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- They have the honor: courts have become more likely to pay moral compensation to teachers
They have the honor: courts have become more likely to pay moral compensation to teachers
Teachers have become more likely to go to court demanding moral compensation for insults from students. The courts, in turn, began to satisfy their demands more and more. For example, in early June, it became known that two teenagers were fined 15,000 and 20,000 rubles for secretly photographing a teacher in class, obscenely changing the photo and distributing it on school chats. There were similar cases in other regions. Teachers certainly have the right to defend their honor and dignity in the courts, but experts note that the increase in the number of such cases is rather an alarming signal, indicating the inability to resolve the conflict within the educational institution. Read more about the new trend in the Izvestia article.
How often are students fined?
The incident, which was adjudicated, occurred back in November 2024 in Orekhovo-Zuyevo. The teacher demanded 50 thousand rubles from the students as compensation for moral damage for public insult. The fact is that one of the middle school students took a picture of her without permission, sent the picture to his classmate, and he photoshopped an obscene picture of the teacher. The photo was distributed first to the students of the class, and then in a public messenger channel.
The Orekhovo-Zuyevsky court decided to recover 15 thousand rubles from one minor student in favor of the teacher, and 20 thousand rubles from another, according to the social networks of the Courts of General jurisdiction of the Moscow region.
This is not the first such case. Most recently, in Yaroslavl, a court recovered 20,000 rubles from the parents of several seventh-graders in favor of the teacher. The student filmed the teacher, and then, with the help of AI, generated a video with her participation — in it she turned into a man with a naked torso.
In the Perm Region in March 2026, a ninth-grader was fined 10,000 rubles for first showing an obscene gesture to a chemistry teacher, and then insulting the teacher on a national basis and using obscene language towards her. A similar incident occurred in Chekhov, near Moscow, also during a chemistry lesson. Only the penalty turned out to be even higher — 30 thousand rubles.
The most serious fine had to be paid to a family from Nizhny Tagil — 300 thousand rubles were collected from the mother of a schoolgirl who created a fake account of her teacher with an offensive nickname in a dating chat and the signature "looking for a man for the night." The victim wanted to initiate criminal proceedings, but it turned out to be impossible due to the age of the student (13 years old).
According to a survey conducted by the HRC in 2025, 66% of teachers faced attacks on honor and dignity from students, and 43% witnessed such cases.
A new trend
Mikhail Avdeenko, Deputy co-chairman of the Council of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation for the Protection of Professional Honor and Dignity of teachers, Deputy Chairman of the All-Russian Trade Union of Education, noted that he sees court decisions that are made in favor of teachers. Moreover, they relate not only to conflicts with students.
"For example, we have a fresh decision from the Kirov region, where a parent was fined for swearing at a teacher — she was fined 20,000 rubles," he told Izvestia.
At the same time, the interlocutor of the editorial board has not yet seen a serious increase in court decisions to protect the honor and dignity of teachers. Another thing is that they began to appear more often in the public sphere.
At the same time, Olga Miryasova, the organizational secretary of the Teacher trade union, told Izvestia that previously the courts almost always issued refusals, and the police did not want to open libel cases based on teachers' statements. Teachers from different regions told the union staff about this.
— Therefore, perhaps we are seeing a new trend when decisions began to be made in favor of teachers, — she noted.
Nevertheless, says Miryasova, so far this is not a very common situation, as litigation is a "very costly story," especially for teachers working with a heavy workload. Oleg Samsonov, a private lawyer in practice, also does not expect a significant increase in the number of court cases on such disputes. First of all, according to him, this is hindered by the low salaries of teaching staff.
— Today, the state duty on cases of protection of honor and dignity is 3 thousand rubles, the services of a qualified lawyer will cost at least 30 thousand rubles, — he told Izvestia.
Why do teachers go to court
At the same time, teachers are often simply forced to seek conflict resolution outside of school. For example, on December 9, 2025, a teacher from one of the villages of the Khabarovsk Territory turned to this path. She had a preventive conversation with the students of the class about the inadmissibility of bullying at school, after which one of the students, returning home, informed her parents that the teacher had spoken rudely, allegedly because of hostility towards the child. The student's mother began to send complaints to all possible authorities, demanding an apology and disciplinary action.
— I consulted the teacher verbally and for free by phone. After that, she turned to the school's director and the Department of Education, asking them to involve mediators to solve this problem. She claimed that she did not allow rude communication with the students, on the contrary, she tried to stop bullying. When it became clear that the teacher was ready to defend her rights, the conflict gradually came to naught," Oleg Samsonov said.
According to him, while it is often easier for school authorities to "work with" a teacher and make him guilty than to deal with parents and students, there is virtually no legal procedure for protecting teachers' rights. Against this background, there is an increase in the number of lawsuits to protect the honor and dignity of teachers, although previously such conflicts were mainly resolved at the level of educational institutions. Now, very often, this is limited to a formal conversation and a dry "excuse me," after which, as a rule, a relapse occurs: the student feels his impunity and is ready to repeat the offense.
Indeed, procedures protecting teachers often do not work in schools, confirms Olga Miryasova. According to recent changes in legislation, conflict resolution commissions should be established in educational institutions, but they often lack the authority, expertise, and time to deal with teachers' problems.
— The teachers themselves propose to make possible a temporary ban on attending classes and exclusion from school until the age of 15 — now this is possible only after the age of 15, — lists the organizational secretary of the Teacher trade union. — Introduce fines for parents according to a simplified procedure so that the education department can go to court, rather than the teacher or the school. To create centers for the prevention of violations that a child would be required to attend after school, under threat of expulsion from school or placement in a specialized institution where experienced psychologists and social educators would work.
How can teachers defend themselves without courts
The very fact of relatively large fines for humiliation of honor and dignity is a good signal for teachers, Mikhail Avdeenko emphasizes. But at the same time, one should not advocate for an increase in the number of such decisions, since the school system must work with students, and litigation is already an extreme measure of influence.
— Some hooliganism that does not border on the Criminal Code should be stopped by the school education system itself. And there are quite a lot of mechanisms for this, they just need to be used correctly. Moreover, there are even more of them," the expert notes.
In particular, he points to the order of the Ministry of Education No. 316 dated May 8, which concerns the issues of strengthening the disciplinary responsibility of students, which will be effective from September 1. According to it, the student can be temporarily suspended from the lesson to conduct a conversation.
— That is, if a student violates discipline, the teacher can invite a representative of the school administration and he will take the violator away for a preventive conversation, — explains Mikhail Avdeenko. — The same order provides for conducting an experiment on assessments for behavior.
There are other tools for protecting teachers: commissions on conflicts between participants in educational relations, the Council for the Protection of Professional Honor and Dignity of Teachers.
— All the tools are there, but they must be used correctly — and first of all, this is a call not to teachers, but to school leaders: they should not hush up the problems that arise, not give in to parents, but take the side of the teacher and the workforce if the student's fault is obvious, — urges the interlocutor of Izvestia.
Boris Ilyukhin, a senior researcher at the Center for Economics of Continuing Education at the Presidential Academy, believes that court fines for such actions could be significantly higher, but it is equally important to increase the prestige of the teaching profession: reduce excessive paperwork, fix the maximum academic workload and significantly increase the level of teachers' salaries.
The Mikhail Shelkov Empathy Foundation clarifies that ways to combat harassment of teachers are being sought all over the world. According to the HSE report released in early 2026, many countries have now turned from the trend of permissiveness of students to the responsibility of families to schools and personally to teachers. Norway and Sweden, for example, have already expanded the powers of schools and teachers to curb destructive behavior of students, strengthening the responsibility of parents. Previously, any touching of a student could be interpreted as violence, but since 2025, teachers have received the legal right to forcibly remove a student who disrupts a lesson from the classroom without fear of immediate dismissal or legal proceedings. At the same time, Italy returned the assessment for behavior and imposed fines for aggression and insults against teachers — up to 10 thousand euros.
In addition, a number of countries are suppressing the use of gadgets in the classroom — by the end of 2024, 79 states have already picked up the trend to ban or significantly restrict smartphones in schools.
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