In Academia, Professors Coming On to You Is on the Syllabus
June 8, 2018 3:50 PM Subscribe
In a longform piece for Splinter, Dan Solomon and Jessica Luther discuss sexual harassment in academia, and how #MeToo has begun to shift things, if slowly - and how much more work is to be done. (SLSplinter)
Ugh. Relevant previously on MetaFilter.
One of the things that is... weird? notable? about the kind of sexual exploitation described in this article is how much it varies from department to department, and how the economics/sociology of different fields plays into it. I've been in various biomedical-adjacent academic departments for my entire career, and while I've known a few individual professors who harass or exploit their students in this way, I've never personally experienced a department in which this behavior was normalized and defended in the manner described here. Obviously, the sciences are in no way immune to this problem; a couple of friends of mine moved from a department in our field precisely because of this problem. But the idea that the professor-student relationship is one that necessarily must permit sexual exploitation is by no means universally accepted in academia.
One thing that I think is different in the sciences from the humanities is the nature of the mentor-student relationship. In the humanities, a professor gains a certain boost in professional reputation if their students have successful academic careers, but their own scholarly output is essentially independent from that of their students. Mentoring a graduate student tends to be something that requires a fair degree of time and effort, while producing very little immediate material reward beyond meeting whatever departmental quota for student advising is imposed. To me it reads like the idea that graduate students are a resource to be exploited, as menial labor unrelated to their research or for sexual favors, seems to be based in the notion that this is a way to achieve reciprocity in the mentor-student relationship. Of course, this is disgusting and bizarre, but seems to be almost an unstated premise behind this department chair's dismissal of the new rules about mentor-student relationships as "draconian."
In the sciences, a professor instead has the role of principal investigator. In most cases, much or all of her actual scholarly output comes from bench work performed by her students. In a much more direct way, the career of a PI rises and falls with the success of the PI's students. In that sense, the mentor-student relationship in the sciences is more similar to an employer-employee relationship. So while historically there have and continue to be problems in scientific academia with sexual harassment and sexual exploitation, I think the culture has been a bit quicker to change to treating these like HR issues. Of course, this is certainly not true everywhere, and there are still departments where abuse is normalized and abusers are protected.
posted by biogeo at 5:29 PM on June 8, 2018 [15 favorites]
One of the things that is... weird? notable? about the kind of sexual exploitation described in this article is how much it varies from department to department, and how the economics/sociology of different fields plays into it. I've been in various biomedical-adjacent academic departments for my entire career, and while I've known a few individual professors who harass or exploit their students in this way, I've never personally experienced a department in which this behavior was normalized and defended in the manner described here. Obviously, the sciences are in no way immune to this problem; a couple of friends of mine moved from a department in our field precisely because of this problem. But the idea that the professor-student relationship is one that necessarily must permit sexual exploitation is by no means universally accepted in academia.
One thing that I think is different in the sciences from the humanities is the nature of the mentor-student relationship. In the humanities, a professor gains a certain boost in professional reputation if their students have successful academic careers, but their own scholarly output is essentially independent from that of their students. Mentoring a graduate student tends to be something that requires a fair degree of time and effort, while producing very little immediate material reward beyond meeting whatever departmental quota for student advising is imposed. To me it reads like the idea that graduate students are a resource to be exploited, as menial labor unrelated to their research or for sexual favors, seems to be based in the notion that this is a way to achieve reciprocity in the mentor-student relationship. Of course, this is disgusting and bizarre, but seems to be almost an unstated premise behind this department chair's dismissal of the new rules about mentor-student relationships as "draconian."
In the sciences, a professor instead has the role of principal investigator. In most cases, much or all of her actual scholarly output comes from bench work performed by her students. In a much more direct way, the career of a PI rises and falls with the success of the PI's students. In that sense, the mentor-student relationship in the sciences is more similar to an employer-employee relationship. So while historically there have and continue to be problems in scientific academia with sexual harassment and sexual exploitation, I think the culture has been a bit quicker to change to treating these like HR issues. Of course, this is certainly not true everywhere, and there are still departments where abuse is normalized and abusers are protected.
posted by biogeo at 5:29 PM on June 8, 2018 [15 favorites]
Sounds so familiar. I didn‘t see quite through the patriarchal bullshit when I was a (female) grad student 10 years ago. But I could always feel clearly that there was no place for me in academia and in philosophy, in particular (not for lack of interest).
posted by The Toad at 5:55 PM on June 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by The Toad at 5:55 PM on June 8, 2018 [2 favorites]
In a much more direct way, the career of a PI rises and falls with the success of the PI's students. In that sense, the mentor-student relationship in the sciences is more similar to an employer-employee relationship.
I think of lab-based sciences as having particularly exploitative advisor-student relationships, though. There's a power dynamic that doesn't exist when your funding isn't dependent on your advisor and I was grateful to not be in the sciences for that reason. And, of course, the power dynamic makes reporting sexual harassment all the harder.
posted by hoyland at 6:35 PM on June 8, 2018 [11 favorites]
I think of lab-based sciences as having particularly exploitative advisor-student relationships, though. There's a power dynamic that doesn't exist when your funding isn't dependent on your advisor and I was grateful to not be in the sciences for that reason. And, of course, the power dynamic makes reporting sexual harassment all the harder.
posted by hoyland at 6:35 PM on June 8, 2018 [11 favorites]
This is just awful to read about. I agree with blogeo, though, that it must vary in different places. I'm an academic, and, at least in my department, at my school, I don't see any of this. I'm in film production, and what I see isn't sleeping with students or having them babysit, it's having students work as free (or very low cost) film crews, which is probably closer to the sciences model of junior researchers.
I've heard stories about the old days at my institution (the 1970's, say), when there was more social fraternization between faculty and students but, frankly, I don't see all that much of it now. With the current growing movement in academic administration of a more business-oriented approach to higher education (i.e. less ivory tower, more seeing students as "the customer"), I don't really see much of the mindset this article implies exists across all of academia much at all.
On the other hand, I teach at a very liberal arts school, rather than a conservative R1, so that probably flavors the culture.
So, I'm not sure about the generalizations made about all of academia in this article, but the specifics are really awful.
posted by MythMaker at 6:36 PM on June 8, 2018
I've heard stories about the old days at my institution (the 1970's, say), when there was more social fraternization between faculty and students but, frankly, I don't see all that much of it now. With the current growing movement in academic administration of a more business-oriented approach to higher education (i.e. less ivory tower, more seeing students as "the customer"), I don't really see much of the mindset this article implies exists across all of academia much at all.
On the other hand, I teach at a very liberal arts school, rather than a conservative R1, so that probably flavors the culture.
So, I'm not sure about the generalizations made about all of academia in this article, but the specifics are really awful.
posted by MythMaker at 6:36 PM on June 8, 2018
On the other hand, I teach at a very liberal arts school, rather than a conservative R1, so that probably flavors the culture.
Read the hideous google doc linked to in the article (if you have the stomach).
While I'm sure it's unevenly distributed....there's more than enough misogyny and abuse to go around in all disciplines and at all kinds of institutions.
posted by lalochezia at 6:51 PM on June 8, 2018 [9 favorites]
biogeo and MythMaker, I think you are both cismen ... there's no reason to think that you would be aware of such harassment/exploitation even if it were happening in your departments. As a (woman) grad student in humanities, I had two friends (women) dealing with serious harassment and I didn't even know about it until much later.
I'm not sure why you think that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, here.
posted by allthinky at 7:02 PM on June 8, 2018 [33 favorites]
I'm not sure why you think that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, here.
posted by allthinky at 7:02 PM on June 8, 2018 [33 favorites]
I'm sorry, but you are astonishingly, disappointingly, incorrect that this isn't something that is normalized in departments in the sciences in the same way. You might not know that they happen, but I promise you that you have been in a department in which someone's known misconduct was overlooked while people with less power suffered.
Astronomy - and more astronomy and more astronomy
Anthropology and more anthropology and more anthropology
Geosciences
Paleontology
The Sciences
Sexual harassment and misconduct in science
MeTooStem
The fact that you think this isn't really concerning for the sciences is ... well ... concerning. Upsetting. I can share all sorts of stories, but I shouldn't have to because this is a conversation that lots of people in lots of disciplines are having and you have to listen and look beyond your experiences.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:23 PM on June 8, 2018 [52 favorites]
Astronomy - and more astronomy and more astronomy
Anthropology and more anthropology and more anthropology
Geosciences
Paleontology
The Sciences
Sexual harassment and misconduct in science
MeTooStem
The fact that you think this isn't really concerning for the sciences is ... well ... concerning. Upsetting. I can share all sorts of stories, but I shouldn't have to because this is a conversation that lots of people in lots of disciplines are having and you have to listen and look beyond your experiences.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:23 PM on June 8, 2018 [52 favorites]
I think of lab-based sciences as having particularly exploitative advisor-student relationships, though.
It certainly can be. And the close, long-term relationship with a single PI can make it harder to get support elsewhere in the department. I dunno, I've only seen my side of it, and my wife's experience as a grad student in the humanities. But I never read the kind of explicit defenses of exploitative relationships described in this FPP, or the kind of sick celebrations of sexual exploitation described in the last one.
there's more than enough misogyny and abuse to go around in all disciplines and at all kinds of institutions.
Truth.
I'm sorry, but you are astonishingly, disappointingly, incorrect that this isn't something that is normalized in departments in the sciences in the same way. You might not know that they happen, but I promise you that you have been in a department in which someone's known misconduct was overlooked while people with less power suffered.
That is absolutely not what I intended to say, and if what I wrote in any way suggested that, it was a failure of my own communication skills.
I was trying to make two slightly different points and in the process may have combined them in a way to convey what you read me as saying. One point, and in my opinion the more important, is that the idea that sexual exploitation is somehow a necessary part of the academic environment is by no means universally shared in academia. The second, less important and less likely to be true point, is that the nature of the mentor-student relationship is different in the humanities and sciences, and that this colors the ways in which sexual exploitation can occur. I absolutely do not intend to minimize the very real problems of sexual harassment and sexual exploitation within the sciences. I merely meant to say that my personal experience, in a discipline with a fairly strong representation of women, is that this is not explicitly normalized in the departments I have been in in the same way that is described in this article and the ones in the recent FPP on the subject.
posted by biogeo at 7:35 PM on June 8, 2018 [3 favorites]
It certainly can be. And the close, long-term relationship with a single PI can make it harder to get support elsewhere in the department. I dunno, I've only seen my side of it, and my wife's experience as a grad student in the humanities. But I never read the kind of explicit defenses of exploitative relationships described in this FPP, or the kind of sick celebrations of sexual exploitation described in the last one.
there's more than enough misogyny and abuse to go around in all disciplines and at all kinds of institutions.
Truth.
I'm sorry, but you are astonishingly, disappointingly, incorrect that this isn't something that is normalized in departments in the sciences in the same way. You might not know that they happen, but I promise you that you have been in a department in which someone's known misconduct was overlooked while people with less power suffered.
That is absolutely not what I intended to say, and if what I wrote in any way suggested that, it was a failure of my own communication skills.
I was trying to make two slightly different points and in the process may have combined them in a way to convey what you read me as saying. One point, and in my opinion the more important, is that the idea that sexual exploitation is somehow a necessary part of the academic environment is by no means universally shared in academia. The second, less important and less likely to be true point, is that the nature of the mentor-student relationship is different in the humanities and sciences, and that this colors the ways in which sexual exploitation can occur. I absolutely do not intend to minimize the very real problems of sexual harassment and sexual exploitation within the sciences. I merely meant to say that my personal experience, in a discipline with a fairly strong representation of women, is that this is not explicitly normalized in the departments I have been in in the same way that is described in this article and the ones in the recent FPP on the subject.
posted by biogeo at 7:35 PM on June 8, 2018 [3 favorites]
Let me follow up by describing problems that I do see in departments I've been in or close to. When I say that this is not normalized "in the same way," I mean not in the same fashion, not necessarily to a lesser degree. I've never seen cases in which a department chair explicitly attacks the university's sexual harassment policy as "draconian" for having the audacity to suggest that it's inappropriate for a professor to date one of his or her students. I've never seen cases in which a colleague argues that the "erotic potential" of the academic environment is somehow necessary for students to learn the basics of their field. What I have seen is a professor who sleeps with his students, divorcing his wife who also worked in the department as a researcher, and receiving no specific censure from the department, and still being permitted to take students. I have heard numerous stories of another male professor behaving inappropriately toward female students and potential students, making them feel uncomfortable and harassed in their work environment, and in one case driving a potential student away from the department entirely. No significant action was taken, and he was able to retire and enjoy emeritus status, even as the more junior faculty breathed a sigh of relief that he was no longer a liability for the department. I have heard of another male professor who, to my knowledge, hasn't sexually harassed any of the women working for him, but instead treats them as second-class scientists, giving them the harder, more tedious, less glamorous projects, saving the high-profile work for the men. In each of these cases, women who were my colleagues relayed these stories to me as a warning, and in each of these cases, I paid it forward by warning others about the "broken stairs." And in none of these cases did the departments take meaningful direct action against the offenders.
But I have also seen these same departments give meaningful leadership roles to female faculty members who made encouraging and defending female students a priority. I believe, thanks to the hard work of these women, and some of the men who work alongside them, that things are changing for the better. In at least one case, a talented male graduate student told me he was considering a postdoc with one of the men I knew exploited his female students, and when I told him what I knew, he immediately abandoned that plan; we both agreed we couldn't work for someone like that. I share this last story not because I think either of us deserves a cookie, but because I think it illustrates that the culture really is changing.
Things in scientific academia are not all well. But because of the work that the last few generations of women in science have done, I do think things are changing, and with continued work from the men and women of this and future generations of scientists, I think they will continue to get better. I hope the same is true in the humanities, but when I read essays written by women celebrating the importance of erotic relationships between mentor and student, or when I see a story of a female department chair describing common-sense rules about mentor-student relationships as "draconian," I worry.
posted by biogeo at 8:02 PM on June 8, 2018 [8 favorites]
But I have also seen these same departments give meaningful leadership roles to female faculty members who made encouraging and defending female students a priority. I believe, thanks to the hard work of these women, and some of the men who work alongside them, that things are changing for the better. In at least one case, a talented male graduate student told me he was considering a postdoc with one of the men I knew exploited his female students, and when I told him what I knew, he immediately abandoned that plan; we both agreed we couldn't work for someone like that. I share this last story not because I think either of us deserves a cookie, but because I think it illustrates that the culture really is changing.
Things in scientific academia are not all well. But because of the work that the last few generations of women in science have done, I do think things are changing, and with continued work from the men and women of this and future generations of scientists, I think they will continue to get better. I hope the same is true in the humanities, but when I read essays written by women celebrating the importance of erotic relationships between mentor and student, or when I see a story of a female department chair describing common-sense rules about mentor-student relationships as "draconian," I worry.
posted by biogeo at 8:02 PM on June 8, 2018 [8 favorites]
Is there a link to Shapland's full essay? The Arkansas International page only has an excerpt.
posted by brujita at 8:42 PM on June 8, 2018
posted by brujita at 8:42 PM on June 8, 2018
I absolutely hear what you're saying about my privilege, allthinky, but this is the kind of place where I think the author is generalizing too far:
We have specific rules in place - there's no dating students, period. Heck, I can't have a film student on my crew if they are a current student or I can give them a grade in the future because of conflict of interest.
I'm not saying that no one is sexually harassing. What I'm saying is that this article implies that there are institutional supports for people getting away with it broadly across all of academia that I don't see at my institution. That's what I was trying to say, maybe not well.
The bigger issue, to me, is around tenure. Tenure is under threat nationally, especially from right wing politicians. Fewer and fewer tenure lines exist (when old tenured faculty retire, they are replaced by adjuncts, nationally.) It's important.
But, this kind of behavior really isn't the thing that tenure exists to protect. It exists to protect academic freedom and the freedom to espouse politically unpopular opinions. It shouldn't exist to protect sexual predators. So, systems need to be updated, brought more in line with larger trends in social justice, #metoo, and all the rest. Tenure rules need to have more space to protect students from predatory professors. As an academic, that's the part that seems most pressing about all of this: finding a way that tenure protects academic freedom but not predators.
posted by MythMaker at 9:08 PM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]
In a different world, that might have served as a red flag regarding whether he saw his female students as potential sexual partners, rather than as young scholars who’d come to the university to prepare for the rigors of the academy. But it didn’t. This is academia, “A place where deep and lasting collegial bonds are formed, where mentors and protégés can become close friends and where young lives are transformed by a galvanic encounter with knowledge and their own latent capabilities,” as Laura Miller wrote in a 2015 essay for the New Republic, which questioned if “erotic longing between professors and students” was “unavoidable.”I simply disagree that at my institution, this sort of thing "doesn't raise any flags at all" or that at my institution there is any institutional support that "erotic longing between professors and students" was "unavoidable."
By early June, the investigation had come to something of a conclusion, one that left current and former graduate students unsatisfied and Shapland feeling “gaslighted.” One person familiar with the situation told Splinter, “The department are doing what any institution does when one of its favored members violates the rules—they’re circling the wagons and minimizing the problem.” Still, something had shifted, albeit incompletely. In academia, crossing boundaries and exploiting power dynamics—the stuff that has gotten important men fired, ostracized, and otherwise removed from their positions in other industries—usually doesn’t raise any flags at all. But it’s starting to.
We have specific rules in place - there's no dating students, period. Heck, I can't have a film student on my crew if they are a current student or I can give them a grade in the future because of conflict of interest.
I'm not saying that no one is sexually harassing. What I'm saying is that this article implies that there are institutional supports for people getting away with it broadly across all of academia that I don't see at my institution. That's what I was trying to say, maybe not well.
The bigger issue, to me, is around tenure. Tenure is under threat nationally, especially from right wing politicians. Fewer and fewer tenure lines exist (when old tenured faculty retire, they are replaced by adjuncts, nationally.) It's important.
But, this kind of behavior really isn't the thing that tenure exists to protect. It exists to protect academic freedom and the freedom to espouse politically unpopular opinions. It shouldn't exist to protect sexual predators. So, systems need to be updated, brought more in line with larger trends in social justice, #metoo, and all the rest. Tenure rules need to have more space to protect students from predatory professors. As an academic, that's the part that seems most pressing about all of this: finding a way that tenure protects academic freedom but not predators.
posted by MythMaker at 9:08 PM on June 8, 2018 [4 favorites]
When universities first seemed to start paying attention to sexual harrassment a few years ago, the harrassers I knew were old men in departments where I was a student, then a postdoc. I longed for them to be censured, and even removed from their positions, but it didn't happen while I was still in those departments.
Now this past year, a number of universities I know have actually taken action and suspended or fired men for this kind of harrassment, and the huge surprise to me was that it wasn't these old dudes who have been around for years and had reputations I was aware of, but it's young guys who were in my PhD cohort, or who were postdocs at the same time as me. In some cases, people who were my friends.
It sickens me that these guys were acting like this and I didn't know, and I hate that they must have learned that this kind of behaviour was acceptable (or even expected) from those old dudes we both knew at previous institutions. At the same time, I'm glad that there do sometimes at least seem to be consequences now, and each time the news breaks at my institution that a colleague we all know elsewhere just got suspended, the shock waves rippling through the corridors hopefully contribute to deterring current and future academics from thinking this behaviour is okay.
posted by lollusc at 11:06 PM on June 8, 2018 [13 favorites]
Now this past year, a number of universities I know have actually taken action and suspended or fired men for this kind of harrassment, and the huge surprise to me was that it wasn't these old dudes who have been around for years and had reputations I was aware of, but it's young guys who were in my PhD cohort, or who were postdocs at the same time as me. In some cases, people who were my friends.
It sickens me that these guys were acting like this and I didn't know, and I hate that they must have learned that this kind of behaviour was acceptable (or even expected) from those old dudes we both knew at previous institutions. At the same time, I'm glad that there do sometimes at least seem to be consequences now, and each time the news breaks at my institution that a colleague we all know elsewhere just got suspended, the shock waves rippling through the corridors hopefully contribute to deterring current and future academics from thinking this behaviour is okay.
posted by lollusc at 11:06 PM on June 8, 2018 [13 favorites]
Another aspect that was only briefly mentioned in the article is that these harassing professors get their teaching and admin duties taken away to prevent them from interacting with students. Guess who takes over those duties? Often young (female) professors still on the tenure-track because they're the ones who can't afford to say no to the extra workload.
posted by CompanionCube at 12:41 AM on June 9, 2018 [15 favorites]
posted by CompanionCube at 12:41 AM on June 9, 2018 [15 favorites]
I guess the other thing to point out is that a department doesn't have to wholeheartedly embrace sexual misconduct for it to be a pervasive problem. They just have to consistently look the other way or be ineffective at managing it in an official capacity for it to become a sort of known secret. It's probably true that there aren't many departments in any field with moustache twirling gleeful harassment enablers. But if those were the only people perpetrating sexual harassment, it would be much easier to stomp out. Instead, it's the people who get a pass from their chair because, well, that's just Bill. It's the people who get a pass from their chair because they're bringing in grants. It's the people who get quietly shuffled to the next institution with nothing that could be defamatory in their letters from colleagues to warn anyone. It's the people who are never reported because the professor to whom you would report married a former undergraduate student. It's the graduate students who feel comfortable making racialized and sexualized comments in seminar, and the professors who never call them on it. Enough people like this get passes that this low grade harassment sets up an environment (in two of the three departments I've been in and in all four field sites I've worked at and at multiple conferences I've attended) where bigger stuff happens but there's no sense the reporting something to someone would solve things.
I'm not sure my male colleagues feel that or notice it in all these contexts. They'd probably feel confident arguing that there's not a comparable problem in place X or department Y. But I feel pretty confident stating that most of the time, there are at least a few problems and it's very easy, once the groundwork has been laid, for a few problems to undermine a sense of safety and security when it comes to reporting or combatting harassment at all levels.
posted by ChuraChura at 3:59 AM on June 9, 2018 [27 favorites]
I'm not sure my male colleagues feel that or notice it in all these contexts. They'd probably feel confident arguing that there's not a comparable problem in place X or department Y. But I feel pretty confident stating that most of the time, there are at least a few problems and it's very easy, once the groundwork has been laid, for a few problems to undermine a sense of safety and security when it comes to reporting or combatting harassment at all levels.
posted by ChuraChura at 3:59 AM on June 9, 2018 [27 favorites]
"I'm not saying that no one is sexually harassing. What I'm saying is that this article implies that there are institutional supports for people getting away with it broadly across all of academia that I don't see at my institution. That's what I was trying to say, maybe not well."
And what women are trying to tell you is that the only way you know these things are happening is that the people in power are IGNORING their own rules, sweeping away accusations and making them disappear.
You literally wouldn't know systemic abuse of the system was happening to people around you unless it was happening to you. Individual women often don't even know it's happening at the systemic level and think it just happened to them and maybe they really did misperceive it when their reports get ignored and they stay quiet.
This is literally why these problems have festered and are only coming to the service if every one decides to air the issues at once so each individual survivor doesn't feel like it's just them happening in isolation. And this is why having multiple identified men popping in to mention this isn't happening around them when women are repeatedly mentioning, you wouldn't know if it was is a bit frustrating.
posted by xarnop at 5:29 AM on June 9, 2018 [16 favorites]
And what women are trying to tell you is that the only way you know these things are happening is that the people in power are IGNORING their own rules, sweeping away accusations and making them disappear.
You literally wouldn't know systemic abuse of the system was happening to people around you unless it was happening to you. Individual women often don't even know it's happening at the systemic level and think it just happened to them and maybe they really did misperceive it when their reports get ignored and they stay quiet.
This is literally why these problems have festered and are only coming to the service if every one decides to air the issues at once so each individual survivor doesn't feel like it's just them happening in isolation. And this is why having multiple identified men popping in to mention this isn't happening around them when women are repeatedly mentioning, you wouldn't know if it was is a bit frustrating.
posted by xarnop at 5:29 AM on June 9, 2018 [16 favorites]
It's the people who get quietly shuffled to the next institution with nothing that could be defamatory in their letters from colleagues to warn anyone.
Oh, and WAAAAY DOWN THE LIST of important issues raised by this kind of thing, but, like still an issue......
Men: if you look in the the "Patriarchy poisons everything" file - because of the existence of letters like the above, if you try to move institutions for reasons other than being an abuser or misogynist, suspicion may follow you ANYWAY......
posted by lalochezia at 6:07 AM on June 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh, and WAAAAY DOWN THE LIST of important issues raised by this kind of thing, but, like still an issue......
Men: if you look in the the "Patriarchy poisons everything" file - because of the existence of letters like the above, if you try to move institutions for reasons other than being an abuser or misogynist, suspicion may follow you ANYWAY......
posted by lalochezia at 6:07 AM on June 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
When universities first seemed to start paying attention to sexual harrassment a few years ago, the harrassers I knew were old men in departments where I was a student, then a postdoc. I longed for them to be censured, and even removed from their positions, but it didn't happen while I was still in those departments.
Now this past year, a number of universities I know have actually taken action and suspended or fired men for this kind of harrassment, and the huge surprise to me was that it wasn't these old dudes who have been around for years and had reputations I was aware of, but it's young guys who were in my PhD cohort, or who were postdocs at the same time as me. In some cases, people who were my friends.
I'm glad that at least some of the current crop of harassers are facing consequences, but unfortunately that older cohort basically got away scott-free by retiring in time. A few might have their reputations tarnished if particularly scintillating stories come out, but mostly nothing consequential will happen to them.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:01 AM on June 9, 2018
Now this past year, a number of universities I know have actually taken action and suspended or fired men for this kind of harrassment, and the huge surprise to me was that it wasn't these old dudes who have been around for years and had reputations I was aware of, but it's young guys who were in my PhD cohort, or who were postdocs at the same time as me. In some cases, people who were my friends.
I'm glad that at least some of the current crop of harassers are facing consequences, but unfortunately that older cohort basically got away scott-free by retiring in time. A few might have their reputations tarnished if particularly scintillating stories come out, but mostly nothing consequential will happen to them.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:01 AM on June 9, 2018
We don't have to speculate or make assumptions here about how abuse plays out in different departments and schools based on our anecdotal experience. There is a spreadsheet of evidence linked in the article.
I don't think that the full Shapland article is available anywhere outside of the journal it was published in. I have read it though because I work in this environment and it's being passed along through whisper networks.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:54 AM on June 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
I don't think that the full Shapland article is available anywhere outside of the journal it was published in. I have read it though because I work in this environment and it's being passed along through whisper networks.
posted by tofu_crouton at 7:54 AM on June 9, 2018 [4 favorites]
Sexual harassment of women in academia doesn't only come from men higher up in the academic hierarchy. Many women at my university (myself included) were harassed by our male students, some of whom were barely out high school. Goes to show that holding a relative position of power at a university (i.e. being a professor, or a grad student instructor, or a TA) doesn't "protect" women against systemic harassment.
posted by k8bot at 7:59 AM on June 9, 2018 [10 favorites]
posted by k8bot at 7:59 AM on June 9, 2018 [10 favorites]
YES to what k8bot said.
My worst story comes from a graduate student rotating in my lab. His sexual harassment of me (and my inability to address it) and his behavior (bullying, badmouthing) after leaving the lab caused other students to avoid my lab, or even coming to our department to work with me, for a few years. For a biologist early on the tenure track, this had serious career impact.
This is the first I've ever spoken of it.
posted by Dashy at 8:27 AM on June 9, 2018 [24 favorites]
My worst story comes from a graduate student rotating in my lab. His sexual harassment of me (and my inability to address it) and his behavior (bullying, badmouthing) after leaving the lab caused other students to avoid my lab, or even coming to our department to work with me, for a few years. For a biologist early on the tenure track, this had serious career impact.
This is the first I've ever spoken of it.
posted by Dashy at 8:27 AM on June 9, 2018 [24 favorites]
It also happens between tenured faculty and junior TT faculty who are afraid of speaking up because they may need the vote of that harasser. And even if the department chair is aware and trying to stop it, HR does nothing. And the other male colleagues have no clue it’s happening. Women talk to each other about it, to warn each other and to circle the wagons to protect the harassed, but we don’t talk to our male colleagues about it.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 9:08 AM on June 9, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by rabbitrabbit at 9:08 AM on June 9, 2018 [5 favorites]
Tofu_crouton, was there an element of "if you reject me you're racist" in the grooming?
posted by brujita at 9:20 AM on June 9, 2018
posted by brujita at 9:20 AM on June 9, 2018
I don't remember any racial stuff in it at all, but I read it a good while back, before it was actually published I think.
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:35 AM on June 9, 2018
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:35 AM on June 9, 2018
Also Hutchinson is white...
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:37 AM on June 9, 2018
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:37 AM on June 9, 2018
My worst story comes from a graduate student rotating in my lab. His sexual harassment of me (and my inability to address it) and his behavior (bullying, badmouthing) after leaving the lab caused other students to avoid my lab, or even coming to our department to work with me, for a few years. For a biologist early on the tenure track, this had serious career impact.
This is the first I've ever spoken of it.
This is awful. Can you think of anything researchers at the postdoc level who encounter such a situation between junior faculty and a harassing graduate student would be able to do to help?
posted by biogeo at 2:21 PM on June 9, 2018
This is the first I've ever spoken of it.
This is awful. Can you think of anything researchers at the postdoc level who encounter such a situation between junior faculty and a harassing graduate student would be able to do to help?
posted by biogeo at 2:21 PM on June 9, 2018
Look, in my department, I know two senior faculty members who championed and pushed through a male graduate student who had a known history of harassment at his previous field station so severe that a) his previous employer refused to write him a recommendation letter and b) multiple female PIs who used that station actively withdrew female students when he was in residence rather than expose them to him.
He completed his first year in my department a month ago.
I knew a student who pulled off the same sort of thing as the man that Dashy mentions, and I took the warnings to his supervisor at that level. His supervisor didn't want to hear it and continued to insist on speaking warmly of that student and maintaining warm relationships with him, even after hearing about a further incident where that student's behavior drove another, junior female student out of the department entirely.
My field is pretty close to yours, biogeo--remember, I'm a little less biomedical adjacent than you, but all that means is that we have if anything even more reliance by faculty on grad students to do their work because you can pay grad students with TAships instead of grants when you're skint. And... it doesn't stop any of this. Men actively don't find out about it unless women trust them, and the moment you hear something minor about a man expressing anything other than unqualified support for women over something like this, women tell each other and the willingness to extend trust to that man dries up. Men who might be potential allies just never hear about it because by and large women don't trust you enough to tell you--most of us have been burned by a man who didn't want to hear us before, and who wants to risk their professional reputation like that?
As far as I can tell, the main thing postdoc workers can do is to speak openly and bluntly to the junior faculty about it--and I think it's less important being a postdoc and more important being male. I have watched male allies change things for the better as much as they can. I have also recently watched the two best defenders of women in my department leave it entirely (both for unrelated reasons), and I'm not looking forward to the future.
posted by sciatrix at 3:24 PM on June 9, 2018 [9 favorites]
He completed his first year in my department a month ago.
I knew a student who pulled off the same sort of thing as the man that Dashy mentions, and I took the warnings to his supervisor at that level. His supervisor didn't want to hear it and continued to insist on speaking warmly of that student and maintaining warm relationships with him, even after hearing about a further incident where that student's behavior drove another, junior female student out of the department entirely.
My field is pretty close to yours, biogeo--remember, I'm a little less biomedical adjacent than you, but all that means is that we have if anything even more reliance by faculty on grad students to do their work because you can pay grad students with TAships instead of grants when you're skint. And... it doesn't stop any of this. Men actively don't find out about it unless women trust them, and the moment you hear something minor about a man expressing anything other than unqualified support for women over something like this, women tell each other and the willingness to extend trust to that man dries up. Men who might be potential allies just never hear about it because by and large women don't trust you enough to tell you--most of us have been burned by a man who didn't want to hear us before, and who wants to risk their professional reputation like that?
As far as I can tell, the main thing postdoc workers can do is to speak openly and bluntly to the junior faculty about it--and I think it's less important being a postdoc and more important being male. I have watched male allies change things for the better as much as they can. I have also recently watched the two best defenders of women in my department leave it entirely (both for unrelated reasons), and I'm not looking forward to the future.
posted by sciatrix at 3:24 PM on June 9, 2018 [9 favorites]
Oh. And reading through the relationship described in the article?
Yeah, there's a gentleman in our mutual field who pulled... as far as I can tell, not being in the lab, something quite similar with a former female student. The PI is currently under investigation, and as far as I can tell actual sanctions will depend more or less entirely on how much HR gives a shit.
I'm just. Like. No. The discipline means jack all, and--man. Do you have a close female friend in your department, or a female contact that you have a previous relationship of trust with? Ask her to tell you what she's heard so that you can warn other people. I'm pretty sure that she'll have stories.
posted by sciatrix at 3:30 PM on June 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, there's a gentleman in our mutual field who pulled... as far as I can tell, not being in the lab, something quite similar with a former female student. The PI is currently under investigation, and as far as I can tell actual sanctions will depend more or less entirely on how much HR gives a shit.
I'm just. Like. No. The discipline means jack all, and--man. Do you have a close female friend in your department, or a female contact that you have a previous relationship of trust with? Ask her to tell you what she's heard so that you can warn other people. I'm pretty sure that she'll have stories.
posted by sciatrix at 3:30 PM on June 9, 2018 [1 favorite]
Mod note: One deleted. Gently, it's probably best to listen to your inner voice when beginning a comment with "I don't want to make this thread about me," because yeah, after several comments now (more than those discussing their direct experience) it is actually becoming a little too much about you/your take?
posted by taz (staff) at 2:23 AM on June 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:23 AM on June 10, 2018 [3 favorites]
Found this site today, which lists documented (in public records or news articles) cases of sexual harassment in academia, and after spending an hour gawking at how many times my master's alma mater (UGA) is on this list, I figured y'all might be interested in seeing how your current and former institutions are doing:
NOT A FLUKE: THAT CASE OF ACADEMIC SEXUAL HARASSMENT, SEXUAL ASSAULT, SEXUAL MISCONDUCT, STALKING, VIOLATIONS OF DATING POLICIES, VIOLATIONS OF CAMPUS PORNOGRAPHY POLICIES, AND SIMILAR VIOLATION IS NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT!
posted by hydropsyche at 5:56 PM on June 23, 2018
NOT A FLUKE: THAT CASE OF ACADEMIC SEXUAL HARASSMENT, SEXUAL ASSAULT, SEXUAL MISCONDUCT, STALKING, VIOLATIONS OF DATING POLICIES, VIOLATIONS OF CAMPUS PORNOGRAPHY POLICIES, AND SIMILAR VIOLATION IS NOT AN ISOLATED INCIDENT!
posted by hydropsyche at 5:56 PM on June 23, 2018
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posted by frumiousb at 5:01 PM on June 8, 2018 [5 favorites]