Background: We often cover the problem of false allegations on my blog and recently Joshua, a reader, told us the story of how as a teenager he had been falsely accused of molesting his next door neighbor’s kids–to read it, see my blog post ‘When I Was a Teenager I Was Falsely Accused of Molesting 2 Kids’.
Joshua’s story reminded me of something a colleague told me many years ago when I was a high school teacher. Early in my career a male administrator took a few of the new male high school teachers aside and told us the following story. (Note: in some schools administrators often teach a class or two):
“One time I was in my office and one of my students, an 11th grade girl, came to see me. She was upset about the bad grade she was getting in my class, and wanted me to change it.
“She grew increasingly demanding and ended up threatening me that she would make a charge against me if I didn’t give her the grade.
“When I still refused, she stood up, tore her shirt, started screaming ‘Help, Help, he’s attacking me’ and ran towards the door of the office. As she made for the door, I saw 25 years of hard work and devotion to my students go down the drain.
“Miraculously, there happened to be a female teacher right outside the door who had been waiting to talk to me. When the girl opened the door, the female teacher stood in her way and told her that she had heard everything. It saved my career and my livelihood.”
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