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EDUCATION

AP: Sex assaults in high school sports minimized as 'hazing'

Associated Press
Published | Updated
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    Plaques mark the accomplishments of the Parkview High School baseball team as they warm up before a baseball game in Lilburn, Ga., on Wednesday, April 26, 2017. Across the U.S., perhaps nowhere is student-on-student sexual assault as dismissed or as camouflaged as in boys' sports, an Associated Press investigation found. Older Parkview players in 2015 were disciplined for sexual battery, in part, after attacking younger teammates, but the district called it "inappropriate physical contact" and "misbehavior." (AP Photo/John Bazemore) (The Associated Press)

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    A scoreboard touts the accomplishments of the Parkview High School baseball team as they warm up before a baseball game in Lilburn, Ga., on Wednesday, April 26, 2017. Across the U.S., perhaps nowhere is student-on-student sexual assault as dismissed or as camouflaged as in boys' sports, an Associated Press investigation found. Older Parkview players in 2015 were disciplined for sexual battery, in part, after attacking younger teammates, but the district called it "inappropriate physical contact" and "misbehavior." (AP Photo/John Bazemore) (The Associated Press)

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    High school basketball coach Charles Freet stands on the sidelines during a junior varsity basketball game in Argyle, Texas, on Friday, Feb. 10, 2017. Freet is working at a Dallas-area private school after he lost his job as boys basketball coach at Flower Mound High School in 2011. After a Flower Flower Mound High School teacher reported that players were putting their fingers in teammates' bottoms, he told administrators investigating the allegations that the acts were merely a joke and not hazing. (AP Photo/LM Otero) (The Associated Press)

An Associated Press investigation has found that student-on-student sexual assault in the U.S. is perhaps nowhere as dismissed or as camouflaged as in boys' sports.

Records show boys have suffered serious injury and trauma, yet cases often are minimized as "hazing."

The AP examined more than 300 cases of student-on-student sexual violence that surfaced through law enforcement records, lawsuits, interviews and news accounts. The sports setting emerged in those cases as a leading venue for such attacks.

Experts say the last decade has seen an escalation into sexual violence on high school and even middle school teams.

The review is part of AP's larger look at student-on-student sex assaults. Analyzing state education records, supplemented by federal crime data, AP found about 17,000 official reports of sex assaults by students in grades K-12 during a recent four-year period.

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If you have a tip, comment or story to share about student-on-student sexual assault at K-12 schools, please email: schoolhousesexassault@ap.org