By Marshall Griffin, KWMU
St. Louis, MO. – Momentum is growing in Jefferson City to bar registered sex offenders from teaching in Missouri's colleges and universities.
House Speaker Pro-tem Carl Bearden says an amendment to a tax bill approved Thursday would financially punish parents if they send their kids to a college that employs sex offenders as instructors.
That amendment was in giving a tax deduction to parents for the tuition they pay at public and private institutions, and this would say if you send your child or pay tuition to an institution, public or private, that has a registered sex offender on the faculty, you would not qualify for the tax deduction, Bearden said.
On Wednesday, the Senate approved an amendment to the MOHELA bill that would bar MOHELA funds from being used at colleges that employ registered sex offenders as instructors.
That amendment gives a deadline of September First for universities to fire any such instructor, or for them to resign, in order to qualify for the funding.
Missouri State University in Springfield employs a Biosciences professor who spent three-and-a-half years in prison for raping a minor.