advocate, where survivors who’ve experienced something can go learn about the resources that are available to them at their school or in the broader community, and they can get assistance with things that interfere in their education.
For example, we know that sexual violence history is the best predictor of a college woman’s grades.
So, would you say then that mandatory reporting laws are not effective right now?
Yeah, I would say that mandatory reporting is ineffective.
Does your research shed any light on a better approach?
The approach that we recommend is something we call mandatory supporting.
What it looks like is, instead of mandatory reporting, where the entire situation just kind of runs away from the survivor and they lose control over everything. Instead, they’re given options about how the school might respond, some of the resources and supports that might be helpful to them, which may include reporting a perpetrator as well.
But the focus is on retaining the survivor’s agency, which is the thing that they lost during a sexual assault. And it’s focused on making sure that their needs are met and that that’s equally or more important than anything involving the perpetrator.
Some folks’ minds might go to Title IX, which protects against discrimination, harassment and violence based on sex. Is there anything that Title IX does in these situations?
Well, theoretically, Title IX applies equally to universities and K-12 settings.
The issue is that the main way Title IX has historically been enforced is through student complaints to the Department of Education. Right now, we know the Department of Education is not accepting complaints about gender discrimination relating to sexual violence. They’re not investigating any of those concerns.
But in addition to that, there are also barriers where students who are under the age of 18 have a harder time filing a complaint with the Department of Education, especially if they don’t have a parent’s help and resources.
Something that I say a lot is that when a victim comes forward, their life should get easier, not harder. The violence has already made their life harder, and so one of the things that we really want to do if your child comes to you, or if a student in the school you work for comes to you, is to not treat the disclosure like it’s this big problem.
Instead, you really do want to have that moment of gratitude. Thank them for coming forward. Help identify what they’re struggling with and what’s most important to them in that moment.
Reporting might be a piece of that, but a lot of the time the thing the survivor wants access to is a healing resource and then once those original needs and those most pressing needs are met — that’s when they'll be able to think about some of that other stuff that might have come to mind for you in the first place.
