A NCR(egister) article on the fight out in Colorado over statutes-of-limitations legislation that excludes public institutions – like schools

At a Senate committee hearing, too, opponents, including an attorney for the Colorado Catholic Conference, were cut off and told they could only comment about material in the bill. When the first opponent began his testimony, Sen. Ron Tupa, D-Boulder, the committee chairman, left the room.

Proponents of the bill, however, including all witnesses invited by the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), were given complete freedom to speak.

Charol Shakeshaft, a Hofstra University researcher who prepared a federal report on public school sexual abuse, submitted written testimony to the Colorado Legislature that stated: “The physical sexual abuse of students in public schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.” Her testimony said most of the accused are shifted from one school to another and are seldom fired.

Martin Nussbaum, an attorney for the Colorado Catholic Conference, explained that the Church has taken unprecedented measures to eliminate sexual abuse from its institutions. He submitted written documentation of 103 cases of child sexual abuse in public schools in the past eight years that have resulted in teachers losing their licenses. Most license revocations came only after criminal convictions.

Tupa, a social studies teacher in Colorado’s Boulder Valley School District, was absent for much of Nussbaum’s testimony. Later, he told the Register he has seen no information to indicate a problem of sexual abuse in public schools.

Fitz-Gerald dismissed the federal study, Chappell’s testimony, and other evidence of widespread abuse in public schools as Catholic spin to interfere with her bill. She said the sexual abuse crisis in public schools is “an allegation” contrived by Archbishop Chaput.

But David Luksch, an investigator for the Sheriff’s Department of Jefferson County, Colo., said any policeman will say otherwise.