[Kyoto] “If you get heatstroke, roll up your skirt” – a male teacher tended to a female high school student who had fainted, but the Board of Education deemed this to be sexual harassment.
On the 27th, the Kyoto Prefectural Board of Education imposed a disciplinary punishment of a 10% pay cut (for one month) on a male teacher (63) working at a prefectural high school in the southern part of the prefecture for groping the breasts of a female student who was sleeping due to illness. According to the announcement, on July 8th, the male teacher found the female student unconscious due to feeling unwell and lying in a bed in the nurse’s office. In an attempt to check her heartbeat, he touched her breasts twice and also lifted her skirt. The female student reportedly became aware of what had happened as she regained consciousness, and reported the incident to another teacher who was with her in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The male teacher told the prefectural board of education, “I didn’t do anything for the students when I was alone, and I thought it would be terrible if something happened to them. She reportedly gave an explanation along the lines of, “I have been told to roll up my skirt if heatstroke is suspected.” The school nurse had already taken the student’s pulse in the nurse’s office, and the prefectural board of education, taking into account the opinions of the lawyers, determined that the man’s actions were unnecessary and constituted sexual harassment.
>>1 What are you talking about? Heat stroke can be life-threatening. Her pulse was weak so you took off her bra to massage her heart, it wasn’t enough so you gave her artificial respiration by mouth, and she was getting hot so you just lifted her skirt up to her stomach. Don’t call medical treatment sexual harassment!
If an amateur measures the heart rate, it won’t tell you anything. However, even with the best of intentions, this can happen, so leaving it alone is bliss.
It’s complicated in a lot of ways. I’ve recently started to think that it doesn’t matter if it’s sexual harassment or whatever. If you want to sue someone, then just sue them.
The school nurse (health teacher) is already checking the pulse etc., so there’s no need for a teacher who isn’t a doctor or nurse to palpate or lift up the student’s skirt and get intrusive.
When a young girl at work collapsed from anemia, I had to touch her while tending to her, but I wonder if that would be considered sexual harassment now? I hate that.
Well then just leave it alone. You can just say, “If anything happens, I can’t stand to be accused of sexual harassment over and over again.” But this is also an argument that would be made if the genders were reversed.
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