by Erik Pitchal

About the author: Erik Pitchal was a law student at Yale and a columnist for the Yale Daily News at the time this viewpoint was originally written.

For months, LaShonda Davis suffered. The boy who sat next to her, G.F., kept trying to touch her breasts and vaginal area. He said things like, “I want to get in bed with you,” and “I want to touch your boobs.” He cornered her in the hallways and rubbed up against her in a sexual way.

LaShonda regularly complained to supervisors, but they did nothing. It took three months of daily requests before they agreed to reassign G.F. to another desk. The harassment had such a debilitating effect on LaShonda that she wrote a suicide note. Her tormentor eventually...