Home / General / Today’s #Slatepitch: Is Sexual Harassment Really Sexual Harassment?

Today’s #Slatepitch: Is Sexual Harassment Really Sexual Harassment?

On October 8, 2013

At 2:54 pm

In General

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Katie Roiphe has a very lengthy piece on Colin McGinn, which protestations-too-much that she basically supports contemporary sexual harassment policies aside is an apologia. The key problem with her argument is that in questioning whether McGinn was really guilty of sexual harassment she describes behavior as…sexual harassment. In particular, she seems not to understand that an amorous relationship between a student and a faculty need not be directly coercive in order to be sexual harassment:

The reason it is important to give a rich sense of the emails and texts here is that sexual harassment is about words. As someone who teaches at New York University, I wholly sympathize with the general impulse to protect a student’s privacy, which is why I am not naming her, but the only way to understand the philosophy professor’s now infamous communications is to read them in context, and make every effort to know what they would have meant at the time to the people involved. An email floating out the possibility of having sex three times is a very different gesture if you are sending it in a vacuum to a graduate student who is just trying to get on with her work on Wittgenstein, or to one who is texting you that she misses you or is calling you “dearest” and texting about your “incredibly sexy” mind.

In fact, the gestures are not fundamentally different. They are differences in degree but not in kind. A faculty member propositioning a student for sex multiple times (or even once, for that matter) while you maintain a power relationship over them is wrong, full stop. Whether the student implied an interest or not is beside the point. Whether the University of Miami formally characterizes this as “sexual harassment” or whether it violates another category of behavior, it’s obviously indefensible. For the same reason, Roiphe’s repeated attempts to argue that the student’s behavior were ambiguous are also beside the point. McGinn isn’t being accused of sexual assault.

Indeed, Roiphe (and McGinn) ultimately seem to concede this:

According to university regulations, Colin should have reported the relationship and taken himself off of Nicole’s committee, and removed her as his research assistant. This would certainly have made things less murky, though it would also have gone against their mutual fantasy, in its heyday, of the “Colin-Nicole union,” which seemed to involve professional guidance and a sort of starry idealized intellectual partnership. In a swampy situation like this, there is also the question of what exactly you would say to the relevant university office, and when exactly, if you are not sleeping with someone, you say something.
Looking back on it, though, Colin says he now thinks he should have removed himself as her supervisor, he should have recognized the conflict and potential explosiveness of mingling their personal and professional relationship, and told Nicole he could not work with her.

The final two sentences of the first paragraph are just non-sequiturs. If you’re not only frequently “caress[ing] hands and feet” but propositioning students for sex, your relationship is not “murky” or “ambiguous” as far as university regulations are concerned. You don’t have to tell the “relevant university office” your life story; just remove yourself from any position of power over the student because of an amorous relationship. It’s only complicated if you want to throw up a fog to justify bad behavior.

And since McGinn is implicitly conceding that he violated university regulations and failed to follow his obligations, what are we arguing about exactly? Well, first, some outright nonsense:

Though he says something that also seems fair: “Real power didn’t reside with me at all. With the mere fact that a female student goes to the authorities at all, it becomes sexual harassment.” It is true that a female student has the unspoken power to whisper two words and ruin an entire career.

Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo. Cite me some cases that don’t come from novels where tenured professors lost their jobs over sexual harassment charges that turned out to be false. If the argument is that the harassed student is more powerful because they can theoretically report behavior that violates the rules, this is silly. The fact that victims may complain when you violate the rules doesn’t change the fact that McGinn had great power over the students career, and any kind of amorous relationship is an unacceptable exploitation of that power.

We then get the inevitable argument that, OK, maybe McGinn did something wrong, but was the punishment too harsh?

The questions here enter foggy territory that would take true philosophers or maybe novelists to navigate: Should a man, even an arrogant man, lose tenure and a long, lustrous career over what was probably a blundering excess of attachment, a burst of infatuated blindness.

To which I would respond, again, that since McGinn resigned there was no “punishment” I don’t even know how to respond to this defense. If he was an adjunct that would be one thing; he had tenure and had due process rights. If the rules didn’t require him to resign he was free to make that argument within the university’s processes and in court if the university violated his contractual rights. He chose to resign rather than defend himself; this doesn’t entitle him to have his behavior interpreted with maximum charity.

Pat

Sexual harassment affects the education of the entire class. The student who is singled out is the most affected, but it trivializes education as a pick-up opportunity for the instructor. People are treated differently for reasons that have nothing to do with the coursework, and the students have a lot of trouble cooperating with each other if they feel Student A is getting special treatment.

In classes where we experienced sexual harassment, the instructor was generally considered with disdain and his ideas were given less weight then those of his colleagues, who were more professional.
- Orpho
  
  It’s not just the class. In one department I was in, a professor often slept with the student whose dissertation he was advising. Was her Ph.D. looked at the same as the others’? Hell no. It’s assumed she was passed, not because her ideas had merit, but because she was banging her prof (in an unequal power relationship that involves tacit coercion, which is never acknowledged).
  
  And in fact, when you add that (inevitable and unfair) outcome to the fact that, when you report this behavior, your name _does_ get out and you’re branded a “troublemaker” – career is also mostly over. Disciplines and sub-disciplines are _small_ and people know people.
  
  Both of these together makes it even _more_ ridiculous for Roiphe/McGinn to suggest that the wimmins (or student) have the power in this interaction. Just disgusting.
  - MAJeff
    
    And it’s not just grad students. I left a school where the head of a department was well known to be a sexual predator. Every year, he would go through the incoming cohort of faculty; the single women would all receive emails inviting them for “coffee” to “discuss” their “careers.” This would eventually elevate to midnight emails regarding dreaming about the faculty member and the like. A junior faculty member is currently being punished in her tenure application because she filed a complaint. Other junior female faculty knew well to avoid such complaints. The only thing I heard happen was that one junior faculty member told her chair, who accompanied her for “coffee” with the predator. He was displeased….and nothing was done for years.
- Scott Lemieux
  
  Very well said.
DivGuy

I read half of that piece–don’t ask me why–and my eyes glazed over from rage before I could finish. I realize I should just stop reading at the Roiphe byline, but Jesus that was awful. Exactly as Scott says, she describes an entirely unambiguous case of sexual harassment in language designed to say that sexual harassment is actually ok and the woman who was sexually harassed was asking for it anyway.

As an aside, does Slate have a Thou Shalt Not Internally Criticize policy? I want to read Amanda Marcotte’s response, for instance, but it seems like they rarely let the XX Factor writers respond to the anti-feminish claptrap they publish on a biweekly basis. When Hanna Rosin published that odd thing about how the patriarchy doesn’t exist, the only Slate writer I saw respond directly was Matt Yglesias. What’s up with that, Slate? Is there a policy of protecting Slate’s resident idiots from their best writers?
- bexley
  
  Is there a policy of protecting Slate’s resident idiots from their best writers?
  
  They need a policy of protecting the resident idiots from themselves. The only way Roiphe could have written something so stupid is if she had concussed herself first.
J. Otto Pohl

As a university lecturer for six years now I find the idea of people having sex with their students creepy. Especially, if we are talking middle aged men and women in their 20s. It is not so much the age difference. But, rather that I view all of my students and former students to some degree as my “children” not in the sense of being immature, but in the sense of being a mentor to them. So somebody having sex with one of his students seems only a few steps removed from having sex with an adult step daughter. In some situations like an student who has graduated it might even be allowed by institutional regulations. But, I still find it very creepy.
- Brenda Johnson
  
  That is because you are an emotionally healthy person.
- DrDick
  
  I have been teaching for 25 years and have never had a problem refraining from any sexualized conduct toward my students. It would never occur to me to have an affair with one (even back in the dark ages when they were closer to my age and not almost the same age as my grandson).
- dporpentine
  
  My first year in grad school I was forced to attend an event called “Erotics in the Classroom.” Basically, it was a chance for three faculty members to brag–I kid you not: brag–to graduate students about how many professions of love they got from students. Two of the three faculty were women. One of these women talked at length about how her ex-boyfriend–a tenured faculty member in the department that had just given her a PhD–got this same sort of attention.
  
  There were some weak admonitions about not actually sleeping with your students. But when a grad student brought up being sexually harassed by a faculty member–and, you know, thinking maybe that was kinda wrong and maybe we should discuss how graduate students should do that–she was shut down.
  
  The whole event made me decide that way too many teachers use their classes as a chance to, at the very least, fan the flames of their very desperate vanity.
  
  All kinds of creepiness in college classrooms, sleeping with your students being perhaps just the most obvious kind.
  - dporpentine
    
    For “how graduate students should do that” read “what graduate students should do about that”!
herr doktor bimler

foggy territory that would take true philosophers or maybe novelists to navigate: Should a man, even an arrogant man, lose tenure and a long, lustrous career over what was probably a blundering excess of attachment, a burst of infatuated blindness.

Yes.
Evidently I am a true philosopher, or a novelist.
(“Lustrous”? His career was shiny?)
- Njorl
  
  Colin McGinn seemed to think he should, and he’s a philosopher.
- The Dark God of Time, AKA DA
  
  She probably should’ve used illustrious, it’s the right adjective. She’s suppose to be a professional writer and makes a Freshman Comp mistake in her work. Ok.
  - Lector Peregrinus
    
    [CW: LANGUAGE GEEKERY]
    
    One central metaphor I always bring up in my Latin I classes is that, to the ancient world, being physically shiny and being metaphorically shiny (i.e., famous) were one and the same – so you get your phaidimos Odysseus, “shining/glorious Odysseus,” and one of the Latin words for “famous,” clarus, also means “clear.”
    
    (To some degree this is still true but in a broader sense. Consider “brilliant” for “great,” “bright” for “smart,” or “a flash in the pan” to describe a career that didn’t take off.)
    
    “Lustrous” in particular also is related to the verb lustrare, which meant not just “to shine” but “to shed light upon.”
    
    [/CW]
    
    Unbelievably, the bastardized version of the Random House dictionary uses “a lustrous career” as the very example of its metaphorical usage, and Merriam-Webster seems to be okay with that usage as well. I’m guessing either:
    
    1) Roiphe decided she didn’t want “illustrious” and got a little synonym-happy;
    2) Roiphe got that use of “lustrous” from some author she studied for a Ph.D. and it just hung around; or
    3) Roiphe is being given way too much credit in the preceding post.
    
    (It should go without saying, obviously, that the article is still pure shit.)
    - Lector Peregrinus
      
      (It should also go without saying, not as obviously, that “the preceding post” in, well, the preceding post, refers to my last post, not to The Dark God of Time’s above mine.)
    - Vance Maverick
      
      Google Books (my go-to for usage queries) finds numbers of examples from the 19th century, so although I agree the usage seems mistaken, it’s a mistake hallowed by time.
      - Lector Peregrinus
        
        I’m okay with the usage, to be clear; the whole point of my geekery was that it’s not just a mistake hallowed by time but by a lot of classical tradition.
        
        Since Roiphe supposedly knows her 18th-and-19th-century lit, maybe that’s where she got it.
- Hogan
  
  (“Lustrous”? His career was shiny?)
  
  It ought to be. He brushed it a hundred times every night. At least I think that’s what he did a hundred times every night.
  - Lector Peregrinus
    
    A hundred times a night? Ouch.
  - herr doktor bimler
    
    There is a joke along similar lines in “Astra & Flondrix”.
- Lee Rudolph
  
  It was measured out in periods of 5 years?
  - Lector Peregrinus
    
    Ooooooooh, well played indeed.
    - sibusisodan
      
      Agreed. Nicely done!
Anderson

“Colin”?
- Incontinentia Buttocks
  
  We in the academy always call each other by our first names, don’t you know!
  - Bijan Parsia
    
    The case tipped into public consciousness over the summer when the Chronicle of Higher Education ran a piece that quoted emails that Colin, who was 61 and married, supposedly sent to a graduate student, whom I’ll call Nicole. (Because we are using a first-name-only pseudonym for the woman in question, we have decided to use first names for everyone involved.)
    
    “Because our arbitrary choice to use a first name for the accuser FORCED us to use first names throughout.”
    
    Which, frankly, seemed designed to make the whole thing creepier.
    - herr doktor bimler
      
      Sounds better than “I’m on first-name terms with ~~my client~~ McGinn so for consistency we’ll assign a first-name pseudonym to the accuser”.
    - herr doktor bimler
      
      Also, “supposedly sent”?
      Are we to read that word “supposedly” as a statement that McGinn now denies transmitting those emails, or merely as a contribution to an intended new-mysterian atmosphere of vagueness and “we’ll-never-know-the-true-events” uncertainty?
Bijan Parsia

I don’t know if I’ll be able to get all the way through this article. I’m repelled at:

Colin McGinn comes from a long line of coal miners without a history of university degrees, and somehow worked his way to Oxford. After going on to win prestigious awards, write acclaimed books, form a group of philosophers called the “New Mysterians,” and garner plum academic appointments, including his latest at the University of Miami, the famous philosopher of mind has lost everything because of a 26-year-old woman.

SOMEHOW?!?! HOW COULD A HEREDITARY COAL MINER WHO WORKED IN THE DIRTY DIRTY MINES POSSIBLY GET A DEGREE!??!?! Sheesh. How “mysterian”. (And sheesh, he didn’t “form a group.” Gah!)

And he “lost everything” because of his own behavior.

Oh yay:

In his account, Nicole began working with a famous philosopher in the fall. After some time, she was made increasingly uncomfortable by his sexual innuendoes and flirtations. She tried to ignore them, at first, and then she explicitly rejected them and told him she wanted to pursue a purely professional relationship.

Ok, so we have the claims of the student buuuuut:

The problem with Ben’s account is that the emails and texts between Colin and Nicole, which went on for more than six months and many of which I have seen, do not support it. Instead what emerges is a picture of a strange, strained, but avid and affectionate rapport between them. Until sometime in June, there appeared to be a reciprocal warmth. The two developed an elaborate private language based on some philosophical work they were doing about the hand with private jokes and private references. Her tone in the emails and texts over the winter and spring was often enthusiastic, playful, effusive: “Colin! My prehensive companion! How I miss you!” They both refer to the unusual relationship as “the Colin-Nicole union” or the “Colin-Nicole companionship.”

Er…and none of this is compatible with sexual harassment?! One can be in a consensual sexual or romantic relationship and be harassed!

And then:

The reason it is important to give a rich sense of the emails and texts here is that sexual harassment is about words.

Say what? From the EEOC:

Harassment can include “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature.

Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.

Sigh.
- herr doktor bimler
  
  form a group of philosophers called the “New Mysterians,”
  
  Oh FFS. She takes a loose circle of like-minded academics who find themselves thinking along similar lines,* and makes it sound like a rock super-group put together by a canny promoter.
  
  Is her version of art history equally trivial and stupid? “Monet formed a group of artists called the ‘Impressionists’.”
  
  * Or rather, an outside observer found the circle thinking along similar lines, recognised their commonality, and coined the “New Mysterian” label.
  - djw
    
    Wasn’t the “new mysterians” label originally a term of derision for the position they held?
    - herr doktor bimler
      
      That is how I read Flanagan’s words:
      
      “But the new mysterianism is a postmodern position designed to drive a railroad spike through the heart of scientism”
      
      — Basically he was saying “These people are a bunch of obscurantists, worried that empirical research has made them redundant, and sending out a smoke-screen to preserve their phoney-baloney jobs”.
    - Bijan Parsia
      
      Yes.
  - rea
    
    Question Mark and the New Mysterians, performing their hit song, “The Qualia of 96 Tears”
    - snarkout
      
      Sadly, Colin McGinn has returned to Jupiter.
  - Lee Rudolph
    
    like a rock super-group put together by a canny promoter.
    
    Well, “99 Tears” wasn’t going to cover itself!
    
    Anyway, it’s very cool to think of Colin as The New Question Mark, and urge everyone to call him only that, henceforth. (Or Hey, Asshole. But The New Question Mark can
    be used without his presence.)
  - N__B
    
    I hope the new mysterians included the Hardy boys. Not their father, though, as he seems to be a moron.
    - Colin Day
      
      And perhaps not Nancy Drew, given how he deals with young women.
      - Karen
        
        Nancy could totally take him out. With Bess and George it’s not even a fair fight.
- herr doktor bimler
  
  Colin McGinn comes from a long line of coal miners without a history of university degrees, and somehow worked his way to Oxford
  
  First Miner: He started it.
  Second Miner: Oh, you bleeding pig, you started it.
  Foreman: I don’t care who bloody started it. What’s it about?
  Second Miner: Well, he said the bloody Treaty of Utrecht was 1713.
  First Miner: So it bloody is.
  Second Miner: No it bloody isn’t. It wasn’t ratified ’til February 1714.
  First Miner: He’s bluffing. Your mind’s gone, Jenkins. You’re rubbish.
  Foreman: He’s right, Jenkins. It was ratified September 1713. The whole bloody pit knows that. Look in Trevelyan, page 468.
  Third Miner: He’s thinking of the Treaty of bloody Westphalia.
  Second Miner: Are you saying I don’t know the difference between the War of the bloody Spanish Succession and the Thirty bloody Years War?
  Third Miner: You don’t know the difference between the Battle of Borodino and a tiger’s bum.
  (They start to fight.)
  Foreman: Break it up, break it up. (he hits them with his pickaxe) I’m sick of all this bloody fighting. If it’s not the bloody Treaty of Utrecht it’s the bloody binomial theorem. This isn’t the senior common room at All Souls, it’s the bloody coal face.
  - Bijan Parsia
    
    Awesome.
    - herr doktor bimler
      
      I could’ve been a philosopher, but I never ‘ad the Latin… I never ‘ad the Latin to get through the rigorous philosophing exams. They’re very rigorous, the philosophing exams, very rigorous indeed. They’re noted for their rigor. People come out of them saying, “My God, what a rigorous exam!” And so I become a miner instead. I managed to get through the mining exams. They’re not very rigorous. They’re no rigor involved really. There’s a complete lack of rigor involved in the mining exams. They only ask you one question. They say, “Who are you?” And I got 75 percent on that.
      - Hogan
        
        Being a miner, as soon as you are too old and tired and sick and stupid to do the job properly, you have to go. Well, the very opposite applies with judges.
      - Jewish Steel
        
        It’s quite interesting. You’re given complete freedom to do what you like, an absolute free ‘and, provided you get out a two-ton of coal every day.
- yenwoda
  
  “the emails and texts between Colin and Nicole, which went on for more than six months and many of which I have seen”
  
  Note that “many” is not “all”. If Roiphe is going to write that, she really needs to explain who showed her “many” of the emails, and what that person’s justification was for not showing her all of them.
- GoDeep
  
  Er…and none of this is compatible with sexual harassment?! One can be in a consensual sexual or romantic relationship and be harassed!
  
  Ummm, I don’t think you can. If the sexual advances are wanted then by definition its not harassment.
  
  So long as McGinn’s behavior was wanted his behavior was inappropriate & highly unprofessional but it was not harassment. The behavior even warrants firing in my opinion, but we can’t label ‘wanted’ sexual advances as harassment.
  - Orpho
    
    …see, though, this gets us to the point of asking whether or not she wanted it. I’m not sure that’s really where this should go, y’know? It’s a bad, bad place, given that it’s a situation where she can’t necessarily say “no”.
    - GoDeep
      
      That’s an entirely fair point. I’m not going to venture an opinion as to whether this specific woman ‘wanted’ it or not, and I’m entirely prepared to believe that she did not. But in a real situation its a question of fact that needs to be answered by people there on the ground, or ultimately by a jury if it goes that far.
    - Bartleby
      
      Not sure if this works (links…I do not get them), but it’s all about the implication.
  - Snuff curry
    
    Don’t be obtuse. It’s possible and feasible both to be a in relationship with someone who pushes boundaries, abuses, and attempts to coerce you. The existence of the relationship doesn’t negate the bad behavior. That’s like saying a wife can’t rape her husband because the marriage means he can’t say no.
    - Origami Isopod
      
      Don’t be obtuse.
      
      Consider whom you’re talking to.
      - Snuff curry
        
        But he goes ~~all the way~~ deep! It said so on the tin!
    - GoDeep
      
      I said as much in my original post. Not all abusive behavior is sexual harassment. To use your example a man who abuses his wife is guilty of domestic assault not sexual harassment. Domestic assault is by no means ok; its simply different than sexual assault.
      
      The reason for the pedantic distinction. There’s a strain of feminism which holds that any sexual relations between co-workers is sexual harassment if the man is more senior than the woman even if she doesn’t report to him. By this reasoning, even tho by all accounts Monica Lewinsky initiated the flirtation with Bill Clinton (by flashing him her thong at cocktail party as I recall) Clinton sexually harassed her when they had oral sex…simply b/cs he was more senior. This camp is wholly & exclusively concerned with the power relationship. Consent/free will isn’t even an afterthought.
  - Anananananon
    
    The presence of some flirtation does not mean the absence of harassment. She could’ve been and almost certainly was harassed into being somewhat flirtatious in her emails.
    
    That is how harassment works.
    - L2P
      
      Right, but that’s because her sexual/romantic relationship wasn’t consensual – she was forced into the entire relationship.
      
      It’s conceptually possible for sexual harassment to occur in a consensual sexual or romantic relationship. You could be in a consensual relationship with your boss and have your boss say something like “I’m going to fire you unless you do [sexual act B]” when you don’t want to. Or that you might just feel pressured to do things you don’t want because of the power dynamics.
      
      But I think that’s very rare and it’s probably fair to say that consensual relationships are inconsistent with sexual harassment, at least as a general matter.
      - Bijan Parsia
        
        I think it’s clear than there can be consensual, semi consensual, and superficially consensual activity in a harassment context. The obvious example is wherein the consensual relationship sours or ends (or is on and off).
        
        But to take a simple example: exposure to ridicule for having slept with someone is potentially an element of harassment.
        
        And if course as Anananananon points out, apparently consensual behavior can be elicited via harassment. This is a key reason that consensual relationship policies require reporting and removal of power over. But even then, it’s perfectly possible for a partner to make or facilitate a hostile environment.
        
        L2P
        
        I don’t disagree at all.
        
        I think this might be more semantic than anything else. If a relationship is actually “consensual,” it’s hard to see how it can result in harassment. But if power isn’t equal it’s very easy for a relationship to seem consensual but not be consensual at all, or not consensual in all aspects.
        
        Same page? Or chapter, at least?
        
        Bijan Parsia
        
        Well, I think we’re largely in charity, but I think it’s quite easy to be in a consensual sexual relationship while being harassed by your partner.
        
        Perhaps a concrete example would help? Suppose we have a female professor teaching a class which includes her husband of long standing. Let us further assume that the relationship has been disclosed and the prof is (initially) cool with her husband taking her class. Now, let’s say over the course of the class, the husband becomes friends with a group of students and starts gossiping about his wife’s sexual behavior, or making use of innuendo in class to enhance his standing or belittle her.
        
        It seems clear that the husband is sexually harassing her by making her work environment very hostile (indeed, very difficult for her to work at all). Yet their sexual relationship (as a whole) is consensual. Obviously, she doesn’t consent to the particular class behaviors (the contrary!).
        
        But that’s the point. As Snuff curry pointed out, the existence of the relationship doesn’t make abusive behavior impossible.
        
        So, I’d submit, it’s perfectly possible for McGinn’s student to have a consensual romantic (if odd) relationship with McGinn and to be harassed by him (e.g., as he pushed the boundaries). It could be as simple as sleeping with her and then torpedoing her job interview “To keep her near him” or denigrating her as an easy lay to a colleague or just violating secrecy to a colleague.
        
        I’ve no idea how common these are, but I think it’s important to distinguish the relationship from various behaviors.
        
        I hope this clarifies!
        
        GoDeep
        
        That’s a helpful example. In this case I don’t think it constitutes a hostile workplace. Now, if they had broken off the relationship/gotten separated and he was retaliating by discussing her intimately, or showing naked pictures of her, say, then I’d agree. But if they’ve broken up there’s no longer a consensual relationship.
        
        If they’re not broken up & her BF/husband is doing those things I don’t see it as a hostile workplace. Office gossip is a feature–not a bug–of office romances. Parties should be aware of that before they leap in.
        
        Imagine an inter office relationship b/tn two junior analysts where the guy is a schmuck who discusses their sexual activities with everyone in the office. And let’s say the woman knows he does this, doesn’t like it, but also keeps dating him b/cs otherwise he’s a wonderful guy. Can she then sue the company for having created a hostile workplace even though she’s still dating him? If I were a juror and that case was presented to me I’d conclude that the company was not liable. You might conclude otherwise tho.
        
        Pat
        
        So, there was a graduate student who was seduced into a relationship with her adviser, and her labmates got to hear all about her proclivities from him. Three years later, when she went to break it off, he threw her out of the lab and tried to get her expelled from the program.
        
        Fortunately, because he was a well-known predator, she got picked up by another lab head and finished her degree in another sub-specialty.
        
        In research, people screwing around with others in the lab is a massive red flag, and advisers screwing with their advisees is necessarily a firing offense. It affects the ability of people to cooperate with one another, and gives people unfair power over each other.
        
        Many people like to believe that they are strong-willed, and that the effects of their sexual adventures can be contained. That their affairs are secret, and that they don’t let personal opinions affect their judgement.
        
        Don’t believe it.
        
        Bijan Parsia
        
        That’s a helpful example. In this case I don’t think it constitutes a hostile workplace. Now, if they had broken off the relationship/gotten separated and he was retaliating by discussing her intimately, or showing naked pictures of her, say, then I’d agree. But if they’ve broken up there’s no longer a consensual relationship.
        
        But this is where we separate. There’s no blanket exemption granted by being in a consensual relationship (by which I mean you consented to enter into the relationship). Acts within the relationship might not be consented too. Someone can rape their spouse (obviously nonconsensual) and the relationship consensual continue afterwards (i.e., the rapist is forgiven) without changing the fact that it was a rape.
        
        Similarly, you are not granted freedom to harass someone because they are married to you or in a long term romantic relationship.
        
        If they’re not broken up & her BF/husband is doing those things I don’t see it as a hostile workplace.
        
        But really, this makes no sense. A BF can abuse or harass. No where in law do I see that the fact you are in some relationship means that it’s impossible to also be harassed. It’s less likely that the consensual portions of the relationship will be part of the harassment. I might be willing to grant that they are definitionally not part of the harassment (though I don’t think that’s a good idea). But that doesn’t mean other aspects are not harassing.
        
        Imagine an inter office relationship b/tn two junior analysts where the guy is a schmuck who discusses their sexual activities with everyone in the office. And let’s say the woman knows he does this, doesn’t like it, but also keeps dating him b/cs otherwise he’s a wonderful guy. Can she then sue the company for having created a hostile workplace even though she’s still dating him?
        
        Whether she’s still dating him isn’t the material element. It’s whether his actions are impeding her ability to do her job. If they are, she has a case.
        
        What I would expect is that first, she complains to her bf directly. When he fails to stop, she should point out the issue to her supervisor. The onus on the supervisor at this point is to rectify the hostile situation. If it continues, then she has a case. If the BF retaliates in private life (e.g., after being fired) that’s a different matter (as long as his behavior is legal; making your partner miserable in non-work isn’t a workplace issue).
        
        GoDeep
        
        Thanks for taking the time to explain your rationale, Bijan.
        
        I think where we differ is here: While you might say “all assholery is sexual harassment” I would not say that. Where we prolly agree is that assholery is generally grounds for termination.
        
        In terms of the last example, I don’t really see how the company has created a hostile workplace when an employee’s personal choices created the situation. People who engage in office romances have got to know that the rumor mill comes with the territory. I’m unwilling to shift the burden of that fact to the company b/cs its wholly predictable. And I say that having had a few office romances. I knew I was taking a risk, but I took it anyways. The company’s not responsible for that. I am.
        
        I once had a colleague who had a breast augmentation. At a happy hour soon afterwards she walked to the back of corner of the bar & showed off the work to a half dozen co-workers. The next day the whole office was abuzz. Should the law really penalize people for talking abt that? I had another co-worker who was a swinger. Eventually word got around the office. Should courts call that a hostile workplace? Not in my opinion. Sometimes our personal decisions have professional ramifications & in those instances I’m loathe to hold the company responsible.
        
        Bijan Parsia
        
        I think where we differ is here: While you might say “all assholery is sexual harassment”
        
        Nope. Only sexualized or sexist or sex discriminatory assholery.
        
        I would not say that. Where we prolly agree is that assholery is generally grounds for termination.
        
        Well, depends? E.g., on the degree and form? It’s certainly reason for disciplinary action.
        
        In terms of the last example, I don’t really see how the company has created a hostile workplace when an employee’s personal choices created the situation.
        
        As I understand it, the company has a responsibility to provide a non-hostile workplace. Take non-interrelationship cases. They typically aren’t “caused” by the company but by the individuals who are graphically discussing sexual encounters or putting up pornography or photoshopping the heads of coworker into sex scenes.
        
        So, take your case again. If the BF photoshops the women’s head onto a nude model’s body at home, the company is not involved. If he circulates it at work, they are involved. If they fail to discipline him for this, I think the women has a strong case against the company. She should also dump him :)
        
        People who engage in office romances have got to know that the rumor mill comes with the territory.
        
        Eh. Harassment is harassment. Imagine two cases:
        
        Woman A has her head photoshopped into a porn photo of a women having sex with an animal and it’s circulated around the office and slipped into her work materials by Man B. B does this several times (with different photos) and loudly speculates that she got her last promotion due to her sleeping with their mutual boss.
        
        Woman C has her head photoshopped into a porn photo of a women having sex with an animal and it’s circulated around the office and slipped into her work materials by Man D. D does this several times (with different photos) and loudly speculates that she got her last promotion due to her sleeping with their mutual boss. C and D are married.
        
        I just don’t see how the last is a defence. The behavior is harassment regardless of their marital status and I believe it’s actionable anywhere.
        
        I’m unwilling to shift the burden of that fact to the company b/cs its wholly predictable.
        
        Again, it’s one thing if “people know” and talk about it, and it’s another if they use what they know to harass.
        
        I once had a colleague who had a breast augmentation. At a happy hour soon afterwards she walked to the back of corner of the bar & showed off the work to a half dozen co-workers. The next day the whole office was abuzz. Should the law really penalize people for talking abt that? I had another co-worker who was a swinger. Eventually word got around the office. Should courts call that a hostile workplace? Not in my opinion. Sometimes our personal decisions have professional ramifications & in those instances I’m loathe to hold the company responsible.
        
        Er…I’m not sure what these examples are supposed to demonstrate. My guesses are “no” and “no”, but that’s because they don’t seem to fit in with a pattern of abuse. If at a company presentation someone shouted out, “Show us your tits like you did at the bar!!!” then I would think that the shouter should get a warning. If they did not, and continued to do it over time, then I think the women with breast augmentation would have a case. That she showed her breasts in a bar does not mean she immunised everyone from harassing her. A few jokes after the incident in appropriate contexts…fine. Ongoing harassments that interferes with her job (i.e., not just her being mortified for a few days or a week or so), no.
        
        The way to construct these tests is to create a situation that is clearly harassment by your own judgment and then say, “What’s different about this if they’re married or in a consensual relationship?” Some things do become prima facie ok in a consensual relationship, like having sex (at least prima facie: spouses can rape!). But other things do not, like circulating nude photos. That the woman consented to the nude photos did not mean she consented to having them circulated in the office. And if they are used in an ongoing way, the company has to step in or face a suit.
  - Bijan Parsia
    
    Ummm, I don’t think you can. If the sexual advances are wanted then by definition its not harassment.
    
    Sigh.
    
    First, what snuff curry said.
    
    Second, not all sexual harassment is in the form of sexual advances or sexual encounters. (See the EEOC page I quoted in the very comment you reply to.)
fraser

But didn’t David Mamet conclusively show in Ileana how the female students crush teachers with the power of sexual harassment complaints? Surely you can’t suggest that Mamet’s views do not correspond to reality?
- Lector Peregrinus
  
  Oleanna, but as Ian Hislop said of the court that found in Robert Maxwell’s favor for libel, if Mamet’s views correspond to reality, then I’m a banana.
  - Incontinentia Buttocks
    
    The experience of reading that awful play at the time it was published was one of the main reasons I was not the least surprised when Mamet revealed himself to be a total wingnut.
    - Lector Peregrinus
      
      I haven’t read/watched/perceived it, and judging by what I hear of it, that’s probably a good thing. The Wikipedia article makes it out to be more ambiguous than I would expect a Mamet play, wingnut or no wingnut, to ever be.
      - Incontinentia Buttocks
        
        Its ambiguity is based on Mamet’s utter contempt for both its characters.
      - Scott Lemieux
        
        It’s almost as if you can see Mamet’s mind breaking midway through. The first half is set up in a potentially interesting way, in which both teacher and student make a series of claims that are potentially true yet not fully commensurate. But then the second half is just a “bitch screwing over the innocent professor” thing that fails dramatically as well as ideologically.
        
        Snuff curry
        
        Yes. This. Halfway through the second act you could see what was coming, and it was the usual whinging male fluff about the almighty power of women’s words. Hilarious, considering the ending.
        
        N__B
        
        I saw it when it was a brand new play, at the Orpheum in New York. The audience was fairly average during the intermission but devolved into numerous intracouple fights after the final curtain. I concluded that was what Mamet had wanted.
        
        N__B
        
        Also, starring the second Mrs. Mamet. I’m not sure if he had ended his first marriage yet.
        
        Lee Rudolph
        
        Ah, yes, The Theater of ~~Cruelty~~Irreconcilable Differences.
        
        Snuff curry
        
        Lemme guess: the women were ga-ga and pantsless for Kennedy and the men were manfully, lantern jaws jutted sternly, for Nixon.
        
        Wrong play?
        
        N__B
        
        Wrong play. I heard a lot of offended women trying to get the same point across to a lot of clueless men.
      - Manju
        
        The movie went like this (just going by memory). A nice but annoying student comes to a Prof for help. Along the way she joins a Feminist student organization and slowly becomes more stridently PC…progressively reading all sorts misogyny into to the Profs behavior like she’s Andrea Dworkin on speed.
        
        Simultaneously the stoic Prof becomes less so as the film progresses. He eventually slaps the student. Thus the ambiguity…was she actually right about him the whole time?
      - Steph
        
        It’s only ambiguous in that you hate both of them.
        
        I had forgotten all about it, so accidently ended up seeing it a couple of years ago. It was worse than I possibly could have imagined. It’s the only play I’ve ever seen where I ended up both enraged with the author and with the characters because they were too stupid to properly engage and follow the advice of legal counsel.
  - joe from Lowell
    
    I’d never seen the name Oleanna before Game of Thrones.
    
    Oleanna Tyrell is a powerful female figure who deftly navigates a world in which women are very subordinate, using the modes of influence that are available to her.
    
    Hmm…
    - Lector Peregrinus
      
      That’s “Olenna,” but now that you mention it, I’d never thought about it that way . . .
Bill Altreuter

It would be interesting to see a study that catalogs what academic fields report the most incidences of sexual harassment. I’d be willing to bet that Philosophy would rank right up there, and it wouldn’t shock me to learn that this would be among the reasons that the field has so few women. Over the years I have represented high school age girls who have had sexual relationships with their teachers (tricky cases) and in my experience English teachers, music teachers and drivers ed teachers have the worst judgment.

Roiphe’s article resembles every description of university based sexual harassment I have ever seen, and differs from other workplaces chiefly because students are at an even greater power disadvantage than are junior employees. I’m not familiar with McGinn, but if he is as prominent as the article says he’ll get another gig.
- Origami Isopod
  
  I’d be willing to bet that Philosophy would rank right up there
  
  Yep.
- Pat
  
  We had one prof who would pick up an undergraduate every other year or so. I don’t remember if he would get them in his class, or otherwise meet them socially and then pursue them. (Sounds like he found them in a grocery aisle, huh?) Once they’d hooked up, he would usually put her up in a local apartment to make their trysts easier. Most of them dropped out of school. I believe his wife divorced him after the fourth or fifth mistress.
  
  Being young and obnoxious, other students would refer to them by the year they started dating him – “Oh, look! It’s Miss 1998!” “You know, she’s taller than the last one.”
ruviana

Katie Roiphe teaches at NYU? What the fuck and etc.
- LoriK
  
  I second your WTF? Is she tenured? If not, why in the world does NYU continue to employ her? Her obvious inability to think would seem to be indicate that she can’t possibly teach. Is her presence on the faculty simply the meatspace version of link-baiting?
  - Hogan
    
    Associate professor in the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. So yeah, tenured. Last fall she taught an undergrad seminar on The Art of Opinion Writing & Polemic.
    
    Well, time to go home and wash down all my Ambien with a tumbler of bourbon.
    - LoriK
      
      A committee of more or less her peers met, reviewed her work and granted her tenure? Double my WTF?, throw in a side of What Were Those People Smoking? and cover the whole thing in There Is No Justice gravy.
      - MAJeff
        
        Associate professor in the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute
        
        Clearer now?
        
        Col Bat Guano
        
        So, not the Department of Daddy Issues?
        
        Malaclypse
        
        Maureen Dowd has the chair already, and she’s not letting any icky girls into her club.
- herr doktor bimler
  
  You wouldn’t think she needed this extra job as Colin McGinn’s press agent… yet here she is, acting as stenographer for his self-exculpation and passing on e-mails and texts he has cherry-picked.
Matt

Just think that McGinn is the author of these books:

Mindfucking: A Critique of Mental Manipulation

and

Moral Literacy: Or How to Do the Right Thing

I’m not really sure what to add to that.
- Lee Rudolph
  
  I think it’s time for the double album.
  - herr doktor bimler
    
    With cover art from Hipgnosis.
  - The Dark God of Time, AKA DA
    
    First, he has to record a live tour to release after the DA.
José Arcadio Buendía

Scott, are you a lawyer or a law polemicist?

The hostile work environment jury instructions in California (CACI 2520, 3024) at least include that the conduct must be unwanted or unwelcome. The e-mails added in the article cast doubt as to whether that was the case and when it became such, not whether it was of a sexual nature There is not and never was any allegation of a quid pro quo.

Not all improper relationships constitute sexual harassment, even in the presence of an asymmetrical relationship like this one. The reasons for firing McGinn are manifest. But it’s unclear that there was an actual, as-defined-by-law case of sexual harassment here and as far as I’ve read, the allegations went no further than the academic senate.

Conflating what is really sexual harassment with this is intellectually weak and dishonest and ignores the severity of existing cases brought before the courts every day.
- snarkout
  
  Lemieux isn’t a lawyer, the University of Miami isn’t governed by California law, and I don’t see any suggestion in this post (or previously!) that statutory definitions, rather than university regulations and the due process accorded to McGinn under same, have any particular bearing on this case.
  
  * It’s a big internet. I’m sure someone did.
  - snarkout
    
    Curse you, untethered footnote caused by editing!
    - The Dark God of Time, AKA DA
      
      the University of Miami isn’t governed by California law,
      
      But wouldn’t it be cool if it was?
- GoDeep
  
  +1
  
  Wholly agree. Just b/cs someone acts unprofessionally doesn’t mean that what they’ve done constitutes harassment.
  - L2P
    
    But it does if their unprofessional conduct consists of unwanted sexual contact, such as unwanted sexually-tinged conversations. Like here.
    - GoDeep
      
      I don’t know all the fact in the case, but certainly if the advances were unwanted then its sexual harassment.
- joe from Lowell
  
  You have a point, but it’s a triling, semantic one, like arguing the difference between “racism” and “insensitivity to racism.” And, of course, if you want to get into that level of fine distinction, then it becomes fair to retort with equally fine points about the broader culture that makes it possible for some, but not others, to be unaware of blah blah blah.
  
  Or we could cut the bullshit, and acknowledge that the term “sexual harassment” can apply to different things which, while having different particulars, are rightly considered as a whole, by virtue of the nexus of power relations and sexual come-ons.
  - GoDeep
    
    Or we could cut the bullshit, and acknowledge that the term “sexual harassment” can apply to different things which, while having different particulars, are rightly considered as a whole, by virtue of the nexus of power relations and sexual come-ons.
    
    What does this mean, Joe? Could you please elaborate?
    
    Are you suggesting that any relationship b/tn unequal employees is harassment, simply b/cs there’s a difference in power? Or are you saying that any relationship b/tn a manager & a subordinate is sexual harassment? Or are you saying something else?
- L2P
  
  You seem to think that any conversation where the woman doesn’t say “Stop that immediately, I’m unhappy with this situation and think you’re harassing me” is a consensual conversation, or part of a consensual relationship. That isn’t true.
  
  My wife is constantly told how beautiful her legs are by senior partners. She always smiles and says something like thank you, you’re really kind to notice, because she’s not an idiot and likes her job. They sometimes make her stand and always make her leave the office before them because they like watching her ass.
  
  Is she consenting to this relationship? No. Is she consenting to hearing these comments? No. These are jackasses that are totally harassing her, in a subtle but hurtful way. The power dynamics give her little choice but to grin and joke. And for me to think of subtle ways to cut into them at dinners and stuff.
  
  You obviously have little concept of what sexual harassment is and what consent is, and how your prove either.
  - Bijan Parsia
    
    Ow. That sucks. My sympathies to your wife.
    - L2P
      
      Thanks. It sucks, but at least these guys are so lacking in self-awareness that they don’t know when they’ve been insulted.
  - Karen
    
    I’m sending good thoughts to your wife. I’ve been there and endured it without complaint until found a new job, and to my eternal discredit, didn’t mention it in my exit interview, and wish I could do something now, but that was 20 years ago.
  - GoDeep
    
    That’s an effed up situation L2P & clearly sexual harassment. Sorry to hear that.
Shakezula

It is true that a female student has the unspoken power to whisper two words and ruin an entire career.

Gee whiz, I didn’t realize anti-sexual harassment policies only applied to the lovely co-eds. I guess it’s a field day for teachers who want to hit on the male students.

Basically, her argument boils down to “OMG, WOMEN HAVE THE POWER TO ACCUSE PEOPLE WHO HARASS THEM! HOW CAN SOCIETY SURVIVE IF IT ALLOWS WOMEN TO SPEAK?!?” Which we’ve all heard before, and it is still idiotic and boring.
- Anderson
  
  Okay, but what ARE the two words? Don’t be so goddamn coy, Roiphe.
  
  I’m having trouble here. “Harassed me”? “McGinn harasser”? Is the female student allowed to point?
  
  Thinking we need a noun, a verb, AND a direct object here. What kind of sexual harassment to you have without even a transitive verb? A pretty weak kind, says me.
  - Lee Rudolph
    
    What kind of sexual harassment to you have without even a transitive verb?
    
    You could have plenty with only a copula.
    - Anderson
      
      Not quite FTW, but I’ll give it the silver. Which of course is mine to bestow.
  - herr doktor bimler
    
    OGTHROD AI’F GEB’L-EE’H YOG-SOTHOTH ‘NGAH’NG AI’Y ZHRO!
    - N__B
      
      You learned to count from Rick Perry?
      - herr doktor bimler
        
        It’s an agglutinative language; there are really only two words there. The spaces are just another phoneme.
        
        N__B
        
        Isn’t it early in the day for you to be drunk?
        
        herr doktor bimler
        
        At least I’m not flat on my face with my rump in the air.
        
        N__B
        
        You’ll never know the joys…
- Karate Bearfighter
  
  Basically, her argument boils down to “OMG, WOMEN HAVE THE POWER TO ACCUSE PEOPLE WHO HARASS THEM! HOW CAN SOCIETY SURVIVE IF IT ALLOWS WOMEN TO SPEAK?!?”
  
  Substitute “rape” for “harass” and you pretty much have the thesis of the book that made Roiphe famous.
  - Shakezula
    
    Not surprising.
    
    I assume she’s coat tailing the likes of Paglia for the notoriety because she’s too dim to come up with a novel form of idiocy to gain attention.
    
    That makes her a sad pander.
Anonymous

Your post lost all credibility when you linked to Slate.
- The Dark God of Time, AKA DA
  
  You’ve got too much Slate in your Slatepitch.
Incontinentia Buttocks

This is just Roiphe returning to the shtik that made her famous in the first place. Back when she was in grad school, she became a public intellectual, as it were, by denying that date rape was rape in a NY Times op-ed. I guess that good old-fashioned backlash bullshit still sells.
MAJeff

A faculty member propositioning a student for sex multiple times (or even once, for that matter) while you maintain a power relationship over them is wrong, full stop. Whether the student implied an interest or not is beside the point.

Seriously, this is a difficult issue?
- Ross Gellar
  
  I believe it’s frowned upon.
Manju

Katie Roiphe? Hugo Schwyzer wasn’t available?
- Scott Lemieux
  
  I look forward to Roiphe’s detailed investigation of whether any of Schwyzer’s students flirted with him before he screwed them, hence absolving him of any responsibility or wrongdoing.
  - Origami Isopod
    
    Personally I look forward to her detailed investigation of whether the ex-girlfriend he almost murdered had ever expressed suicidal thoughts.
    - mch
      
      +1
- Bijan Parsia
  
  Well, as he needs to deal with his recent DUI wherein his female victim had to be airlifted to the hospital, I imagine not.
  - Manju
    
    I dunno…it takes a lot to silence Hugo. Even when he’s silent, he’s very loud about it.
GoDeep

Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo. Cite me some cases that don’t come from novels where tenured professors lost their jobs over sexual harassment charges that turned out to be false.

I know of cases where this has happened. It may not be the norm, but it happens. Close friend was a professor at a Eastern college. His chair suddenly started getting anonymous messages (both written and voice mails) that my friend was sexually harassing her. My friend asks to listen to the voice mail. The voice sounds familiar. He asks another college friend to listen to the voice mail. It turns out the voice mail was made by another former classmate.

He soon realized that this former classmate was stalking him. He got a restraining order against her. A month later the police arrests the old classmate when they find her hiding in the bushes outside his window. She had had a break w/ reality. She was eventually committed. When my friend told his chair what had happened, including showing him the arrest report & commitment order, the Chair said, “Well, maybe you didn’t harass her recently, but you must’ve done something to her in the past for her to do all this.” They fired him.

I don’t think this is the norm obviously, but arguing that this NEVER happens is abt as silly as arguing that harassment laws tilt the power relationship towards women.
- Jordan
  
  This is a TOTALLY TRUE SOUNDING STORY
  - Incredibly Gullible Person
    
    Come on, that detail about it being an Eastern college – you can’t make that up.
    
    That’s the type of detail that lets you know he’s telling the truth.
    - Jordan
      
      Hey, it happened to this person he knows (name withheld for undoubtedly very good reasons)! And comes complete with a totally plausible quote from the department chair!
      - mch
        
        Yeah, right, totally plausible quote, and totally plausible that the department chair fired someone, even an untenured professor — if we ignore the way deans and others have to get involved in firing any professor, and that there are all sorts of procedures leading up to any firing. (A professor’s legal contract is not with a department.)
        
        It is possible for deceit or simply salacious rumor to damage a professor’s reputation, and if he or she is untenured but on a tenure track, that damage could compromise their chances for tenure. But not likely now. More possible twenty or more years ago, but now so many elements in the formal review processes leading up to an including the final tenure review would normally give the individual plenty of opportunities to address unfair damage to their reputation. (Unless things are different at some religious-affiliated schools.)
        
        Jordan
        
        Right, but 20 or more years ago, the idea that an clearly unfounded sexual harassment charge would be the reason for the firing is even more stupid.
        
        GoDeep
        
        The fact that you think there’s NO WAY this happened says more abt your world view than mine.
        
        You think the world is some neat little place where everything that happens conforms to theory, or principle, or your world view? Don’t forget the 1% rule: We live in a country of 300M ppl & given that at least 1% of the time bat shit crazy stuff can happen, that means there are 3M bat shit crazy instances out there that don’t conform to theory, principle, or world view. That’s why on a really good regression all the dots on the scatter plot don’t line up neatly on the trend line, there’s always some dots above & below the line. All this is to say that arguing in absolutes is shitty arguing. There will always be cases that don’t fit the norm. Suggesting otherwise is cheap rhetoric.
        
        Hell, in fact, you’re proving my point. The chair at this college had precisely the same reaction that you’re having now: “No one would EEEEEVER do this!”
        
        Jordan
        
        Fine. State the name of this person, the name of the “eastern” university, and the name of the department chair.
        
        There is no reason not to. If what you say is true this is a terrible injustice, and bringing attention to it can only be a good thing. If you do this, I will apologize to you personally.
        
        But you won’t, because this didn’t happen. So, I expect an apology from you to me.
        
        mch
        
        GoDeep, there’s a difference between “I know of cases” and “I know of a case.” But just a case, a single case, of injustice matters. And the crazy shit stuff will happen. I don’t think anyone here would deny that. I do worry about that. Take restraining orders and the way they work. If they’re not challenged (and who has the wherewithal to challenge them? a privileged few), they go down as “he’s guilty of staking [or whatever].” Maybe 90% of the time he is, but what of the other 10%? Our system is supposed to protect not just the 90 but also the 10.
        Don’t know whether to interpret your cri du coeur as that of someone truly wronged or someone just trying to justify himself (or something in-between). This is not a good forum for figuring out all that. Whatever, I do not dismiss you.
        
        GoDeep
        
        Thanks, MCH. Its not really my cri de coeur; its just an observation. This happened to my friend 4yrs ago & he still hasn’t really recovered professionally/economically. He’s one of my very best friends & I really feel bad for him.
        
        Listen I believe that our sexual harassment & racial discrimination laws are pitifully weak & need to be dramatically strengthened. I’m halfway convinced they both should be criminal, not civil, acts. Moreover I think that ANYONE should be able to press such claims (not just women & minorities) so that EVERYONE has an incentive to police discrimination. That doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize that occasionally innocent people are falsely accused.
- Incredibly Gullible Person
  
  Wow! I believe every word of that!
  
  I can’t imagine why this didn’t make national news, but I’m too caught up in the obvious veracity of this tale to think too hard about that.
- Snuff curry
  
  You’ve been watching too much Lifetime Network, friend.
- L2P
  
  That sucks your friend got fired for nothing. If only there was something your friend could have done to challenge this. If only America had some independent government agency that could resolve disputes between people. Perhaps it could even hear evidence from two sides, weigh it, and come to a conclusion!
  
  We could call it, I dunno just spitballing, a judiciary? And if it was up to me it would resolve such claims as wrongful discharge, interference with employment relationships, and defamation.
  
  Oh well. I guess we’ll just have to suffer with professors getting fired for no cause without any remedy.
  - GoDeep
    
    LOL, given the situation you describe with your wife L2P, I’d think you’d understand. Its one thing to have something happen, its another thing to get a lawyer (on a contingency basis) and prove that it happened. I imagine there’s a reason your wife hasn’t sued her employer, no? And, yet, you seem to believe that its easy for everyone else to sue?
    
    I can’t count the # of times I’ve been discriminated against or harassed in my career. My first job out of college I had people pinching my ass. No one did anything when I complained. At another company I was told I wasn’t promoted b/cs I was black, and another time my boss said flat out “you’re my bitch.” I’ve twice sought lawyers (for the ass pinching & the “you’re my bitch” comment) and both times was told that there wasn’t enough proof, or enough potential damages (given I wasn’t make a whole lotta money at the time) to sue. Unless there’s a lot of documentation or a lot of other witnesses to back up your wife’s claims I imagine you’ll learn the same if you press forward with a case. Of course I hope you find better luck w/ the process than I did. Best of luck to you guys.
- Origami Isopod
  
  but arguing that this NEVER happens
  
  Good thing nobody here has done that, then.
  - Jordan
    
    Actually, I have never heard of an actual case where a tenured professor lost their job because of a false sexual harassment charge …
    - L2P
      
      I’ve never heard of anyone losing a job for even a questionable claim of harassment, let alone a false one.
      - Jordan
        
        Well, I haven’t either. But it is a big country, so who knows. I’m fairly sure I would have heard about a tenured professor getting fired for a false harassment claim, because the manosphere in academia is vast.
- Scott Lemieux
  
  I think this was the first draft of Oleanna, but Mamet rejected it as too implausible and misogynist.
joe from Lowell

“Real power didn’t reside with me at all. With the mere fact that a female student goes to the authorities at all, it becomes sexual harassment.” It is true that a female student has the unspoken power to whisper two words and ruin an entire career.

Of course, a professor has exactly the same opportunity to accuse a student of sexual harassment, but for some reason, it never comes to that, does it? “This student, whose academic success depends upon me, is making me uncomfortable with his sexual come-ons. Whatever shall I do? I must go to the administration, for I can think of no other ways to address the situation.”
- Bijan Parsia
  
  Actually, as a grad student instructor of an undergraduate class I exactly went to the harassment office. They were great. The situation spun out but that was totally not their fault and they were with me every step of the way.
  
  And they really tried to resolve it informally (which was my preference). Getting the problem sorted was their goal. Only when the student wouldn’t stop did we institute stronger measures.
- J.W. Hamner
  
  In a similar vein, removing yourself from her dissertation committee and as her boss eliminates 90% of the issues that lead to sexual harassment accusations. Not doing so implicitly admits that the only reason he thought he could pursue a romantic relationship with this student was the vast power imbalance.
mch

Bijan, Yes, a teacher can be in a very delicate position, whether the student creating difficulties is just immature or has mental health problems (say, a serious bipolar disorder or schizophrenia), because, well, this person is our student (or, as someone above said, one of our children). We continue to have responsibilities to them even when they are making our lives very difficult. A challenge teachers share, I assume, with doctors and lawyers.
- Bijan Parsia
  
  Er…
  
  Well, I don’t think my students are my children…or children for that matter. I think that I have to enact some of the university’s duty of care toward them, but I also have to do so wrt my line managees. Furthermore, I have perhaps more general professional obligations for fostering the personal and professional development of both.
  
  None of that obliges me to endure sexual harassment. So, I did what was appropriate: I raised the issue with the sexual harassment officer who was great.
  
  I’m not sure where you are going with this. I don’t think doctors or lawyers are required to endure sexual harassment or other abuse. If a student physically threatens me, I’m calling campus security (for example).
  - mch
    
    Er… My comment was intended to be supportive. I don’t think of myself as parent to my students, either, but someone above offered that comparison, with qualifications, and I echoed it on this basis: As parents have obligations even to children who behave badly, as doctors continue to have obligations (at the very least to maintain confidentiality) even to patients who are unfairly suing them for malpractice, and as lawyers have many obligations even to clients who treat them badly or are appalling people, so teachers continue to have obligations to students who treat them badly, even students who sexually harass them –at least, to a point. (Obviously, physical threats are another matter entirely.) That’s how I meant it can be delicate when the teacher is being harassed by a student.
    You certainly did the appropriate thing by going to the sexual harassment officer. I would have done the same on the one occasion when I was sexually harassed as a student in grad school or on the numerous occasions as an assistant professor when I was sexually harassed by tenured professors and by students both (female professors were a new phenomenon here and the college had only recently started admitting women students). I did not only because all that happened to me in the days before the term existed, much less sexual harassment policies, officers, and other institutional means of redress. I have many tales to tell about other sexually harassed women faculty and students I helped over the years, one huge story to tell about a student eventually diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic who created havoc for an assistant prof. while I was chairing, and more tales about my role in creating institutional means of redress for sexual harassment. You’re welcome.
    - Bijan Parsia
      
      Sorry for being a bit touchy there. I misread your comment as suggesting I should have put up with the behaviour. My apologies.
      
      I really only have the one incident against me (wrt sexual harassment; I’ve had a few troublesome students but by and large I’ve been lucky). I’m sorry for your experiences but actually would love to hear your helping stories. I suppose its not really possible to share them.
      
      I did find having gone through the process helpful for assisting a student recognize she was being harassed and getting through the process herself.
      - mch
        
        No apology necessary. I think I was being touchy, too.
- herr doktor bimler
  
  That, after all, is why you are paid so well…
Colin McGinn

oh, the department chair called a meeting on “harassment”.
asked me point blank, was i quite aware what that meant?
in my ignorance i stammered to the class,
i didn’t know, so could i please look up “harass”,
to be ready for the test, which i hoped i’d pass —

oh her mouth said, “no”, but har-ass-ment “yea.”
oh her lips said, “go!”, but har-ass-ment “stay…”
i ignored all signs of evident distress,
and her screams did not dissuade me, i confess,
for her mouth said, “no”, but har-ass-ment, “yes!”
- GoDeep
  
  +1,000,000. Wow, you’re brilliant. Pretty awesome poetry.
Derek I

Well, yes, of course it was sexual harassment. He’s a stupid and arrogant 61 year old professor in a position of authority over his graduate student. Case closed.
But, yes, of course, this being the U.S. of A, the punishment meted out is absurd and out of all proportion. And, no, the fact that he resigned doesn’t mean that he wasn’t found guilty and punished. He most certainly was convicted and sentenced. This being a society that revels in throwing people in jail – for incredibly long periods for the most minor of offences – Mr. McGinn should count himself lucky I suppose.
- Dr Evil
  
  I will bet one million dollars that McGinn’s severance package was three years full salary plus full retirement benefits.
- Scott Lemieux
  
  And, no, the fact that he resigned doesn’t mean that he wasn’t found guilty and punished. He most certainly was convicted and sentenced.
  
  What?
  - Bijan Parsia
    
    Yeah…I guess Derek I-Don’t-Know-What-I’m-Talking-About means “in the court of public opinion”? But then the jail time makes no sense.
    
    So this is some more messed up that Colin McGinn’s persecution fantasy. At least, McGinn knows that he short circuited the procedures by resigning (even though he thinks he would have “wrongly” lost if he had gone forward).
    
    “More nutty about McGinn than McGinn” is not a good place to be.
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