One of the commonly heard complaints of college students in the last several years is that the institutions of higher education they attend have failed to provide “safe spaces” for them. Students have complained that they feel unsafe because the professors or fellow students or administrators fail to acknowledge their chosen pronouns or that students of color feel unsafe in classes or dorms with white students.

Other complaints involve students concerned about speakers, usually conservative speakers, who have been retained to speak on campus. The aversion to conservatives speaking at colleges has become so pervasive that it is almost impossible for prominent conservatives to speak on U.S. campuses without drawing threats and protests.

We hear a lot about these campus complaints. Yet, how many students actually have them? Those who do certainly make a lot of noise, but the reality is that it’s a minority of students who are clamoring for safe spaces—a rather small minority who are outspoken.

What about our high schools? Middle schools? Grade schools? Are these students worried about finding safe spaces?

They should be. Parents should be as well.

A few weeks ago, Wirepoints highlighted the findings of the Chicago Public School’s 2024 report by the Office of Inspector General (OIG). The report summarized the findings of 446 investigations by the OIG’s investigators conducted last year.

The results are disturbing and paint a picture of Chicago Schools as anything but safe. I wrote about this issue almost three months ago and pointed out that the problem is far worse than the OIG report reveals.

Why is so little being done about the sexual exploitation and abuse of children in our schools? Where are the demonstrations demanding safe spaces for students in grades K to 12?

One reason is that children often don’t know that they are being exploited. Very often, the child victims who are being targeted by predators—predators who are adults or other students for that matter—unwittingly welcome the attention. At the time, they do not see themselves as being used. The relationship provides the acceptance, the affirmation, the “safe space” that they long for, so they think.

Most often, the children are groomed, seduced, into a relationship with the predator before the relationship turns sexual. The skilled predators often are able to maneuver the relationship into a sexual encounter in such a way that the child may see the sexual activity as being their idea. In any event, the child, who has no legal ability to give consent, most often believes the sexual activity was consensual.

They may not feel used in the relationship or see the relationship as wrong or feel ashamed until after the relationship has ended, sometimes long after. The shame is a significant reason most victims of child sexual abuse never tell anyone about the abuse. They see it as their own fault. Even those who eventually tell someone, most of the time, keep it hidden for years.

Predators in the educational system know all this. They know how to play the system. They know children tend not to say anything if they manage the relationship skillfully.

Other teachers and administrators, the non-predators, know this too. They also know that ten percent or more of children in schools will fall victim to educator sexual misconduct by the time they graduate from high school.

These teachers and administrators have seen the exposés, and the CPS teachers and administrators have at least heard about summaries of the OIG reports. They know or know of teachers who have abused students. They see the articles in the papers almost every day about teachers being caught sexually exploiting students.

What are the non-abusive teachers and administrators doing to prevent it?

Are they demanding that the union stiffen the background requirements to become a teacher? Have they recommended that the union adopt rules requiring teachers be fired for even the appearance of impropriety with a student? No second chances? Do they insist that teachers clean up their character or find another line of work?

Have they contacted their legislators to recommend that sexual activity with any student, whether the student has reached the age of consent or not, should be a felony? Are they demanding that teachers and librarians be prosecuted and subjected to civil suits for providing children with obscene material? Are they pleading with state and local authorities to improve the investigation capabilities of those responsible for investigating child sexual abuse, especially abuse in schools?

Teachers and administrators are not doing any of these things.

Just this week, news reports disclosed that a Chicago Public School teacher, a dean, was being sued by a former student he allegedly abused. He already has been criminally charged, but the case is still pending. The suit disclosed not only that he sexually abused the child, but he allegedly got her pregnant. Twice. Both times, he forced her to get an abortion, signing, as her parent, the permission papers for the procedures.

How could this relationship go on for so long, even to the point of two pregnancies, and nobody notice something was off?

The whole situation is overwhelmingly disgusting and incomprehensibly sad.

It’s up to every school district in the country to create an actual safe place for children, one where they are free of bullying and sexual exploitation by peers and educators. Legislators, administrators, teachers, and teachers’ union officials have been saying for years that creating such an environment for children is their highest priority.

Clearly, it’s not.