 |
In
this Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017, photo, Professor Celeste Kidd is photographed at
University of Rochester, in Rochester, N.Y. (AP Photo/Brett Carlsen)
|
When Celeste Kidd was a
graduate student of neuroscience at the University of Rochester she says a
professor supervising her made her life unbearable by stalking her, making
demeaning comments about her weight and talking about sex.
The
Associated Press report continues:
Ten
years on and now a professor of neuroscience at the university, Kidd is taking
legal action. She has filed a federal lawsuit against the school alleging that
it mishandled its sexual harassment investigation into the professor's actions
and then retaliated against her and her colleagues for reporting the
misconduct.
"We
are trying to bring transparency to a system that is corrupt," Kidd told
The Associated Press.
Academia
- like Hollywood, the media and Congress - is facing its own #MeToo movement over
allegations of sexual misconduct. Brett Sokolow, who heads an association of
sexual harassment investigators on campuses, estimates that the number of
reported complaints has risen by about 10% since the accusations against
Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein surfaced in early October, spurring more women
to speak out against harassment in various fields. The increase is mostly from
women complaining of harassment by faculty members who are their superiors.
But
the Trump administration has viewed the issue of sexual harassment on campus in
a different light. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has scrapped Obama-era
regulations on investigating sexual assault, arguing that they were skewed in
favour of the accuser. New instructions allow universities to require higher
standards of evidence when handling such complaints.
A
forthcoming study of nearly 300 such cases in the Utah Law Review found that
one in 10 female graduate students at major research universities reports being
sexually harassed by a faculty member. And in more than half of those cases,
the alleged perpetrator is a repeat offender, according to the study.
"Often
schools might turn a blind eye toward sexual harassment that they know about or
have heard about because a professor is bringing in a big grant or is adding to
the stature of the university," said Neena Chaudhry, senior counsel at the
National Women's Law Centre.
The
Education Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Activists
say young women pursuing graduate studies are especially vulnerable to sexual
misconduct because they depend heavily on their academic adviser to complete
their degrees, pursue research in their field of study and get recommendations
for future jobs. Reporting misconduct could endanger an academic career. And
besides damaging the women's mental health and well-being, sexual harassment
can chase some of them out of academia altogether.
"Often
professors who are advising graduate students are the students' gateway to
their degree attainment and their career prospects," said Anne Hedgepeth
with the American Association of University Women. "That's an immense
amount of power that professors hold. It's also an immense amount of risk that
students take when coming forward when future prospects are on the line."
That
sums up what happened to Kidd, according to the lawsuit.
Kidd
says Florian Jaeger, a distinguished linguistics professor at the New York
university's cognitive sciences department who was one of her academic advisers
in 2007, pressured her to rent a room in his apartment for a year. She says he
then constantly intruded in her private life, demoralized her and talked to her
about oral sex and other sexually explicit topics.
"I
begged him to stop and to just advise me professionally and he said that was
impossible, that wasn't his mentorship style," Kidd said in a phone
interview. "There were many moments where I went to sleep in the lab and I
wondered what I had done to deserve the hell I was living in every day."
When
Kidd protested, Jaeger made it understood that he could derail her career.
"He
had a lot of control over my work life, he had the ears of everybody in the
field," she recalled. "He reminded me constantly that they know him,
that he was a big shot and that I was no one."
In
the end, Kidd moved out of Jaeger's apartment and abandoned language research
so that she wouldn't have to be supervised by Jaeger. She now studies attention
and general learning.
Last
year, two professors at the department, in whom Kidd eventually confided, filed
a sexual harassment complaint. The university investigated but found the
allegations unsubstantiated. The professors say the university then began a
retaliation campaign against them. In August, Kidd together with a group of
faculty members filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, a federal agency in charge of workplace discrimination issues. In
December, Kidd and her colleagues filed a federal lawsuit.
The
university responded by placing Jaeger, now a tenured professor, on
administrative leave and commissioning an independent investigation. Results
are expected in early January.
University
President Joel Seligman said in a statement that the school is committed to
creating a safe and respectful environment, but vowed to "vigorously defend"
himself and the university provost against some personal claims made against
them in the suit.
Jaeger
did not respond to an email seeking comment. But shortly after the case was
made public this fall, he emailed his students to say that while some of the
online comments about him were painful to read, "I am glad that there is
now generally so much support for people who speak up against
discrimination." Jaeger added that he has always tried to make his lab
"an exciting, sa(f)e and supportive place to pursue science" and that
he has received letters of support from former students.
As
universities face pressure to rethink their sexual misconduct policies,
activists suggest various possible remedies: spelling out what interaction is
appropriate between faculty and students; more transparency in reporting and
investigating complaints; more women in senior leadership positions in
academia; and making a student's career less dependent on just one professor.
"There is really no excuse for not addressing this," said Chaudhry of the National Women's Law Centre.
No comments:
Post a Comment