"How can a mother or father prevent their teenage son from someday being accused of sexual assault?” The Washington Post asked in a recent article, stating that “parents across the country have been wrestling with the anxieties of raising teenage boys to understand consent" in the wake of the Kavanaugh hearing.
Parents have an important role to play but so do America’s schools. A recent analysis of state sex education standards by the Center for American Progress’s shows that there is a lot of room for growth.
Many students don’t have access to sex education at all. According to CAP, more than half of states don’t even have sex education standards. Of those that do, fewer than half have standards that carry the force of law. Some states require sex education but their requirements are vague, not broken down by age group, and/or don’t touch on healthy relationships, sexual assault or consent. Finally, some states still allow or require misleading, inaccurate, or incomplete information or approaches that have been debunked by research.
To be clear, these are sensitive issues. Parents and community leaders differ in how they would like to approach these topics. Many parents oppose discussing consent because they believe it is tantamount to giving young people permission to have sex.
But even in conservative states, progress is possible. In March, Georgia enacted legislation requiring students to be taught age-appropriate sexual abuse and assault awareness and prevention education in kindergarten through grade 9. That same month, the Oklahoma House passed “Lauren’s Law,” which would require students to be educated about consent. West Virginia, one of the reddest states in the nation age-appropriate statewide sex education standards that are among the nation’s most detailed.
Arizona recently considered legislation to “help pupils develop the relationships and communication skills to form healthy relationships throughout their lives that are based on mutual respect and affection and free from violence, coercion and intimidation.” Even in Idaho, legislation was introduced to require districts teaching sex ed to include a discussion of healthy relationships, though that sentence was struck before the bill advanced out of committee.
Conversely, some of the bluest states in the country have struggled to embrace comprehensive sex education. Maryland took two tries to enact a law requiring students to be taught about consent. Similar bills failed to be enacted in Virginia and in Massachusetts, which hasn’t updated its health education standards since 1999.
As a result, the norm, which transcends ideology, is sex education standards that fail to prepare young people for the tensions and challenges they will inevitably encounter in their sexual relationships. States can do better, and students are leading the way. Lauren Atkins, a high school student from Norman, Oklahoma, wrote about her sexual assault and then helped draft legislation to prevent a similar thing from happening to other girls. “The 18-year-old got involved because she believes that consent education could have drastically changed that night for her. ‘I really don’t think he did this to be a terrible human being,’” she said. “He didn’t know that this wasn’t allowed.’” And Maryland middle schooler Maeve Sanford-Kelly channeled her feeling of powerlessness into action to improve sex education for all of Maryland’s teens. Both young girls saw education as a powerful intervention to prevent sexual assault.
Expectations around asking for and receiving affirmative consent in intimate relationships have changed, and that is a very positive development for society. But just as we wouldn’t expect students to learn the rules of algebra on their own, students deserve clarity – delivered sensitively – when it comes to consent. Our laws and policies should honor and respect both parents’ and communities’ values. But they should be grounded in reality, or our daughters and sons will pay a steep price.
I serve as vice president of education policy at the Center for American Progress and write about improving schools for underserved kids.