{"id":357278,"date":"2026-09-26T02:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T02:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/357278\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T02:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T02:00:17","slug":"why-does-new-york-law-protect-sexual-predator-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/357278\/","title":{"rendered":"Why does New York law protect sexual-predator teachers?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New York bans doctors from having sexual relations with patients \u2014 but not teachers having sex with students: Want any more proof that teacher-union political power is out of control?<\/p>\n<p>That contrast is flagged in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.the74million.org\/article\/new-york-schools-named-in-nearly-2000-child-sex-abuse-claims\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">bombshell investigation<\/a> by independent site The74 that looked at decades of abuse in New York schools.<\/p>\n<p>The 2019 Child Victims Act opened a window to file civil claims against abusers and institutions regardless of when the abuse occurred; The74 looked at nearly 2,000 such claims involving schools, more than half of them public schools.<\/p>\n<p>The chilling details include multiple cases <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/09\/24\/us-news\/nyc-high-school-worker-had-sickening-trysts-with-girl-in-empty-rooms-while-officials-turned-blind-eye-lawsuit\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">of schools\u2019 ID\u2019ing an abuser<\/a> and simply letting him go \u2014 allowing him to abuse again at another New York school; some kept it up for decades.<\/p>\n<p>Backers of the CVA sold it as allowing (some) justice for past victims, but New York law should aim to better prevent future victims.  <\/p>\n<p>New York City has paid over $160 million to settle more than 150 Child Victims Act cases, mostly against the Department of Education \u2014 with some of the accused still DOE-employed even as the city settled the suit. <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n<p>A state-by-state analysis by Enough Abuse and Prevent Child Abuse America shows that New York has declined to pass two key child-protection measures. <\/p>\n<p>Unlike most states, it doesn\u2019t criminalize teacher sexual misconduct, so any child who\u2019s turned 17 becomes fair game.<\/p>\n<p>And it doesn\u2019t require more than basic criminal background checks for potential hires, where other states mandate other standard screening tools to prevent schools from hiring abusers.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The state doesn\u2019t even track, collect or report child abuse in schools.<\/p>\n<p>And while disciplinary records for doctors, lawyers, and even hairdressers are easily searchable online, teacher misconduct records remain completely shielded from the public.<\/p>\n<p>All this reeks of the power of the state\u2019s teachers unions.<\/p>\n<p>Some good news: A state Senate bill set for reintroduction in January would finally criminalize grooming and predatory behavior against New York students.<\/p>\n<p>Better: New York should join 39 other states and Washington, DC, in making it a crime for school staff to sexually abuse students of any age.<\/p>\n<p>Stop letting the likes of the United Federation of Teachers and its parent, New York State United Teachers, protect \u201ceducators\u201d who destroy children\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York bans doctors from having sexual relations with patients \u2014 but not teachers having sex with students:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4241,8301,5783,304,11538,9,24,55,54,18571,56,133163,299,209,5271,5474],"class_list":["post-357278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-albany","tag-child-abuse","tag-child-victims-act","tag-editorial","tag-legislature","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-state-senate","tag-ny","tag-ny-adult-survivors-act","tag-opinion","tag-public-schools","tag-schools","tag-sexual-abuse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}