Defining the Issue

"There's nothing new about the issue, what's new is the semantics."--Lesley L. Francis '59, American Association of University Professors.

"There is no consensus in higher education that this is an important issue."--Billie Dziech and Linda Weiner, The Lecherous Professor.

During the past several years, an old problem has acquired a new name, as the term "sexual harassment "has evolved to define a persistent problem that few people have been willing to address directly. But while people have become more aware of the problem, a recent study of sexual harassment concludes that the issue must receive even more publicity before it can be prevented.

The soon-to-be released book, called The Lecherous Professor, is a comprehensive examination of sexual harassment on college campuses. Although authors Billie Dziech and Linda Weiner, both college professors, focus their comments on the harassment of women students by male faculty members, they also discuss issues not often linked to sexual harassments. Ultimately, the authors conclude that the power structure of colleges, myths about women students and the psychological development of male professors all contribute to the incidence of harassment.

The study shows that between 20 and 30 percent of women students who have been surveyed by various colleges and organizations report having been sexually harassed by a male professor during college. Few of these women report their run-ins with the professors, however, largely because either they do not realize that they've been harassed or they are afraid of reprisals.

According to Dziech and Weiner, male faculty members often challenge harassment complaints, claiming that the student may have provoked an advanced or misinterpreted an innocent gesture. However, the book rejects claims that harassment is difficult to distinguish: "It is not, in the vast majority of cases, ambiguous behavior." Referring to cases described in the book, the authors go on to state that harassment "is grabbing a student's breast or lying on the floor and staring up her skirt."

Bernice R. Sandler, the director of the Project on the Education and Status of Women at the American Association of Colleges, agreed with a number of the book's other general findings harassers tend to be repeat offenders; relatively few women invent or exaggerate charges of sexual harassment; ignoring the attention will not make it go away.

Although relatively few harassment cases come to light, several colleges including Harvard have had incidents receive public attention. The book cites two Harvard cases which occurred in 1979 and 1982, including copies of letters between Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky, Assistant Dean of the College Marlyn M. Lewis '70 and the student victims that had been publicized in The Crimson. Other cases discussed include charges against a sociology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where 13 students complained that the professor had fondled and propositioned them, and explicitly offered one a grade in exchange for sexual favors. Berkeley suspended the professor without pay and he ultimately resigned. The book also mentions an incident at Clark College when in 1980 an assistant professor filed harassment charges against another junior faculty member. The assistant professor, joined with another woman, took her case to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a sex discrimination complaint. The male professor then sued the women for defamation of character, prompting them to countersue. Ultimately, the case was settled internally and all outside suits were dropped.

Drawing upon the cases of sexual harassment at these universities and others, Dziech and Weiner say that the vaguely defined structure of the university setting" [helps] to explain why sexual harassment flourishes in an environment where many people least expect it." While a definite power structure does exist, they add, areas of authority are ill-defined. The authors also claim that confusion about the proper "mission" of education further blurs the lines of professional student-faculty contact.

A 1977 district court ruling on a sexual harassment complaint, Alexander v. Yale, established that sexual harassment may constitute sex discrimination which is prohibited under Title IX. As a result, colleges are legally obliged to prevent harassment to the best of their ability. According to Dziech and Weiner, deterrence requires a clear and forceful policy statement on sexual harassment as well as effective grievance procedures. Superficial attention to the issue will not suffice, they add. As long as harassment is "ghettoized."--confined to a small office usually staffed by men--college communities will continue to view the problem as a "women's issue" rather than a practice that undermines the entire community.

The book calls on students, faculty and administrators to take an active role in educating themselves about harassment. Administrators and professors must be alert to the problem and, difficult though it may be, women must step forward to report complaints. Dziech and Weiner believe complaints are best handled informally, although they acknowledge that, "ironically, successful informal mediation deceives the campus community into not knowing or acknowledging that there are harassment problems."

National education officials agree that calling attention to sexual harassment will do much to solve the problem. "Just getting it out in the open is half the battle, though there will be a few people who just can't stop," Lesley L. Francis '59, assistant secretary of the American Association of University Professors, said recently. Sandler agreed, saying that close to 80 percent of harassment cases, unlike other forms of discrimination, disappear once a university institutes a strong statement and policy on harassment.

Most of the experts disagree, however, on how much publicity is appropriate for harassment compaints. Sandler contends that, once a college finds a professor guilty of sexual harassment, the case should be made public: "To the extent that sactions are a deterrent, they ought to be public. If someone did something wrong, they should have to face the music." Francis, however, stressed the need for confidentiality, adding, "I don't think the time for clarity and details is after it's all over."

While Dziech and Weiner do not advocate publicizing individual cases in The Lecherous Professor, they claim that sexual harassment must be seen as a public, rather than private issue. Sexual harassment will not disappear, they argue, until it is discussed and addressed as a fundamental academic concern.