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©2017 THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION INC. TABLE OF CONTENTS

olleges have long harbored academics who have imposed their sexual attentions on students or junior colleagues. The faculty members’ approaches are often unwelcome, or may make their targets feel uncomfortable, or are clearly instances of sexual assault. When a complaint is made, administrators are left with the difficult Ctask of sorting out what happened and coming up with a resolution that protects everyone’s rights and ensures campus safety. The seven articles in this collection look at how colleges struggle with these sensitive issues.

Here’s What Sexual Harassment Looks Like 4 in Higher Education A mix of risk factors has made the problem particularly pervasive in the college workplace.

A Professor, a Graduate Student, 7 and 2 Careers Derailed A relationship gone bad illustrates some of the toughest problems facing higher education.

Why Colleges Have a Hard Time 15 Handling Professors Who Harass The case of the astronomer Geffrey W. Marcy reflects the complex dynamics at play in such situations.

How One College Has Set Out to Fix 18 a Culture of Blatant Sexual Harassment Students, faculty, and administrators work to change the culture at the Berklee College of Music.

What Happens When Sex Harassment 20 Disrupts Victims’ Academic Careers People who say they’ve been harassed speak of ripple effects and lasting consequences.

Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe 23 How campus rules make students more vulnerable.

Dirty Old Men on the Faculty 30 Will sexual harassment on campus finally get the condemnation it deserves?

CoverCover photo photo by Eric illustration Thayer, byThe Bob New McGrath York Times

22 R e ining In Fr at e r ni t ie s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / s e p t e mb e r 2017

©2017 THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION INC. Here’s What Sexual Harassment Looks Like in Higher Education

By KATHERINE MANGAN

s the momentum of the #MeToo Firing a tenured professor often means months campaign brings more allegations of hearings and sometimes lawsuits that an insti- of sexual harassment to the sur- tution would prefer to avoid. Colleagues who sus- face, people are looking around their pect there’s something creepy about sexual banter workplaces and professional net- with students might look the other way if the of- worksA disturbed, but not necessarily shocked at fender could one day serve on a tenure and promo- the stories emerging. tion committee or chair the department. Across many industries, sexual harassment per- “Whenever you have a working relationship in sists because people (usually men) with clout can get which the risks are really high of making a com- away with it, and victims (typically women) either plaint and the rewards are low, that’s a problem,” are disregarded or keep quiet, fearing they will be. says Justine E. Tinkler, an associate professor of But higher education has additional risk factors that sociology at the University of Georgia who has make the problem particularly pervasive. studied sexual harassment and how training pro- Stark power differentials, especially between grams affect behavior. A graduate student tar- professors and students. The intensity of intel- geted by a big-deal professor, or the new hire who lectual exchange. A sense of entitlement by a star is aware of it, may want to speak up, but at what faculty member, with tenure and maybe an en- cost? dowed chair, who is revered in his field. A poten- That calculation may be changing as more peo- tial protégé with what feels like a make-or-break ple come forward with expectations that the col- publication, grant, or job on the line. Boozy con- lege will take action. In recent years, accusers have ferences, secluded labs, remote research sites. taken down Geoffrey W. Marcy, an astronomer at Colleges and universities have long harbored in- the University of California at Berkeley, and Colin fluential academics who’ve seemed confident that McGinn, a prominent philosopher at the Universi- they could target students or junior colleagues and ty of Miami. Now, with the fallout from the Wein- never be held to account. They may have gotten stein scandal and the galvanizing momentum of away with it because of their research money, po- the #MeToo hashtag, American gender politics litical capital, or prestige. finds itself at an uncomfortable crossroads. And nowhere is that sense of unease more palpable than in the campus workplace. It remains to be Students protested in mid- DINA RUDICK/THE BOSTON November against sexual assault and GLOBE VIA GETTY IMAGES harassment at the Berklee College of Music. Berklee’s president acknowledged that 11 faculty members have been fired for sexual misconduct in the past 13 years.

seen how those developments will accelerate the levels of sexual assault, and even some domestic complaints. But over the past several weeks, at violence-like behaviors.” least a half-dozen accusations of sexual miscon- That pattern, she says, runs counter to the narra- duct by male faculty members have emerged or tive that the current push against sexual harassment gotten renewed attention. threatens academic freedom. It’s not what profes- sors are saying as much as what they’re doing. AN EYE-OPENING STUDY And they’re doing it a lot. One in 10 female grad- uate students at major research institutions report Any tendency to shrug off incidents in an aca- being sexually harassed by a faculty member, ac- demic setting as relatively tame may not hold up cording to a study by the Association of American to a new study of nearly 300 sexual-harassment Universities. accusations on campuses. It finds that most impli- Some offenders are serial harassers who, if cate more-serious behaviors, with more than half found out, resign and quietly move on to another involving physical contact. campus. They may never be stopped because their “Few of those allegations involved things like victims, who sometimes suffer for years from self- hugging or kissing or anything that could be ar- doubt and shame, don’t speak out. Some get so dis- gued to be sort of accidental or affectionate,” says couraged they leave academe. Nancy Chi Cantalupo, an assistant professor of law More women in academe will feel emboldened at Barry University. She and William C. Kidder, now to share their past experiences, or to protest a associate vice president and chief of staff at Sono- hand on the knee or an unwelcome embrace, Erin ma State University, wrote an article about the E. Buzuvis, a professor of law at Western New En- study that is scheduled for publication next spring gland University and moderator of the Title IX in the Utah Law Review. Blog, expects. “The majority of the cases we looked at indi- “The thing that keeps sexual-harassment vic- cated that the touching was sexual in nature and tims from speaking is the fear of not being be- ranged from sexual groping all the way to criminal lieved or of their complaints being trivialized,” she

d e c e mb e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s 5 says. “There is a lot of momentum now for believ- the Georgia sociologist. Sessions can also cause ing people’s reports,” she says, rather than assum- offense by reinforcing gender stereotypes “of men ing that someone so prominent or well-regarded being more powerful and aggressive, and women couldn’t possibly have done such a thing. more vulnerable and weak,” Ms. Tinkler says. But even if someone comes forward to report It’s sometimes hard to say when a remark or ac- sexual misconduct, a star professor often escapes tion crosses the line into harassment. But even if serious consequences, as anecdotes from across the behavior just makes someone uncomfortable, higher education have shown. the offender should be told, victim advocates say. That’s what Seo-Young Chu says happened The message doesn’t have to come from the per- when, as a 21-year-old graduate student in English son on the receiving end of the squeeze or slea- at Stanford University, she accused her former zy compliment. Bystander-intervention policies professor, Jay Fliegelman, of raping her and tell- ing her that he controlled her future. Ms. Chu is now an associate professor of English at Queens College of the City University of New York. Mr. Fliegelman, an influential scholar of American One in 10 female literature and cultural studies, was suspended without pay and banned from the department graduate students for two years following the incident, in 2000, but the reasons for his punishment were kept under wraps until recently. He died in 2007. at major research A researcher wrote in Nature magazine last year about being sexually harassed by a former institutions report postdoctoral supervisor and complaining to his university that, despite her objections, he had re- peatedly made lewd comments and tried to kiss being sexually her. He was eventually found guilty of research misconduct and inappropriate behavior, including harassed by a sexual harassment, but wasn’t fired, she wrote. The woman, who wrote anonymously and opted not to name him, said she had been advised to faculty member. keep the outcome of the case confidential. The secrecy that surrounds sexual harassment contributes to a whisper network that activates that include men in calling out sexual aggressors when people want to warn one another whom to or clueless curmudgeons can help avoid an “us vs. stay away from. them” mentality, Ms. Tinkler says. As women move beyond that network and so- Along with increased awareness of harassment, cial-media sites like Twitter and Facebook, they a backlash is brewing, warns Laura Kipnis, a pro- sometimes seek a more public platform, like Buzz- fessor in the department of radio, television and feed News, which published leaked details about film at Northwestern University and the author of the investigation into Mr. Marcy. Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus, Even before the Weinstein reports, Ms. LEGAL STANDARD FALLS SHORT Kipnis says she had been hearing from male pro- fessors who were reluctant to advise female grad- Most anti-harassment policies are ineffective be- uate students because they feared something they cause they focus mainly on avoiding legal liability, said or did could be misinterpreted. according to a report issued last year by the Equal At a time when universities are experiencing Employment Opportunity Commission. what she calls “a heightened climate of sexual The legal standard for sexual harassment is be- paranoia,” a kiss on the cheek at a holiday party havior so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile can become grounds for investigation, she says, work environment, or results in someone being de- and, once accused, a professor will have a hard moted or fired in retaliation. But there’s plenty of time shaking the reputation as a harasser. behavior that falls short of that threshold that can That’s not to say that bad things aren’t happen- make people uncomfortable or lead to harassment. ing and that some people don’t need to be fired, Sometimes such examples make their way into Ms. Kipnis says. campus anti-harassment training. “I have no doubt sexual harassment is pervasive, Poorly designed training can make men feel and in cases where there’s groping or it’s quid pro more resentful toward women, says Ms. Tinkler, quo,” she says, “those people should be out.”

Originally published on November 16, 2017

6 s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / d e c e mb e r 2017 A Professor, a Graduate Student, and 2 Careers Derailed

By ROBIN WILSON

Peter Ludlow, a philosopher at Northwestern U., has put his possessions in storage pending a planned move to Mexico.

d e c e mb e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion s e x ua l b o und aMARK r ie s ABRAMSON f or p r FOR of eTHE s s CHRONICLE or s 7 he first time the young woman when things go wrong. Following the complaints wound up in Peter Ludlow’s bedroom against Mr. Ludlow, Northwestern joined a hand- was during a party at his apartment ful of institutions nationwide and banned all ro- held by Northwestern University’s phi- mantic relationships between professors and un- losophy department. In the luxury dergraduates. Thigh-rise, with its expansive view of the Chicago In the past few months, the reverberations have skyline, Mr. Ludlow and his colleagues wined and grown louder. Another Northwestern professor dined prospective graduate students. He was a wrote about what she called “sexual paranoia” on star professor in the department, and she had just campuses in an essay published in The Chronicle earned her master’s degree. Review that referenced both students’ complaints “He brought me into his bedroom, where his against Mr. Ludlow, without naming names. The printer was, and he was printing off all of this un- essay prompted the graduate student to file federal published work that he said nobody else had read, complaints against the author and the university’s and he said, ‘Send me all your half-cooked ideas,’” president, who had written an essay in The Wall recalls the woman, who was shocked that such a Street Journal defending professors’ rights to free prominent philosopher would share so much. She speech. His argument, the student said, implied had an interest in epistemology, one of the profes- that her complaint against the author was with- sor’s areas of expertise. out merit. Those complaints raised new questions Mr. Ludlow says there was nothing unusual about the reach of the federal gender-equity act about his behavior. Showing a prospective gradu- known as Title IX. ate student unfinished work, he says, is “textbook.” The student started the Ph.D. program at Northwestern the next fall, in 2011. Within a month or so, she was spending several evenings a Their relationship week at his apartment. They drank bottles of red wine on the balcony and debated ideas about the theory of knowledge, scrawling on the floor-to- put them at the ceiling windows. They slept in the professor’s bed. She was 25 and had a serious boyfriend who heart of difficult lived in Boston. Mr. Ludlow was 54 and had a his- tory of dating young women. The professor and the graduate student agree on issues facing those details. Everything else about the nature of their relationship is disputed. She says she made academe. it clear she wanted a mentor, not a romantic part- ner. She says he raped her one night in November of that year. Mr. Ludlow denies that accusation, saying they regularly had consensual sex and had The author of the essay, Laura Kipnis, described even discussed marriage. her experience as the subject of a Title IX investi- The student eventually filed a complaint with gation in a second essay last month for The Chron- the university. In 2014, Northwestern found Mr. icle Review, prompting a media firestorm over ac- Ludlow responsible for sexual harassment, not ademic freedom and what’s safe to say about sex rape. But the fallout was just beginning. on campus, and creating a further public-relations Their story set off a chain reaction of contro- debacle for Northwestern. versies that has placed them and their university For both Mr. Ludlow and the graduate student, at the heart of some of the toughest issues facing the latest episode has meant further upheaval higher education. The case — and a separate com- that opened up their relationship and their lives to plaint of sexual assault lodged against Mr. Ludlow more public scrutiny and further jeopardized their by an undergraduate — has become a rallying cry careers. for campus activists who want colleges to do more to stop sexual misconduct. The allegations also r. Ludlow agreed in late February to talk represent one more black eye for the discipline of for the first time about his relationship philosophy, which has long been plagued by accu- Mwith the graduate student. Until then he sations of harassment and discrimination against had not publicly commented, instead using the le- women. gal system to challenge the actions of the two fe- What happened between Mr. Ludlow and the male students and the university. Talking with The graduate student, and how people responded, il- Chronicle, he says, “was my last, best hope to get at lustrates the changing campus climate about sex, least some part of the truth out there.” the complexities of the student-professor relation- Mr. Ludlow says he faces dismissal hearings ship, and how difficult it is for colleges to arbitrate at Northwestern next month. (The university

8 s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / d e c e mb e r 2017 says it doesn’t comment on personnel matters.) dents in the same department? Mr. Ludlow doesn’t He considers himself a casualty of political cor- necessarily think so, and he emphasizes that the rectness as universities rush to judge professors university’s former rules prohibited dating only accused of assault, denying them due process when the professor supervised the student. along the way. Students, he says, are as likely as professors to He says he didn’t break the Northwestern rule that was in place at the time that prohibited facul- ty members from dating students over whom they had “evaluative authority.” The graduate “I thought it would be a decision based on the facts instead of the public relations,” he says of the student saw university’s review of the complaints against him. “But if you end up embarrassing the place, good luck trying to stay there.” herself become Mr. Ludlow had been thriving at Northwestern, where he says he was informed that he’d be award- an academic villain. ed an endowed chair just three years after arriving in the department, in 2008. His academic career has taken him from the State University of New York’s Stony Brook cam- instigate relationships, and he adds that he has pus to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor to always been careful to let female students he dat- the University of Toronto. He married a professor ed make the first move. “If you’re trying to tell me of Italian at Stony Brook, a relationship that lasted that a 20-year-old college student has a weaker 10 years. At Michigan he started seeing an under- libido than a 50-year-old man,” says Mr. Ludlow, graduate a year after she had taken a linguistics “that’s a stereotype, and it’s a false one.” course from him, he says. She followed him to To- Prohibiting dating between people who are de- ronto, and he followed her to Chicago, he says, but cades apart in age seems no different to him than the relationship fell apart. doing so between people of different races or reli- Mr. Ludlow is known for connecting the schol- gions. “At what point do we decide this is some sort arly interests of linguists and philosophers and for of moral hang-up preventing us from being in a re- redirecting philosophy to an emphasis on studying lationship or spending time with people we should the logic of ordinary human language. be spending time with?” he asks. “It doesn’t seem At Northwestern he also continued to build an right to lock people out of your life because society expertise in the intersection of philosophy and on- considers the relationship inappropriate.” line culture. In 2006, MTV News named him one The graduate student, meanwhile, has watched of the country’s 10 most influential video gamers herself become an academic villain after using Ti- after the publisher of The Sims Online kicked him tle IX to challenge others at Northwestern who out of the game when Mr. Ludlow put out a muck- wrote and spoke publicly about her charges. raking newspaper revealing virtual sex and finan- “I’m a wreck,” says the graduate student, who cial scams among players. He moved on to another is now married and lives out of the country. In online game, Second Life, and wrote a similar pa- talking publicly for the first time about her rela- per called The Alphaville Herald. tionship with the professor, she asked to remain Mr. Ludlow’s familiarity with youth culture — anonymous because she does not want her name in art, media, and video games — and his posh openly associated with the rape accusations. Chicago apartment and Audi convertible and his While the student has been identified by name on 1,000-watt philosophy career were an attractive various blogs and in tweets, The Chronicle does combination. At Northwestern he dated and so- not typically publish the names of those who lodge cialized with several women who were decades rape charges. younger than him. None of them, he says, were in “I am a shadow of my former self,” she says. his classes at the time or under his direct super- The graduate student says the attention she re- vision — including the two students who made members receiving from Mr. Ludlow during the the complaints. Yet, as with many such relation- recruitment party continued after she accepted ships between professor and grad student, the Northwestern’s admissions offer. Mr. Ludlow, she lines were blurred. Mr. Ludlow and the grad- says, asked her to travel to the University of St An- uate student were planning to publish a paper drews, in Scotland, to visit one of the world’s lead- together. And every year, philosophy professors ing centers for philosophy. He told her he’d rented at Northwestern are asked to attend meetings a house on the ocean where she could stay. She during which the progress of each graduate stu- says he offered to use his research funds to pay for dent is assessed. her trip and asked her not to mention that to any- But is it predatory for a professor to date stu- one.

d e c e mb e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s 9 he graduate student says the trip sound- hanging out with me,” he says. “The amount of love ed “magical.” But she reluctantly declined I felt coming from her was something I hadn’t felt Tafter consulting with faculty advisers at her before. I could sit and talk to her forever.” master’s-degree institution and deciding that ac- Still, Mr. Ludlow acknowledges that it was he cepting might not only appear inappropriate but who was the most invested in the relationship, and could also alienate her from her fellow graduate that he kept pressing the student to make it exclu- students. sive. She told him she couldn’t decide between him Mr. Ludlow says trying to arrange the trip was and her Boston boyfriend, Mr. Ludlow says. not a special favor but part of his job. The student had made it clear that she wanted to visit St An- drews, and after accepting Northwestern’s offer, she asked again about the opportunity, he says. Renewed debates “When she asked me to arrange something, I said I’d do it. It’s what you are supposed to do for a stu- dent.” pitted protection of Using his own research funds was a fallback op- tion, he says, if she didn’t find another way to pay sex-assault victims for the trip. In making the offer, he says, he didn’t want to make other students jealous, which is why he asked her to keep it quiet. against professors’ Over the next couple of months, the graduate student and Mr. Ludlow agree, they grew close. academic freedom. They ate out together almost every night when they were both in town, and then spent the rest of most evenings at his apartment. He says they had pet names for each other: He called her “Spoon” “We liked the same kind of music, we both had because the first night she spent at his place, she a nerdy streak in us,” he says. “She was not intimi- asked if he could “spoon” her while they slept, he dated by me in any way, and it wasn’t like the con- says. She called him “1,000 Angels,” in reference to nection we had was due to professorial gravitas.” Tina Fey’s character in 30 Rock, who said she was But the graduate student says Mr. Ludlow used so happy she was “high-fiving a million angels.” his position to take advantage of her — praising (The graduate student says the term was a joke her work, offering to help launch her career, telling and didn’t mean anything to her.) her she was a “rock star,” then pushing her to make According to Mr. Ludlow, the two had sex nu- their relationship romantic. The clash between merous times at his apartment during their three- their intentions was the subject of several heated month relationship, and he showed The Chronicle arguments between them, she says. text messages in which the graduate student told “We would be spending time together, hang- him that she was “in love” and that they were made ing out a ton, having these late, late, late nights for each other. The graduate student says those where we would sit up and talk about philosophy, were conversations she was manipulated into hav- and they were so engaging and so lovely,” she says. ing by a man who told her he was lonely and need- “And then there would be these cracks. He would ed a friend. get sad and distant and upset because he was in Mr. Ludlow also showed The Chronicle a picture love with me.” of a card they had filled out in early November The graduate student says she did not consider 2011 after dinner at a Chicago restaurant called their relationship romantic, nor did she consider iNG. The restaurant used the card to collect con- them to be dating. tact information. On it the graduate student had One time, she says, when they were sitting on written: “I’m sorry my boyfriend’s a douche. Please the balcony, Mr. Ludlow kissed her and she re- email us anyway.” members saying: “‘Peter, I have a boyfriend. I can’t Beneath that, Mr. Ludlow had added: “This is reciprocate.’” In retrospect, she says, “I should the first time she ever called me her boyfriend so have gotten up and left, but I thought, OK, let’s thank you Chef Cantu.” just act like that didn’t happen.” (Mr. Ludlow says The graduate student then wrote: “That’s a big the graduate student kissed him first.) step, FYI.” She kept the precarious relationship going, she The graduate student says she was very drunk says, because she benefited from the professional when she completed the card at the restaurant and connection. She and Mr. Ludlow were planning to never thought of Mr. Ludlow as her boyfriend. But publish their academic paper. But she says she al- he says he took her sentiment seriously because ways walked a tightrope between the philosophi- it seemed in line with her behavior. “She didn’t cal work she enjoyed and the physical relationship seem to care about anything but talking to me and he was pushing for.

10 s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / d e c e mb e r 2017 One night in late November 2011, the graduate Student: “Do you understand how devastating student says, everything changed. As usual, the rumors about me having an unprofessional rela- two were sleeping in his bed after a night of drink- tionship with one of my advisers could be? Did you ing and talking about philosophy. But that night, give [him] a reason to think that our relationship while she was passed out from too much alcohol, was anything more than professional?” she says, Mr. Ludlow had sex with her. Mr. Ludlow: “I lied to him and said we don’t She doesn’t remember any of the details oth- have a romantic relationship. I have as much to er than when she woke up in the morning, it was lose as you do.” clear to her what had happened. “I remembered Student: “You already have a career. Mine could feeling like I had lost,” she says. “I had been fight- be over before it even begins if my credibility is ing this fight for a long time and trying to draw a shot at this point. You can’t lose your job.” line in the sand. I just felt crushing sadness.” Mr. Ludlow: “Watch it happen if you go to the Mr. Ludlow disputes that account. What hap- admin.” pened, he says, is that he simply could no longer Student: “You know I don’t have a dishonest take the student’s vacillating between him and her bone in my body. I could never do that to anybody.” boyfriend. On the night in question, he says, he Mr. Ludlow says the exchange validates his as- went to a hotel and left her at his apartment alone. sertion that the two had a romantic relationship. Over the next several weeks, he and the grad- The graduate student says she simply decided uate student continued to exchange text messag- not to challenge him on his interpretation of their es. He shared some of them with The Chronicle. relationship. What she was most concerned with, “I thought I could choose,” she wrote in one con- she says, was what he was telling others. versation. “… Instead I just felt like I was flipping “I wasn’t trying to go to war with Peter Ludlow. back and forth. I wish it was really ob- vious and easy. But it’s not. And I don’t want to hurt any- body. I just don’t know what I want.” After that, their relationship slowly unraveled, ending for good in January 2012. Just before that, in late December, the two had a prophetic exchange over Goo- gle Chat in which they discussed their fears over how their relationship might be viewed by others. The conversation began because the student believed that Mr. Ludlow might have confided in a promi- nent philosopher.

“It doesn’t seem right,” says Mr. Ludlow, “to lock people out of your life because society considers the relationship inappropriate.” MARK ABRAMSON FOR THE CHRONICLE

d e c e mb e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s 11 I just wanted it to be over. I wanted out,” she says. In February 2012 — a month after the relation- “I let an impossible situation get out of hand.” ship with Mr. Ludlow ended — a freshman who Although the graduate student said in that ex- had taken his course in the philosophy of online change that she wouldn’t go to administrators, she culture the semester before emailed him about an eventually did. But not right away. art show she thought would interest him. He of-

How One Professor’s Relations With Students Led to Controversy

July 2008: files a complaint with the university she calls “sexu- Peter Ludlow is against Mr. Ludlow, alleging that he al paranoia” on hired as a full raped her in 2011. She says she de- campuses and professor by cided to tell her story after reading criticizes uni- Northwestern’s about the undergraduate’s lawsuit. In versity efforts philosophy de- the graduate student’s case, North- to limit or for- partment. western finds that Mr. Ludlow violat- bid student-pro- MARK ABRAMSON FOR ed its policy on sexual harassment, fessor relation- THE CHRONICLE February 2012: ships. The essay A Northwestern undergraduate lodg- refers to both es a complaint with the university students’ com- against Mr. Ludlow, alleging sexu- plaints against Mr. Ludlow, though it al assault. The university finds the doesn’t use his name. professor responsible for some “un- welcome and inappropriate sexual March 2015: advances” but not all. Northwestern The graduate student files a complaint docks the professor’s pay, withdraws against Ms. Kipnis, alleging that she his endowed chair, and requires him violated the federal gender-equity law to go to sensitivity training, according known as Title IX. Ms. Kipnis did so,

to Mr. Ludlow. BRIAN LEE, THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN says the graduate student, by retaliat- ing against her by speaking and writing February 2014: about her complaint against Mr. Ludlow. The graduate student then files a Title IX The undergraduate sues Northwest- but not assault. The findings — cou- ern, asserting that it botched its inves- complaint against the university’s pres- pled with those involving the under- ident, saying that in an essay he wrote tigation into her complaint and inade- graduate — prompt the university to quately punished Mr. Ludlow. She also for The Wall Street Journal, he implied schedule hearings to decide whether that the graduate student’s complaint accuses Northwestern of retaliating to fire Mr. Ludlow. against her by denying her both a fel- against Ms. Kipnis had no merit. lowship and some of the academic ac- commodations she requested. North- June 2014: Mr. Ludlow files a lawsuit accusing the May 2015: western denies her charges, saying it Ms. Kipnis details her experience as properly responded to her complaint. university of defaming him and of dis- criminating against him by finding him the subject of a Title IX investigation A federal judge later upholds his de- in a second essay for The Chronicle cision to dismiss the lawsuit, and the responsible for sexual harassment. The suit also accuses the graduate Review, prompting a media firestorm woman files an appeal with the U.S. over academic freedom and about Court of Appeals for the Seventh Cir- student of defamation. A federal judge later dismisses the lawsuit, and Mr. what’s safe to say about sex on cuit. campus. Northwestern decides that The undergraduate sues Mr. Ludlow Ludlow’s lawyer reorganizes it and re- files it. Ms. Kipnis is not responsible for re- under the Illinois Gender Violence Act, taliation, and the graduate student saying the alleged assault caused her then drops the other complaint. Still, academic performance to suffer and October 2014: Northwestern professors say the way brought on post-traumatic stress dis- Mr. Ludlow files a defamation lawsuit the administrators handled the in- order. against the undergraduate. The profes- vestigation had a chilling effect. The sor says she made false statements university’s president says the institu- March 2014: to the university and to the news me- tion had no choice but to investigate. News of the lawsuits breaks, and stu- dia after, he says, he rejected her ad- The graduate student files an inter- dents at Northwestern stage protests vances. nal complaint against the head of the outside Mr. Ludlow’s classroom with Faculty Senate, saying he broke uni- tape over their mouths and signs that February 2015: versity rules concerning confidentiality read: “We Will Not Be Silenced.” The An essay by Laura Kipnis, a cultural when he spoke during a senate meet- professor agrees to stop teaching for critic and a professor in Northwest- ing about her complaint against Ms. the remainder of the spring quarter ern’s department of radio, television, Kipnis. The graduate student drops because of the controversy. and film, is published in The Chronicle the complaint before the university A Northwestern graduate student Review. In it, she writes about what can make a decision on it.

12 s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / d e c e mb e r 2017 fered to drive them both to the show, and they met response to the lawsuit, Northwestern denied all at his campus office. Mr. Ludlow says he wanted of her charges, saying it had properly responded the philosophy department’s chairman to see that to her complaint. he was doing his job. Northwestern encourages The undergraduate sued Mr. Ludlow, too, under professors to create opportunities for “experiential the Illinois Gender Violence Act. The professor re- learning” for students outside of class. sponded with a defamation suit against her. When That night, Mr. Ludlow and the female student, news of the lawsuits broke, students at North- who was 19, not only stopped at several art shows, western staged protests, gathering outside Mr. but at two restaurants and a jazz club, where the Ludlow’s classroom with tape over their mouths woman says he ordered alcohol and insisted she and signs that read, “We Will Not Be Silenced.” drink. She says he ignored several of her requests With controversy swirling around him, he agreed that they return to Northwestern. By the time they to stop teaching for the remainder of the spring ended up back at his apartment, after midnight, quarter last year. she says, she was drunk. She detailed her allega- After students at Rutgers learned about the tions in a lawsuit she later filed against the univer- complaints at Northwestern and their university’s sity, saying that over the course of the evening Mr. plan to hire Mr. Ludlow, they, too, protested, and Ludlow had kissed her, put his hands on her body, Rutgers abandoned its interest in Mr. Ludlow, he and told her he wanted to have sex. says. In a statement, Rutgers said: “When Rutgers According to Mr. Ludlow, the young woman or- learned of allegations against Professor Ludlow dered her own drinks and didn’t consume enough at Northwestern, the university requested rele- to get drunk. He says she told him she wanted to vant information from Professor Ludlow and his date him, and at the jazz club she leaned in and attorney. This information was not provided. As a kissed him. It was her idea to stay at his apart- result, Professor Ludlow did not come to Rutgers ment, he says. And while she ended up sleeping in University.” his bed that night, they slept with their clothes on After reading the details of the undergraduate’s and — both agree — never had sex. He drove her lawsuit, the graduate student decided to finally tell back to her dorm in the snow the next morning. someone at Northwestern what had happened be- Within days the undergraduate had complained tween her and Mr. Ludlow. She chose as her con- to the university, saying Mr. Ludlow had sexually fidante Jennifer Lackey, a philosophy professor assaulted her with fondling and kissing. “The big who serves as her dissertation adviser. As a result deal is that this was unwanted,” she said in a brief of that conversation, Ms. Lackey was required by interview with The Chronicle this month. “This the university to report the allegations to admin- was freshman year, with someone I respected and istrators. After consulting with Ms. Lackey, the trusted.” graduate student lodged a formal complaint of The university found Mr. Ludlow responsible for sexual assault against Mr. Ludlow in March 2014. some but not all of the “unwelcome and inappro- Ms. Lackey — who has been sued by Mr. Ludlow priate sexual advances” described. Northwestern in connection with the graduate student’s com- docked his pay, withdrew his endowed chair, and plaint — declined to comment for this article. required him to go to sensitivity training. Because The professor says he was stunned, but he ex- such proceedings are confidential, few people even pected the university to clear him. knew about the complaint or that Mr. Ludlow had Northwestern determined that he hadn’t vio- been punished. lated its policy prohibiting professors from dating Within a year of the incident with the under- students they supervise. The graduate student had graduate, Mr. Ludlow was making plans to move not taken any classes with him, nor had the annu- on. In 2013 he accepted a job offer at Rutgers Uni- al review of graduate students by the department versity — which has a highly regarded philosophy occurred, so Mr. Ludlow hadn’t offered any formal department — where he also would direct the uni- opinions of her work. versity’s Center for Cognitive Science. Northwestern did find that Mr. Ludlow had vio- But before he could make the move, the un- lated its policy on sexual harassment. By virtue of dergraduate at Northwestern had thrown the his position as a professor, it said, he had taken ad- dispute between her and Mr. Ludlow into the vantage of the unequal relationship between him open. In February 2014 she sued the university, and the student and had courted her by offering claiming that it had botched its investigation of her expensive dinners and other social benefits she her complaint and inadequately punished Mr. would otherwise not have had. In doing so, the uni- Ludlow. The trauma of their sexual interaction, versity found, Mr. Ludlow had used his position as she says, had caused her to try to commit sui- a faculty member to exert pressure on the student cide. She charged Northwestern with retaliating to engage in an intimate relationship that had neg- against her by denying her both a fellowship and atively affected her academic performance. some of the academic accommodations she re- That’s when the professor filed a lawsuit against quested after the night with Mr. Ludlow. In its the graduate student, Ms. Lackey, several universi-

d e c e mb e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s 13 ty officials, and Northwestern. The lawsuit includ- investigating the graduate student’s complaints ed charges of defamation and gender discrimina- against Ms. Kipnis so thoroughly. Morton O. Scha- tion. A federal judge dismissed Mr. Ludlow’s case piro, Northwestern’s president, said it had had no in February, but he has since refiled it. choice. But faculty members said the way admin- Northwestern issued a statement to The Chron- istrators handled the situation had a chilling effect icle in which it said it cannot comment on individ- and damaged the university’s reputation. ual cases. The university, though, went on to say After the university cleared Ms. Kipnis, the that it is committed to creating and maintaining graduate student dropped the complaint she’d filed a safe and harassment-free environment. North- against Northwestern’s president. western, the statement also said, is “one of very In the wake of the controversy, Mr. Schapiro and few universities” with a policy that expressly bans Daniel Linzer, the provost, issued a joint statement faculty-undergraduate relationships and “is a lead- this month that sought to clarify the university’s er in this area.” position. “The offensiveness of a particular view, standing alone, is not a sufficient basis to establish or both Mr. Ludlow and the graduate stu- a Title IX claim,” the statement read. But, the ad- dent, the turmoil that their relationship ministrators continued, “we ask that members of Fhad created seemed to be winding to a close the Northwestern community be mindful of the by the beginning of this year. Still outstanding privacy of others and help maintain a campus cli- were the final verdicts in the professor’s lawsuits mate that fosters mutual respect and healthy dis- and a decision on whether he would keep his course, while protecting the interests of those who $190,000-a-year job. He sold his apartment and take advantage of the rights afforded to them un- his car to pay his legal bills and was living in Chi- der the law.” cago in the basement of a friend’s mother. The graduate student says she wishes now she’d But then Ms. Kipnis’s essays, published in Febru- never made the original sex-assault complaint ary and in May, returned their story to public view against Mr. Ludlow. Northwestern, she says, didn’t and kicked up an even greater controversy. ensure that professors would keep her charges out Drawn into the mix were new debates pitting a of open conversations on the campus and out of university’s obligation to protect victims of sex as- the news media, and didn’t protect her from retali- sault against its responsibility to maintain a pro- ation, as she’d expected. fessor’s academic freedom. The graduate student Her name has been spread widely online. “Why felt that Ms. Kipnis’s words belittled her and the did I trust the system with this thing that is the serious charges she had brought against Mr. Lud- most delicate, most humiliating, most agonizing low, arguing that the essay amounted to retalia- thing that’s ever happened to me?” she asks. “Why tion. Widespread condemnation of the student has did I hand this over to a system that is so tooth- ensued; several commenters have said no academ- less, so full of empty promises, only to be made a ic department should ever hire her now. laughingstock?” Beyond a handful of words, Ms. Kipnis says her The graduate student has barely written a word original essay was not about the graduate student. on philosophy in the 15 months since she filed her The student was simply upset, says Ms. Kipnis, complaint against Mr. Ludlow. She fears that she’ll that the article wasn’t written from her point of never finish her Ph.D. “I need this all to be over,” view. Although Ms. Kipnis believes that the Title she says. “I need to find the fastest, safest way to IX charges brought against her were outrageous, the other side.” she says some of the harsh criticism the student Meanwhile, Mr. Ludlow is planning to move to received online was “brutal” and made Ms. Kip- Mexico — where the living is cheaper and where, nis herself uncomfortable. On her Facebook page, he says, he can still study and write. “Things are where she posted her Chronicle essays, Ms. Kipnis not that bad,” he says. “Everyone you meet is some- said she didn’t agree with commenters who called one you can share knowledge with and gain infor- the student a “bully” for using Title IX. mation from.” In the end, Northwestern decided that Ms. Kip- The events of the past few years, he says, won’t nis was not responsible for retaliation, but not be- ruin him. Neither will Northwestern. “There is a fore it had hired a team of outside lawyers to help certain level of freedom they can’t take away,” Mr. make the determination. And not before people Ludlow says. “They can’t stop me from doing phi- on the campus and off criticized the university for losophy.”

Originally published on June 19, 2015

14 s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / d e c e mb e r 2017 U. of California at Berkeley officials say they could not quickly dismiss the famed astronomer Geoffrey W. Marcy, accused of sexual harassment of students, because the process would have been “lengthy and uncertain.” The case of Mr. Marcy (pictured at an event in the summer of 2015) reflects the complex dynamics at play in such situations.

STUART C. WILSON, GETTY IMAGES Why Colleges Have a Hard Time Handling Professors Who Harass

By SARAH BROWN

y resigning last week from the University of California at Berkeley, Geoffrey W. Marcy — the acclaimed astronomy professor found to have repeatedly violated Berkeley’s sexual-ha- rassment policy over the course of a decade — Bmay have helped the institution solve a nagging disci- plinary problem. But Mr. Marcy’s decision could not allay the backlash over Berkeley’s treatment of his case. Many professors

d e c e mb e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s 15 and observers have decried the university’s failure review the system’s procedures for handling sexu- to quickly dismiss the professor; some have called al-misconduct complaints against tenured profes- for the university, and other institutions, to revamp sors. Ms. Napolitano wrote in an October 15 letter the process for dealing with similar cases of faculty to the system’s chancellors and regents that Mr. misconduct. Marcy’s ability to remain on the campus had “high- The critics ask a simple question: Why didn’t lighted the urgent need to review university policies the university do more to punish a professor it had that may have inadvertently made the investigation identified as a serial offender? and resolution of this case more difficult.” In a statement after Mr. Marcy’s resignation, two Berkeley officials said they couldn’t do much ‘AN UGLY PROCESS’ else. Any further disciplinary action, they said, would have required faculty-led hearings with high Faculty disciplinary procedures are murky at standards of evidence and a three-year statute of many institutions. When a sexual-harassment limitations. (The complaints against Mr. Marcy complaint is brought against a tenured professor, concerned alleged incidents from 2001 to 2010.) a faculty committee might be involved both in the The officials described such a process as “lengthy review of the complaint and in any dismissal pro- and uncertain.” ceedings, depending on college policy. Terminating Even a professor who is the subject of regular a tenured faculty member could require hearings misconduct complaints often cannot be easily re- and appeals that might take a full semester or lon- moved from a campus. Tenure protects many pro- ger and that are unpleasant for the complainant, fessors from quick dismissal. Their faculty peers, who is typically questioned and cross-examined by who are often charged with assessing whether an the committee. accused colleague bears responsibility, may view Some colleges channel all sexual-misconduct the cases as attacks on tenure. College leaders, who complaints involving employees through hu- often don’t have the power to terminate a professor man-resources offices, a process that does not up- without consulting the faculty, may fear damage to hold the standards of the American Association of their institution’s reputation. Students who expe- University Professors, said Anita Levy, associate The Marcy situation “highlighted the urgent need to review university policies that may have inadvertently made the investigation and resolution of this case more difficult.”

rience harassment may not file complaints if they secretary for its Department of Academic Free- feel they have little chance of being taken seriously. dom, Tenure, and Governance. To honor academic Mr. Marcy’s case echoed those themes. Students freedom, such a review should be conducted “by a and faculty members inside and outside of Berke- committee consisting exclusively of elected faculty ley had known about the professor’s behavior for peers,” she said in an email. years but had discussed it mostly in private. Uni- But faculty-run proceedings are “an ugly process versity officials eventually conducted an investi- at times,” said Eric Isicoff, an outside lawyer for the gation, but it was not made public until a Buzz- University of Miami. He is defending the university Feed News report this month. And even though against a Title IX lawsuit brought last week by a for- the university found Mr. Marcy responsible for mer graduate student, Monica Morrison, who was harassment and forced him to give up any future upset with Miami’s handling of her sexual-harass- due-process rights, the astronomer was allowed to ment allegations against Colin McGinn, a former remain on the campus. prominent philosophy professor there. As a student After Mr. Marcy’s resignation, Janet A. Napoli- filing a complaint, Mr. Isicoff said, “you’re walking in tano, president of the University of California sys- with the odds largely stacked against you.” tem, announced plans to create a committee of Unlawful conduct, such as a sexual assault, is a administrators, faculty members, and students to different scenario, he said. However, “when there

16 s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / d e c e mb e r 2017 are fringe or borderline allegations, especially ones away with it, it sends the message that this behav- that can be interpreted or construed in more than ior is OK.” one way,” he said, “the faculty is going to give the tenured professor the benefit of the doubt.” REMEMBERING RIGHTS If a faculty committee recommends a punish- ment for a professor, the college president tends It is important, too, for tenured faculty members’ to have the final say on the matter. But pushing rights to be protected in sexual-harassment cases, professors out without their peers’ approval might said Heather Metcalf, research director of the Asso- provoke an uproar among faculty members, and ciation for the Advancement of Women in Science. perhaps an ugly public backlash. “Even if the situation at hand is a really terrible That’s why a “golden parachute” is a common one,” like Mr. Marcy’s, Ms. Metcalf said, it’s essen- administrative response to such situations, said tial to remember that there will also be occasions Heidi L. Lockwood, an associate professor of phi- “where someone is accused of something they losophy at Southern Connecticut State University didn’t do.” who has spoken out frequently against harassment The AAUP’s Ms. Levy said a subcommittee of by professors. In those cases, she said in an email, the association is drafting a report about the “uses administrators might offer problem professors a and abuses of Title IX” in response to “a number of voluntary severance agreement, an opportunity to troubling academic-freedom cases stemming from resign, or assistance in finding another job, either the apparent misapplication of institutional sexu- at the institution or elsewhere. al-harassment policies.” As part of such a secret process, student com- Despite Ms. Napolitano’s planned task force, plainants might be offered minor gestures of ap- Benjamin E. Hermalin, chair of Berkeley’s Aca- peasement and might be required to sign nondis- demic Senate, said he wasn’t sure whether chang- closure agreements, said Cynthia Lewis, a profes- es in the university’s procedures were necessary sor of English at Davidson College who is working in the aftermath of the Marcy case. If the problem on a book about professors’ harassment of students. was how policies had been interpreted or carried “The victims in these cases typically get noth- out, he said in an email, then making adjustments ing,” Ms. Lockwood added. was unlikely to deter future harassment. Miami officials successfully pushed Mr. Mc- That’s not how Southern Connecticut’s Ms. Ginn to resign. Ann Olivarius, a senior partner at Lockwood sees it. She said colleges can take clear McAllister Olivarius, a law firm that specializes steps to improve how they handle claims of mis- in workplace-discrimination claims, said she as- behavior by professors. She recommended, among sumed that Mr. McGinn felt he would lose if he other changes, that colleges conduct harass- went before the institution’s Faculty Senate on ha- ment-specific background checks before hiring rassment charges, so he resigned. Ms. Olivarius — professors. a plaintiff in Alexander v. Yale, a 1980 case that Alexandra Tracy-Ramirez, an Arizona law- used Title IX to establish that sexual harassment yer who worked as a Title IX investigator at two of female students could be considered discrimi- colleges, said it might make sense for some cam- natory — is representing Ms. Morrison in her suit. puses to create a separate committee that deals Still, Mr. Isicoff said, the university’s administra- with sexual-harassment complaints against fac- tors had acted appropriately to bring a quick con- ulty members. That body could involve profes- clusion to the case. Mr. McGinn’s resignation “didn’t sors, she said, but it could also include people happen in two or three years, or never,” he said. “And who are specially trained to deal with sexual there weren’t embarrassing proceedings.” misconduct and an expert investigator from out- Alternatively, officials might give the professor a side the institution. slap on the wrist, as many observers — including Ms. Dziech criticized the statute of limitations Ms. Olivarius — feel Berkeley did initially with that applied to the allegations against Mr. Marcy, Mr. Marcy. “It’s the oldest game in the book to say, saying there shouldn’t be any such limit. “All of the Don’t do it again,” she said. “Nobody wants to face reliable research says that it takes years and years, the real truth of it.” often, for people to come forward and talk because But “we have to discover ways to be more strin- of the stigma attached to it,” she said. gent with faculty,” said Billie Wright Dziech, a Given the factors at play, it’s perhaps under- longtime professor of English at the University standable that institutional leaders want to tread of Cincinnati who wrote a groundbreaking 1984 cautiously. But in highly charged sexual-mis- book, The Lecherous Professor: Sexual Harass- conduct cases, some advocates say, risk aversion ment on Campus. doesn’t work. College leaders, Ms. Dziech said, Star professors, like Mr. Marcy and Mr. Mc- “have to stop worrying about who’s going to sue us Ginn, “are role models,” she said. “When they get or countersue us.” Originally published on October 22, 2015

d e c e mb e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s 17 How One College Has Set Out to Fix “a Culture of Blatant Sexual Harassment”

By NELL GLUCKMAN

s the #MeToo movement has gathered launched the college into public soul-searching. steam, women have gone public with Students, faculty, and administrators now say accusations of sexual misconduct by they are determined to fix a culture that has al- professors at dozens of colleges. But lowed sexual misconduct to persist. At a moment one institution in particular has faced of dramatic change in how the issue is addressed reproachA as a hotbed of abusive behavior. The across many fields, Berklee is trying to emerge as Berklee College of Music was described in a recent a model for other higher-education institutions Boston Globe article as having a “a culture of bla- and the music industry that the college helps tant sexual harassment.” populate. The Globe’s characterization did not surprise Berklee’s students aren’t the only ones push- students or faculty ing for change. A members at the col- small group of profes- lege, many of whom sors that formed after said they knew or had the publication of the heard about people Globe article has is- being harassed. But “People just got sued a list of demands. it spurred them to Among them: diversity action. Worried that to a point where among the faculty and the issue would not student body. be taken seriously by “It’s our belief that if the college, students we were like, OK, women and femmes are quickly organized a more adequately repre- walkout and march we can’t ignore sented, that this is go- this month, followed ing to be less likely to by a forum that drew take place,” said Carlee more than a thousand this any longer.” Travis, an instructor participants. of liberal arts. Women “People just got to a make up 36 percent of point where we were Berklee’s student body like, OK, we can’t ignore this any longer,” said Mi- and 37 percent of its faculty. A group of faculty chela McDonagh, a professional music major who members is calling for gender parity among both organized the protest. “People were so ready to populations by 2025. They’re also demanding that move forward.” at least 30 percent of the faculty be people of color At the event, Roger H. Brown, the college’s by that time. president, laid out numbers that revealed the ex- “That was met with a lot of resistance from my tent of the problem: Eleven professors, he said, male colleagues,” Ms. Travis said. Some faculty had been fired for sexual misconduct over the members responded to the demands with emails past 13 years. arguing that “a gender quota would negatively im- The walkout — and the forum that followed — pact what male colleagues believe to be a meritoc-

18 s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / d e c e mb e r 2017 racy,” she said. But Mr. Brown, the president, said Berklee has been on both ends of that dynam- that diversifying the student body and faculty is ic, according to The Boston Globe. In one case, one of several big changes the institution is trying an anonymous woman told the newspaper she to make. He said the faculty members’ demands woke up naked to find her mentor, Jeff Galindo, are “probably doable,” though he did not want to a jazz musician and instructor, groping her. She commit to specific numbers without first making reported the case and Mr. Galindo was fired. She a plan. later found out that he went on to teach at three other institutions, though she said she had been REPORTING AND SUPPORT assured by Berklee that he wouldn’t be able to. Berklee told the Globe that it had provided one of Since the November rally, Mr. Brown said, he the institutions with Mr. Galindo’s termination has met with hundreds of students. Every one of letter, “which included an explicit statement that them has told him that either they or someone explained the reasons for his departure from the close to them has a story about being subjected to college.” Mr. Brown said that “if another institu- sexual misconduct. tion calls for a reference on someone, we will tell “The insight I came to is that I think there’s a them that they were terminated for sexual mis- tendency for us to look at these cases as isolated conduct.” incidents of a bad person doing bad things, par- In another case, Berklee recently hired a pro- ticularly when it’s sexual in nature,” he said. “Af- fessor, Steve Kirby, who had retired from the Uni- ter hearing the #MeToo stories and reading about versity of Manitoba. The Winnipeg Free Press re- this, I’m not sure these are isolated incidents, and I ported that, as he stepped down, the university think they have less to do with sex and more to do was meeting with students reporting concerns with power and the abuse of power.” about the professor that were “sexual in nature.” With that in mind, he said, the college plans to At the November rally, according to the Globe, Mr. bolster the structures that provide support to stu- Brown said that Berklee did not know about the dents who say they have been sexually harassed or students’ allegations until hearing from report- assaulted. Mr. Brown said the university will hire ers in Manitoba. After an investigation, Mr. Kirby more counselors, and Berklee officials have already was fired from Berklee. (Another Steve Kirby who placed posters around campus that tell students works at Berklee has not been accused of sexual how to report an incident. misconduct.) The president plans to give faculty members If no one feels good about those stories, no one more instruction about boundaries and to make is entirely sure what to do about them. Sky Stahl- sure everyone knows how to report an incident. mann, a first-year student and professional-music Like all colleges that receive federal funds, Berklee major, acknowledged that balancing an accused already reports on the number of crimes commit- person’s right to privacy with students’ need for ted on campus under the Clery Act, but he also more transparency is tricky. wants to improve their method for reporting in- “A lot of people want to see sexual offenders cidents of sexual assault so that students and the strung up,” she said. While she sees the benefits public have “some way of comparing us to the past of that approach, she said she plans to focus on and to other institutions so we’re as transparent as making sure victims have support and educating we can be without naming individuals.” people on campus about sexual harassment. Ms. The president is creating a working group of stu- Stahlmann is president of a newly formed group, dents, faculty, and staff to evaluate broader chang- Berklee and BoCo Against Sexual Assault, that es to prevent sexual assault. will work independently of the administration to teach people about the issue and give students a ‘PASS THE HARASSER’? voice as the college mulls changes. Many victims of sexual misconduct have taken it The working group may examine a policy that upon themselves to name abusers. Since the Globe the college will not change in the short term: the article and the rally, said Jaclyn Chylinski, a senior common practice of keeping private the names musical-theater major, more students have been of people investigated or fired for sexual mis- speaking out about their experiences on campus. “I conduct. That policy, critics say, effectively gives do not think this will be the last of the allegations,” faculty members who have been fired for sexual she said. harassment a better chance of finding work else- More revelations would bring more soul-search- where. Colleges have debated this practice for ing. But Ms. Chylinski and other student activists decades. It has been referred to as “pass the ha- say they have been encouraged by their admin- rasser,” because bad actors were allowed to jump istration’s willingness to listen. That alone won’t from job to job. change the culture, but they say it’s a start.

Originally published on November 29, 2017

d e c e mb e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s 19 What Happens When Harassment Disrupts Careers

By NELL GLUCKMAN

Kristen Gorman

COURTNEY PERRY FOR THE CHRONICLE

20 s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / d e c e mb e r 2017

eo-Young Chu used to be known as Jen- professors. Some, like Ms. Chu, say they changed nie. She was a young Ph.D. student study- the focus of their research, while others left higher ing early American literature and culture education altogether. These losses can be devastat- at Stanford University, with Jay Fliegel- ing for the individuals involved. When their poten- man, an influential scholar and teacher tial contributions as researchers, teachers, or lead- Sboth on the campus and in the field. ers are squashed, what else is lost? While Ms. Chu was his student at Stanford in “Each individual makes choices that make sense 2000, Mr. Fliegelman raped and abused her, she in the moment to keep themselves safe, and that says. The university investigated, suspending him leads to big cumulative effects,” said Kristen S. for two years after he was found responsible for Gorman, a graduate of the University of Roches- sexual harassment. Ms. Chu moved across the ter’s department of brain and cognitive sciences. country, enrolled in the English Ph.D. program at They might not apply to their first-choice program Harvard University, changed the focus of her stud- because of what they heard about a professor or ies, and decided to go by her Korean name. decide not to write a chapter of their dissertation “I wanted to be a new person,” she says. “That’s in order to avoid working with him. Some skip out how much in denial I was.” on conferences or networking events or drop out of After finishing her Ph.D., she landed a ten- academe altogether, disillusioned by what they’ve ure-track position at Queens College of the City University of New York, where she is now an asso- ciate professor in the English department. But the experience changed her and the course of her ca- reer. At Harvard, she left behind research on chil- “Each individual dren’s literature and focused on science fiction. In job interviews and on campus visits, she was occa- makes choices that sionally asked if she was connected to what hap- pened with Mr. Fliegelman. The questions made make sense in the her anxious, but she answered them and assumed she’d lost that particular job opportunity. She was applying during the recession, when the job market moment to keep was particularly bad, but she wonders if her experi- ence had anything to do with why her search lasted themselves safe, three years. “Those kind of moments have pierced my life again and again over the years,” Ms. Chu says. and that leads to big Mr. Fliegelman died in 2007. But when Ms. Chu is teaching now, she’s still haunted by the memo- cumulative effects.” ry of a professor who hurt her while telling her he controlled her career. “I’m constantly wondering, Am I abusing my power? Am I saying something that will make a seen. Their departures dampen the impact of ef- student uncomfortable?” Ms. Chu says. “I don’t forts to put people from underrepresented popula- know whether it’s good or bad being that kind of tions in the pipeline. teacher. I think I’m overly distant at times, because I don’t want any student to feel like I’m too close.” s. Gorman speaks from experience. She Stories like Ms. Chu’s have surfaced recently as said she made decisions about where to part of the #MeToo movement, in which people in Mstudy and what research to pursue in or- seemingly every industry are sharing their experi- der to avoid certain professors. She contributed ences of sexual abuse by people in power. Dozens to a complaint with the Equal Opportunity Em- of professors, many of whom are revered in their ployment Commission that was filed in August fields, have been called out for misconduct. Those against Rochester and T. Florian Jaeger, a profes- who say they were the victims of such behavior are sor who was accused of harassing female graduate demanding that colleges end a longstanding prob- students. The complaint alleged violations of state lem. They’re motivated by anger that some abusers and federal civil-rights laws, such as Title IX. have gone unpunished — and fear that those peo- She worked with Mr. Jaeger early in her time at ple will hurt others. the university, but she said that after he showed up Academics and others who have spoken out uninvited to grad-student social gatherings, made about experiencing sexual harassment or assault a pass at her, and made belittling comments, she also speak of long-term repercussions to their ca- decided to avoid him. Ms. Gorman didn’t pursue reers. Students and former students describe carv- the research that would have involved collaborating ing paths that would allow them to avoid certain with him, and she told her adviser that she didn’t

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want Mr. Jaeger on her dissertation committee. for an interview, and apply for funding. She also When she had questions that involved complex sta- attended lectures aimed at women, but she said tistical analysis and computational modeling, Mr. that broader attempts to improve gender diver- Jaeger’s areas of expertise, Ms. Gorman instead sity fell flat, especially when others wouldn’t ac- asked his graduate students for help. She never re- knowledge the negative consequences of sexual ported Mr. Jaeger, but after she had graduated, misconduct. when former colleagues asked if they could name Ms. Gorman is now an education program spe- her as someone a Title IX investigator could con- cialist at the University of Minnesota, where she tact, she agreed. helps faculty members in the STEM fields with “I was proud of myself,” Ms. Gorman said. She their teaching practices. She said her decision not was proud both because she had managed to to pursue a career as a brain researcher was com- avoid him and because of the research she was plicated and not tied to one specific person or in- able to accomplish. But she said that she missed cident. But she wonders whether she would have out on computational training by avoiding Mr. had a more positive impression of academic life Jaeger and that the scientific contributions she had she felt better about the culture within her was able to make were different as a result. And department. she wonders whether the decision she and others Research has shown that while it’s not uncom- have made to quietly accommodate an uncom- mon for graduate students to become less inter- fortable situation is having a broader impact on ested in careers as scientists as their training pro- who persists through her field. gresses, the issue is more acute for women and In an email on Thursday, Mr. Jaeger’s lawyer, underrepresented minority students. Steven V. Modica, said his client was surprised by Kimberly A. Griffin, an associate professor of Ms. Gorman’s account. Mr. Jaeger does not recall education at the University of Maryland at Col- making belittling comments or a pass at her, but lege Park, was a co-author of one such study about does remember inviting her to give a guest lecture biomedical-science Ph.D. students. She said that in his class, which he said she did. “My client holds female participants in the study who experienced Dr. Gorman in high regard as a researcher and harassment had one of two responses: They ig- teacher,” Mr. Modica said. He noted that an under- nored it or they left the academy. graduate student who had been a research assistant “Experiences with sexual harassment were a of Mr. Jaeger’s wrote a letter in Rochester’s student larger part of an unwelcoming climate that mar- newspaper praising him. She recalled him as a good ginalized women and made them feel unwelcome,” teacher who is “caring but stern, honest, and fair.” she wrote in an email. “In some cases, this did Ms. Gorman’s experience at the University of translate to less interest in faculty careers or aca- Rochester was not the first time she thinks sexual demic research.” harassment blunted her educational opportunities. Kim M. Cobb, a professor of earth and atmo- She decided not to apply to two different graduate spheric sciences at the Georgia Institute of Tech- schools, she said, because she had heard that her nology, said that in many academic departments, potential adviser at one had “trouble dealing with male faculty members’ relationships with their female students,” and that another had sexual re- graduate advisees or students are open secrets. lationships within the department. The “whisper That never works out for the student, who often network,” a system of quietly shared information on must leave the field because their relationship with whom to avoid in various departments had seemed their main advocate is compromised. at the time like an important tool for survival but “If you have a conflict of interest with someone, now looks to have enabled bad behavior. you can’t pretend to serve that student’s profession- Hundreds of faculty members signed an open al goals anymore,” she said. A romantic relation- letter saying they “cannot in good conscience en- ship, she says, presents a conflict of “gargantuan courage our students to pursue educational or proportions.” employment opportunities at the University of The other students and faculty members within Rochester.” a department or lab also feel the effects of sexual harassment, Ms. Cobb said. They may be forced s a graduate student, Ms. Gorman said, to pick sides or stay quiet about something they she attended a workshop that was meant know violates university policy. That dynam- Ato keep women in the STEM fields. There ic, Ms. Cobb added, doesn’t help keep women in she was instructed on how to negotiate, prepare higher education.

Originally published on December 6, 2017

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MATT ROTH FOR THE CHRONICLE REVIEW Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe

By LAURA KIPNIS

ou have to feel a little sorry these days It’s been barely a year since the Great Prohibi- for professors married to their former tion took effect in my own workplace. Before that, students. They used to be respectable students and professors could date whomever we citizens — leaders in their fields, de- wanted; the next day we were off-limits to one an- partment chairs, may- other — verboten, traife, dangerous beY even a dean or two — and now (and perhaps, therefore, all the more they’re abusers of power avant OPINION alluring). la lettre. I suspect you can barely Of course, the residues of the throw a stone on most campuses wild old days are everywhere. On around the country without hitting my campus, several such “mixed” a few of these neo-miscreants. Who knows what couples leap to mind, including female professors coercions they deployed back in the day to corral wed to former students. Not to mention the legions those students into submission; at least that’s the who’ve dated a graduate student or two in their fear evinced by today’s new campus dating poli- day — plenty of female professors in that category, cies. And think how their kids must feel! A friend of too — in fact, I’m one of them. Don’t ask for details. mine is the offspring of such a coupling — does she It’s one of those things it now behooves one to be look at her father a little differently now, I wonder. reticent about, lest you be branded a predator.

d e c e mb e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s 23 Forgive my slightly mocking tone. I suppose I’m I’d thus far avoided doing. I was pleased to learn out of step with the new realities because I came of that our guidelines were less prohibitive than those age in a different time, and under a different ver- of the more draconian new codes. You were per- sion of feminism, minus the layers of prohibition mitted to date students; you just weren’t supposed and sexual terror surrounding the unequal-power to harass them into it. I could live with that. dilemmas of today. However, we were warned in two separate plac- When I was in college, hooking up with profes- es that inappropriate humor violates university sors was more or less part of the curriculum. Ad- policy. I’d always thought inappropriateness was mittedly, I went to an art school, and mine was the pretty much the definition of humor — I believe lucky generation that came of age in that too-brief Freud would agree. Why all this delicacy? Students interregnum after the sexual revolution and before were being encouraged to regard themselves as AIDS turned sex into a crime scene replete with such exquisitely sensitive creatures that an errant perpetrators and victims — back when sex, even classroom remark could impede their education, when not so great or when people got their feelings as such hothouse flowers that an unfunny joke was hurt, fell under the category of life experience. It’s likely to create lasting trauma. not that I didn’t make my share of mistakes, or act Knowing my own propensity for unfunny jokes, stupidly and inchoately, but it was embarrassing, and given that telling one could now land you, the not traumatizing. unfunny prof, on the carpet or even the national As Jane Gallop recalls in Feminist Accused of news, I decided to put my name down for one of the Sexual Harassment (1997), her own generation- voluntary harassment workshops on my campus, al cri de coeur, sleeping with professors made her hoping that my good citizenship might be noticed feel cocky, not taken advantage of. She admits to and applauded by the relevant university powers. seducing more than one of them as a grad stu- At the appointed hour, things kicked off with a dent — she wanted to see them naked, she says, as “sexual-harassment pretest.” This was adminis- like other men. Lots of smart, ambitious women tered by an earnest mid-50s psychologist I’ll call were doing the same thing, according to her, be- David, and an earnest young woman with a mas- cause it was a way to experience your own power. ter’s in social work I’ll call Beth. The pretest con- But somehow power seemed a lot less powerful sisted of a long list of true-false questions such as: back then. The gulf between students and faculty “If I make sexual comments to someone and that wasn’t a shark-filled moat; a misstep wasn’t fatal. person doesn’t ask me to stop, then I guess that my We partied together, drank and got high together, behavior is probably welcome.” slept together. The teachers may have been older and more accomplished, but you didn’t feel they espite the painful dumbness of these ques- could take advantage of you because of it. How tions and the fading of afternoon into eve- would they? Dning, a roomful of people with advanced Which isn’t to say that teacher-student relations degrees seemed grimly determined to shut up and were guaranteed to turn out well, but then what play along, probably aided by a collective wish to percentage of romances do? No doubt there were be sprung by cocktail hour. That is, until we were jealousies, sometimes things didn’t go the way you handed a printed list of “guidelines.” No. 1 on the wanted — which was probably good training for the list was: “Do not make unwanted sexual advances.” rest of life. It was also an excellent education in not Someone demanded querulously from the back, taking power too seriously, and I suspect the less “But how do you know they’re unwanted until you seriously you take it, the more strategies you have try?” (OK, it was me.) David seemed oddly flus- for contending with it. tered by the question and began frantically jan- It’s the fiction of the all-powerful professor em- gling the change in his pants pocket. bedded in the new campus codes that appalls me. “Do you really want me to answer that?” he fi- And the kowtowing to the fiction — kowtowing nally responded, trying to make a joke out of it. I wrapped in a vaguely feminist air of rectitude. If did want him to answer, because it’s something I’d this is feminism, it’s feminism hijacked by melo- been wondering — how are you supposed to know drama. The melodramatic imagination’s obsession in advance? Do people wear their desires embla- with helpless victims and powerful predators is zoned on their foreheads? — but I didn’t want to what’s shaping the conversation of the moment, to be seen by my colleagues as a troublemaker. There the detriment of those whose interests are suppos- was an awkward pause while David stared me edly being protected, namely students. The result? down. Another person piped up helpfully, “What Students’ sense of vulnerability is skyrocketing. about smoldering glances?” I’ve done what I can to adapt myself to the new Everyone laughed, but David’s coin-jangling was paradigm. Around a decade ago, as colleges began becoming more pronounced. A theater professor instituting new “offensive environment” guidelines, spoke up, guiltily admitting to having compli- I appointed myself the task of actually reading my mented a student on her hairstyle that very after- university’s sexual-harassment handbook, which noon (one of the “Do Nots” involved not comment-

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ing on students’ appearance) but, as a gay male, assaulting other students, not students dating pro- wondered whether not to have complimented her fessors. would have been grounds for offense. He mim- Of course, the codes themselves also shape the icked the female student, tossing her mane around narratives and emotional climate of professor-stu- in a “Notice my hair” manner, and people began dent interactions. An undergraduate sued my own shouting suggestions about other dumb pretest university, alleging that a philosophy professor scenarios for him to perform, like sexual-harass- had engaged in “unwelcome and inappropriate ment charades. Rebellion was in the air. The man sexual advances” and that the university punished sitting next to me, an ethnographer who studied him insufficiently for it. The details that emerged street gangs, whispered, “They’ve lost control of in news reports and legal papers were murky and the room.” David was jangling his change so fran- contested, and the suit was eventually thrown out tically that it was hard to keep your eyes off his of court. groin. In brief: The two had gone to an art exhibit to- I recalled a long-forgotten pop-psychology guide gether — an outing initiated by the student — and to body language that identified change-jangling then to some other exhibits and bars. She says as an unconscious masturbation substitute. If the he bought her alcohol and forced her to drink, so leader of our sexual-harassment workshop was en- much that by the end of the evening she was go- gaging in public masturbatory-like behavior, seiz- ing in and out of consciousness. He says she drank ing his private pleasure in the midst of the very of her own volition. (She was under legal drink- institutional mechanism designed to clamp such ing age; he says he thought she was 22.) She says delinquent urges, what hope for the rest of us? Let’s face it: Other people’s sexuality is often just weird and creepy. Sex is leaky and anxiety-rid- den; intelligent people can be oblivious about it. Of course the gulf between desire and knowledge The fiction of the has long been a tragicomic staple. Consider some notable treatments of the student-professor hook- all-powerful professor up theme — J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace; Francine Prose’s Blue Angel; Jonathan Franzen’s The Cor- rections — in which learning has an inverse rela- that’s embedded in the tion to self-knowledge, professors are emblems of sexual stupidity, and such disasters ensue that it’s new campus codes hard not to read them as cautionary tales about the disastrous effects of intellect on practical in- telligence. appalls me. The implementers of the new campus codes seemed awfully optimistic about rectifying the condition, I thought to myself. he made various sexual insinuations, and that he optimism continues, outpaced only by she wanted him to drive her home (they’d driven all the new prohibitions and behavior codes in his car); he says she insisted on sleeping over Trequired to sustain it. According to the latest at his place. She says she woke up in his bed with version of our campus policy, “differences in insti- his arms around her, and that he groped her. He tutional power and the inherent risk of coercion denies making advances and says she made ad­ are so great” between teachers and students that vances, which he deflected. He says they slept on no romance, dating, or sexual relationships will be top of the covers, clothed. Neither says they had permitted, even between students and professors sex. He says she sent friendly texts in the days af- from different departments. (Relations between ter and wanted to meet. She says she attempted graduate students and professors aren’t outright suicide two days later, now has PTSD, and has had banned, but are “problematic” and must be report- to take medical leave. ed if you’re in the same department.) Yale and oth- The aftermath has been a score of back-and- er places had already instituted similar policies; forth lawsuits. After trying to get a financial set- Harvard jumped on board last month, though it’s tlement from the professor, the student filed a a sign of the incoherence surrounding these issues Title IX suit against the university: She wants that the second sentence of The New York Times her tuition reimbursed, compensation for emo- story on Harvard reads: “The move comes as the tional distress, and other damages. Because the Obama administration investigates the handling professor wasn’t terminated, when she runs into of accusations of sexual assault at dozens of col- him it triggers her PTSD, she says. (The universi- leges, including Harvard.” As everyone knows, the ty claims that it appropriately sanctioned the pro- accusations in the news have been about students fessor, denying him a raise and a named chair.)

d e c e mb e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s 25 She’s also suing the professor for gender violence. version of top-down power imaginable, recasting He sued the university for gender discrimination the professoriate as Snidely Whiplashes twirling (he says he wasn’t allowed to present evidence dis- our mustaches and students as helpless damsels proving the student’s allegations) — this suit was tied to railroad tracks. Students lack volition and thrown out; so was the student’s lawsuit against independent desires of their own; professors are the university. The professor sued for defamation would-be coercers with dastardly plans to corrupt various colleagues, administrators, and a former the innocent. grad student whom, according to his complaint, Even the language these policies come pack- he had previously dated; a judge dismissed those aged in seems designed for maximum stupefac- suits this month. He sued local media outlets for using the word “rape” as a synonym for sexual as- sault — a complaint thrown out by a different judge who said rape was an accurate enough summary of the charges, even though the assault was con- Let’s face it: fined to fondling, which the professor denies oc- curred. (This professor isn’t someone I know or Other people’s have met, by the way.) What a mess. And what a slippery slope, from alleged fondler to rapist. But here’s the real sexuality is often problem with these charges: This is melodrama. I’m quite sure that professors can be sleazebags. just weird and I’m less sure that any professor can force an un- willing student to drink, especially to the point of passing out. With what power? What sorts of creepy. repercussions can there possibly be if the stu- dent refuses? Indeed, these are precisely the sorts of situations tion, with students eager to add their voices to already covered by existing sexual-harassment the din. Shortly after the new policy went into codes, so if students think that professors have effect on my campus, we all received a long email such unlimited powers that they can compel some- from the Title IX Coordinating Committee. This one to drink or retaliate if she doesn’t, then these was in the midst of student protests about the students have been very badly educated about the continued employment of the accused philosophy nature and limits of institutional power. professor: 100 or so students, mouths taped shut In fact, it’s just as likely that a student can de- (by themselves), had marched on the dean’s of- rail a professor’s career these days as the other way fice (a planned sit-in of the professor’s class went around, which is pretty much what happened in awry when he pre-emptively canceled it). The the case of the accused philosophy professor. committee was responding to a student-govern- To a cultural critic, the representation of emo- ment petition demanding that “survivors” be in- tion in all these documents plays to the gallery. formed about the outcomes of sexual-harassment The student charges that she “suffered and will investigations. The petition also demanded that continue to suffer humiliation, mental and emo- the new policies be amended to include possible tional anguish, anxiety, and distress.” As I read termination of faculty members who violate its through the complaint, it struck me that the law- provisions. suit and our new consensual-relations code share There was more, but my eye was struck by the a common set of tropes, and a certain narrative word “survivor,” which was repeated several times. inevitability. In both, students and professors are Wouldn’t the proper term be “accuser”? How can stock characters in a predetermined story. Accord- someone be referred to as a survivor before a find- ing to the code, students are putty in the hands of ing on the accusation — assuming we don’t want all-powerful professors. According to the lawsuit, to predetermine the guilt of the accused, that is. the student was virtually a rag doll, taken advan- At the risk of sounding like some bow-tied neo- tage of by a skillful predator who scripted a drunk- con columnist, this is also a horrifying perversion en evening of galleries and bars, all for the oppor- of the language by people who should know bet- tunity of some groping. ter. Are you seriously telling me, I wanted to ask Everywhere on campuses today you find schol- the Title IX Committee, that the same term now ars whose work elaborates sophisticated models encompasses both someone allegedly groped by a of power and agency. It would be hard to overstate professor and my great-aunt, who lived through the influence, across disciplines, of Michel Fou- the Nazi death camps? I emailed an inquiry to this cault, whose signature idea was that power has effect to the university’s general counsel, one of the no permanent address or valence. Yet our work- email’s signatories, but got no reply. places themselves are promulgating the crudest For the record, I strongly believe that bona fide

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harassers should be chemically castrated, stripped material she found upsetting would seem advis- of their property, and hung up by their thumbs in able, given the nature of even mainstream media. the nearest public square. Let no one think I’m soft I had an image of her in a meeting with a bunch on harassment. But I also believe that the myths of execs, telling them that she couldn’t watch one and fantasies about power perpetuated in these of the company’s films because it was a trigger for new codes are leaving our students disabled when her. She agreed this could be a problem, and sat in it comes to the ordinary interpersonal tangles and on the discussion with no discernible ill effects. erotic confusions that pretty much everyone has to deal with at some point in life, because that’s sim- ut what do we expect will become of stu- ply part of the human condition. dents, successfully cocooned from uncom- Bfortable feelings, once they leave the sanc- n the post-Title IX landscape, sexual panic tuary of academe for the boorish badlands of real rules. Slippery slopes abound. Gropers become life? What becomes of students so committed to Irapists and accusers become survivors, open- their own vulnerability, conditioned to imagine ing the door for another panicky conflation: teach- they have no agency, and protected from unequal er-student sex and incest. Recall that it was incest power arrangements in romantic life? I can’t help victims who earlier popularized the use of the term asking, because there’s a distressing little fact “survivor,” previously reserved for those who’d sur- about the discomfort of vulnerability, which is that vived the Holocaust. The migration of the term it’s pretty much a daily experience in the world, itself is telling, exposing the core anxiety about and every sentient being has to learn how to some- teacher-student romances: that there’s a whiff of how negotiate the consequences and fallout, or go perversity about such couples, notwithstanding all through life flummoxed at every turn. the venerable married ones. Here’s a story that brought the point home for These are anxious times for officialdom, and stu- me. I was talking to a woman who’d just pub- dents, too, are increasingly afflicted with the con- lished her first book. She was around 30, a friend dition — after all, anxiety is contagious. Around of a friend. The book had started at a major trade the time the “survivor” email arrived, something press, then ended up published by a different press, happened that I’d never experienced in many and I was curious why. She alluded to problems decades of teaching, which was that two stu- with her first editor. I pressed for details, and out dents — one male, one female — in two classes they came in a rush. informed me, separately, that they were unable Her editor had developed a sort of obsession to watch assigned films because they “triggered” with her, constantly calling, taking her out for fan- something for them. I was baffled by the congru- cy meals, and eventually confessing his love. Mean- ence until the following week, when the Times ran while, he wasn’t reading the chapters she gave him; a story titled “Trauma Warnings Move From the in fact, he was doing barely any work on the man- Internet to the Ivory Tower,” and the word “trigger” uscript at all. She wasn’t really into him, though was suddenly all over the news. she admitted that if she’d been more attracted to I didn’t press the two students on the nature him, it might have been another story. But for him, of these triggers. I knew them both pretty well it was escalating. He wanted to leave his wife for from previous classes, and they’d always seemed her! There were kids, too, a bunch of them. Still no well-adjusted enough, so I couldn’t help wonder- feedback on the chapters. ing. One of the films dealt with fascism and bigot- Meanwhile he was Skyping her in his under- ry: The triggeree was a minority student, though wear from hotel rooms and complaining about his not the minority targeted in the film. Still, I could marriage, and she was letting it go on because she see what might be upsetting. In the other case, felt that her fate was in his hands. Nothing real- the connection between the student and the film ly happened between them — well, maybe a bit of was obscure: no overlapping identity categories, fumbling, but she kept him at a distance. The thing and though there was some sexual content in the was that she didn’t want to rebuff him too blunt- film, it wasn’t particularly explicit. We exchanged ly because she was worried about the fate of her emails about whether she should sit out the discus- book — worried he’d reject the manuscript, she’d sion, too; I proposed that she attend and leave if it have to pay back the advance, and she’d never get it got uncomfortable. I was trying to be empathetic, published anywhere else. though I was also convinced that I was impeding I’d actually once met this guy — he’d edited a her education rather than contributing to it. friend’s book (badly). He was sort of a nebbish, I teach in a film program. We’re supposed to hard to see as threatening. “Did you talk to your be instilling critical skills in our students (at least agent?” I asked the woman. I was playing the situ- that’s how I see it), even those who aspire to churn ation out in my mind, wondering what I’d do. No, out formulaic dreck for Hollywood. Which is how she hadn’t talked to her agent, for various reasons, I framed it to my student: If she hoped for a career including fears that she’d led the would-be par- in the industry, getting more critical distance on amour on and that her book wasn’t any good.

d e c e mb e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s 27 Suddenly the editor left for a job at another grad student — we’d been at some sort of event and press, and the publisher called the contract, de- sat next to each other. He said he thought we’d manding a final manuscript, which was overdue been flirting. In fact, he was sure we’d been flirt- and nowhere near finished. In despair, the au- ing. I searched my memory. He wasn’t in it, though thor finally confessed the situation to our mutual I didn’t doubt his recollection; I’ve been known to friend, another writer, who employed the back- flirt. He couldn’t believe I didn’t remember him. I bone-stiffening phrase “sexual harassment” and apologized. He pretended to be miffed. I pretend- insisted that the woman get her agent involved. ed to be regretful. I asked him about his work. He Which she did, and the agent negotiated an exit told me about it, in a charming way. Wait a sec- deal with the publisher by explaining what had ond, I thought, was he flirting with me now? As an taken place. The author was let out of the contract aging biological female, and all too aware of what and got to take the book to another press. that means in our culture, I was skeptical. On the What struck me most, hearing the story, was heels of doubt came a surge of joy: “Still got it,” how incapacitated this woman had felt, despite crowed some perverse inner imp in silent congrat- her advanced degree and accomplishments. The ulation, jackbooting the reality principle into as- reason, I think, was that she imagined she was the sent. My psyche broke out the champagne, and all only vulnerable one in the situation. But look at the editor: He was married, with a midlevel job in the scandal-averse world of corporate publishing. It simply wasn’t the case that he had all the power in the The climate of situation or nothing to lose. He may have been an occluded jerk, but he was also a fairly human-sized one. sanctimony about So that’s an example of a real-world sit- uation, postgraduation. Somehow I don’t student vulnerability see the publishing industry instituting codes banning unhappily married editors from going goopy over authors, though has grown impenetrable. even with such a ban, will any set of reg- ulations ever prevent affective misun- No one dares question derstandings and erotic crossed signals, compounded by power differentials, com- it lest you’re labeled pounded further by subjective levels of vulnerability? The question, then, is what kind of ed- antifeminist, or worse, ucation prepares people to deal with the inevitably messy gray areas of life? Person- a sex criminal. ally I’d start by promoting a less vulnerable sense of self than the one our new campus codes are peddling. Maybe I see it this way because I wasn’t educated to think that holders of of us were in a far better mood for the rest of the institutional power were quite so fearsome, nor evening. did the institutions themselves seem so mighty. Of Intergenerational desire has always been a di- course, they didn’t aspire to reach quite as deeply lemma as well as an occasion for mutual fascina- into our lives back then. What no one’s much saying tion. Whether or not it’s a brilliant move, plenty of about the efflorescence of these new policies is the professors I know, male and female, have hooked degree to which they expand the power of the insti- up with students, though informal evidence sug- tutions themselves. As for those of us employed by gests that female professors do it less, and rarely them, what power we have is fairly contingent, es- with undergraduates. (The gender asymmetries pecially lately. Get real: What’s more powerful — a here would require a dozen more articles to expli- professor who crosses the line, or the shaming ca- cate.) Some of these professors act well, some are pabilities of social media? jerks, and it would benefit students to learn the identifying marks of the latter breed early on, be- or myself, I don’t much want to date stu- cause postcollegiate life is full of them. I propose a dents these days, but it’s not like I don’t un- round of mandatory workshops on this useful topic Fderstand the appeal. Recently I was at a book for all students, beginning immediately. party, and a much younger man, an assistant pro- But here’s another way to look at it: the longue fessor, started a conversation. He reminded me durée. Societies keep reformulating the kinds of that we’d met a decade or so ago, when he was a cautionary stories they tell about intergeneration-

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al erotics and the catastrophes that result, starting menopausal women now occupy more positions with Oedipus. The details vary; so do the kinds of of administrative power, edging out at least some catastrophes prophesied — once it was plagues and of the old boys and bringing a different hormon- crop failure, these days it’s psychological trauma. al style — a more delibidinalized one, perhaps — to Even over the past half-century, the story keeps bear on policy decisions. And so the pendulum getting reconfigured. In the preceding era, the swings, overshooting the middle ground by a hun- Freudian version reigned: Children universally de- dred miles or so. sire their parents, such desires meet up with social The feminism I identified with as a student prohibitions — the incest taboo — and become re- stressed independence and resilience. In the inter- pressed. Neurosis ensues. vening years, the climate of sanctimony about stu- These days the desire persists, but what’s shifted dent vulnerability has grown too thick to penetrate; is the direction of the arrows. Now it’s parents — or no one dares question it lest you’re labeled antifem- their surrogates, teachers — who do all the desiring; inist. Or worse, a sex criminal. I asked someone on children are conveniently returned to innocence. So our Faculty Senate if there’d been any pushback long to childhood sexuality, the most irksome part when the administration presented the new consen- of the Freudian story. So too with the new campus sual-relations policy (though by then it was a fait ac- dating codes, which also excise student desire from compli — the senate’s role was “advisory”). the story, extending the presumption of the inno- “I don’t quite know how to characterize the will- cent child well into his or her collegiate career. Ex- ingness of my supposed feminist colleagues to cept that students aren’t children. hand over the rights of faculty — women as well Among the problems with treating students like as men — to administrators and attorneys in the children is that they become increasingly childlike name of protection from unwanted sexual advanc- in response. The New York Times Magazine recent- es,” he said. “I suppose the word would be ‘zeal.’” ly reported on the tangled story of a 21-year-old His own view was that the existing sexual-harass- former Stanford undergraduate suing a 29-year- ment policy already protected students from co- old tech entrepreneur she’d dated for a year. He’d ercion and a hostile environment; the new rules been a mentor in a business class she was enrolled infantilized students and presumed the guilt of in, though they’d met long before. They traveled professors. When I asked if I could quote him, he together and spent time with each other’s fami- begged for anonymity, fearing vilification from his lies. Marriage was discussed. After they broke up, colleagues. she charged that their consensual relationship These are things you’re not supposed to say on had actually been psychological kidnapping, and campuses now. But let’s be frank. To begin with, that she’d been raped every time they’d had sex. if colleges and universities around the country She seems to regard herself as a helpless child in were in any way serious about policies to prevent a woman’s body. She demanded that Stanford in- sexual assaults, the path is obvious: Don’t ban vestigate and is bringing a civil suit against the teacher-student romance, ban fraternities. And if guy — this despite the fact that her own mother we want to limit the potential for sexual favorit- had introduced the couple, approved the relation- ism — another rationale often proffered for the new ship every step of the way, and been in more or less policies — then let’s include the institutionalized constant contact with the suitor. sexual favoritism of spousal hiring, with trailing No doubt some 21-year-olds are fragile and emo- spouses getting ranks and perks based on whom tionally immature (helicopter parenting probably they’re sleeping with rather than CVs alone, and plays a role), but is this now to be our normative brought in at salaries often dwarfing those of se- conception of personhood? A 21-year-old incapable nior and more accomplished colleagues who didn’t of consent? A certain brand of radical feminist — the have the foresight to couple more advantageously. late Andrea Dworkin, for one — held that women’s Lastly: The new codes sweeping American cam- consent was meaningless in the context of patriar- puses aren’t just a striking abridgment of everyone’s chy, but Dworkin was generally considered an ex- freedom, they’re also intellectually embarrassing. tremist. She’d have been gratified to hear that her Sexual paranoia reigns; students are trauma cases convictions had finally gone mainstream, not mere- waiting to happen. If you wanted to produce a pac- ly driving campus policy but also shaping the basic ified, cowering citizenry, this would be the method. social narratives of love and romance in our time. And in that sense, we’re all the victims.

t used to be said of many enclaves in aca- Laura Kipnis is a professor in the department of deme that they were old-boys clubs and tes- radio, television, and film at Northwestern Univer- Itosterone-fueled, no doubt still true of certain sity and the author, most recently, of Men: Notes disciplines. Thanks to institutional feminism’s From an Ongoing Investigation (Metropolitan successes, some tides have turned, meaning that Books).

Originally published on February 27, 2015

d e c e mb e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion s e x ua l b o und a r ie s f or p r of e s s or s 29 OPINION

KATHERINE STREETER FOR THE CHRONICLE Dirty Old Men on the Faculty

By SHEILA MCMILLEN

et me provide a little history. the reader that the meeting “can not lead to some- In December 1973, when I was a se- thing the reader might find … reprehensible.” He nior at the University of Pennsylvania, goes on to lament his aging and the end of “the Esquire magazine published an article golden era of faculty-student copulation on our by R.V. (Verlin) Cassill, a professor at campuses,” and adds jocular reminiscences of his LBrown University, called “Up the Down Coed,” escapades with coeds when he was younger. In his subtitled “Notes on the Eternal Problem of Forni- view, they were the instigators: “Many girls ma- cation With Students.” It begins with a student — triculate knowing that if the professorial lamp is “the girl,” as he calls her — coming to his office and properly rubbed, the phallic genie will pop out.” asking his help on interpreting the Rilke poems Though not well known now, Cassill was at the he has assigned. He reads aloud the line giving time a respected writer and teacher. The author her difficulty: “Who, if I cried out, would hear me of 24 novels, he was a founder of the Associated among the angelic orders?” Writing Programs and, before his time at Brown He dismisses her trembling earnestness, her University, a faculty member at the Writers Work- clothes: “dungarees with a patched jacket — a cos- shop of the University of Iowa. Shortly after the tume I find boring and pretentious,” and assures Esquire piece was published, The Brown Daily

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Herald, the student newspaper, ran a story with To Botstein’s credit, he said. “Let me say this: I the headline “Verlin Cassill: Another D.H. Law- think sexual relations trigger a set of ethical ob- rence or Just a Dirty Old Man?” Cassill’s article ligations,” to which both Blythe and Kerrigan re- was outrageous even for its day, and I suspect he sponded: “Ethical obligations?” As if the idea were intended it to be so — he said in a sarcastic reply absurd. that the piece had been written “out of laughter At a subsequent meeting at the University of and tenderness” and that he “sneered deliberately.” Massachusetts, the Faculty Senate disavowed Ker- He certainly ended his Esquire essay on a note of rigan’s comments without censuring him. No one droll waggery, referring back to the Rilke quote: at Kentucky seemed bothered by Blythe’s com- “Who — if she and I cried out in unison — glad- ment. ly — would hear us among the angelic orders? (A That was such a long time ago, you might think. professorial joke. Heh, heh).” Nearly a quarter-century later, I’m retired. I hope that those in the academic world who are RELATED CONTENT tempted to make the kind of comments Cassill and Kerrigan found acceptable would think twice I could see the intended humor of the Esquire in this era of social media, when an intemperate article, but as a “girl” myself, I also felt like the butt remark can bring out the online pitchforks. of the joke. When I visited professors during of- But the recent accusations of sexual harassment fice hours with questions, did they see me giving against faculty members at Berklee College of Mu- “wide-eyed … signals of consent,” as a “sly little sic and the University of California at Berkeley, at wonder” eager for their sexual attention? Did they the University of Virginia, Columbia University, and see my eyes as “little jeweled orifices, quivering Dartmouth College, suggest that while faculty mem- vortices down which the noblest intentions might bers may now be more circumspect about what they plunge and be lost”? I had one more semester until say, they remain less so about what they do. graduation; cautioned, I don’t think I went to any Unfortunately, none of this happened a long more faculty-student conferences. time ago. Beyond the Daily Herald article and a letter or I’ve often wondered if there are more sexu- two, there weren’t any repercussions for Cassill, al predators in academia than in other environ- who continued to teach at Brown until his retire- ments. Where else is there an unending proces- ment, as an emeritus professor, in 1983. sion — renewed annually — of enticingly attractive That was such a long time ago, you might think. young men and women, often unsure of them- In 1993, by which time I was teaching in the selves and eager to be in your good graces? It’s a English department at the University of Virginia, setup ripe with possibilities for manipulation, if Harper’s magazine published the transcript of a one is so inclined. Rather like “shooting fish in a forum titled “New Rules About Sex on Campus.” barrel,” as Cassill said, and all too easy. An editor at Harper’s, Jack Hitt, led the discussion Some argue that what professors say to students with four faculty members: John Boswell, a pro- in and out of classrooms is an issue of free speech fessor of history at Yale University; Joan Blythe, — oh, campuses are full of sensitive snowflakes an associate professor of English at the Universi- who can’t take a joke or compliment. But, accord- ty of Kentucky; William Kerrigan, a professor of ing to a study forthcoming in the Utah Law Re- English at the University of Massachusetts at Am- view, the majority of harassment charges that the herst; and Leon Botstein, president of Bard Col- researchers investigated included not only verbal lege. The topic under consideration: Should cam- abuse but also unwelcome physical contact. That’s puses institute prohibitions against romantic en- when harassment crosses the line to assault. tanglements between professors and students? I’d like to think we’ve finally reached a tipping All four academics opposed a ban. The reasons point in awareness, that the surge in accusations for Kerrigan’s opposition were astonishing. He of harassment signals that the attitudes and be- said that he often dealt with “a kind of student … havior that Cassill and Kerrigan endorsed will working through something that only a professor now get the condemnation they deserve. But it’s could help her with. I’m talking about a female not enough that predators realize they need to student who, for one reason or another has unnat- watch their words. They also need to consider urally prolonged her virginity.” He made it clear their deeds — or be hit with more than a slap on that he had been willing to be that helpful profes- the wrist. I certainly hope that’s what the future sor: “There have been times when this virginity holds. I’d hate to think students must wait another has been presented to me as something that I … 45 years to see real change. can handle.” Could there be a creepier perversion of noblesse Sheila McMillen is a writer and editor. (Her sister, oblige? Liz McMillen, is editor of The Chronicle.)

Originally published on December 6, 2017

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