sexual harassment?

[TakeruK]

13 hours ago, rphilos said:

Based on the details that OP has now revealed, I agree that she was sexually harassed. However, your suggestion that you should "not have to justify" charges (related to sexual harassment or anything else) before making them because the justice system will conduct an investigation is grossly immoral. If someone feels uncomfortable because they were asked out by someone they're not interested in, or if they misinterpret an off-color joke, it would be seriously wrong to make any sort of complaint against that person, even if they are eventually vindicated. Merely being accused of sexual harassment is a traumatic and stigmatizing experience. You should only make accusations if you are justified in doing so. (In OP's case she is justified.)

I think I will have to disagree with you here, for the reasons I already said above. To clarify, I am not saying that the complainant must immediately go to the nearest Title IX reporter and file a report every single time they feel uncomfortable. If the complainant is comfortable doing so, I do believe directly discussing the matter with the other party is probably the most expedient and best path forward. It could lead to better mutual understanding and better interactions in the future. That's the goal.

But, if the complainant is uncomfortable around the other person, for whatever reason (e.g. the other person is their superior or they don't feel safe etc.) then they should not have to confront or further interact with the person that is causing the problem. This is the job of the Title IX office, to mediate and intervene in these situations. Again, I think too many people believe that being investigated by Title IX office is the same as criminal prosecution. It is not. The whole reason Title IX exists is to allow an in-between that is a little more formal than the direct conversation mentioned above and a legal charge against the offender. Note that sometimes the outcome of a Title IX investigation is to recommend legal action to be taken. Title IX investigations aren't criminal charges on themselves. Reporting an incident to the Title IX office is **not** an accusation of sexual harassment. It is a report of an incident. Nothing more unless it turns out to be something more.

If you place the burden on the person feeling uncomfortable to first have to talk to the other party and also "prove" that they are being made to feel uncomfortable, you are going to end up with a lot of unreported cases on campus and an unwelcome environment. Not every report made results in an action. If someone made a report involving you to the Title IX office but there is nothing that needs to be done, you might not even know about it. So while I definitely agree that being falsely accused is traumatic and stigmatizing, when the system works properly, this should not happen. An investigation only occurs if there is enough evidence to warrant one.

Finally, I don't think it's our place to decide for anyone here whether or not the OP was "actually" sexually harassed or not. You mention morality and I think my moral code would encourage me to believe people when they say they are feeling uncomfortable or unsafe. They don't need to "justify" it. They are the only one that can define what uncomfortable/unsafe means to them. I think it is much more immoral to engage in practices that create an unwelcome environment on campus. This is why I think it is important to have offices like the Title IX office on campus where people can make reports. In terms of what would result in a better campus environment, I would rather the office have reports that aren't "justified" (and so no action is taken) than for serious misconduct to go unreported. I think it is more moral to encourage people to make reports when they feel uncomfortable than to make everyone believe that they must justify all of their feelings.

13 hours ago, rphilos said:

In my description of what constitutes sexual harassment, I mentioned "persistent unwanted advances" as one kind of sexual harassment. I said sexual harassment could also involve "an explicit or implicit threat, inappropriate touching, or something along those lines," which could all be "single occurrence."

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Thanks for pointing this out.

10 hours ago, Sigaba said:

 

@TakeruK, does Title IX apply to Canadian academic institutions?

No, as I said in the first post, Title IX is a US law and Canada does not have the same wording. Instead, there are different policies and laws that protect against the same types of misconduct. We just don't have a Title IX office. Many of the other resources that people (including you) suggested also exist in Canada. And as I wrote in the first post, but in case it didn't show up clearly, the additional resources that would exist at most Canadian universities would be the labour union representing students (if the role in which the student was acting was unionized---e.g. some places only unionize TAs and not researchers while others do both, so whether this falls under your collective agreement depends on whether or not you have union representation). These grievance procedures generally encourage direct communication (as we wrote about above) but in cases of sexual harassment or other if the complainant is uncomfortable, there is a procedure to escalate to department or university level procedures. If that is not resolved, since education and employment are provincial jurisdictions, students could go to the Province's Labour Board or Human Rights Tribunal. For criminal activity, the case goes right to law enforcement (as with Title IX in the USA).

(My further discussion into Title IX was only in response to the general parts of rphilos' response)

[Sigaba]

44 minutes ago, TakeruK said:

(My further discussion into Title IX was only in response to the general parts of rphilos' response)

^ This was the point of my rhetorical question. 

[rphilos]

9 hours ago, TakeruK said:

But, if the complainant is uncomfortable around the other person, for whatever reason (e.g. the other person is their superior or they don't feel safe etc.) then they should not have to confront or further interact with the person that is causing the problem. This is the job of the Title IX office, to mediate and intervene in these situations. Again, I think too many people believe that being investigated by Title IX office is the same as criminal prosecution. It is not. The whole reason Title IX exists is to allow an in-between that is a little more formal than the direct conversation mentioned above and a legal charge against the offender. Note that sometimes the outcome of a Title IX investigation is to recommend legal action to be taken. Title IX investigations aren't criminal charges on themselves. Reporting an incident to the Title IX office is **not** an accusation of sexual harassment. It is a report of an incident. Nothing more unless it turns out to be something more.

If you place the burden on the person feeling uncomfortable to first have to talk to the other party and also "prove" that they are being made to feel uncomfortable, you are going to end up with a lot of unreported cases on campus and an unwelcome environment. Not every report made results in an action. If someone made a report involving you to the Title IX office but there is nothing that needs to be done, you might not even know about it. So while I definitely agree that being falsely accused is traumatic and stigmatizing, when the system works properly, this should not happen. An investigation only occurs if there is enough evidence to warrant one.

I never said anything about a possible victim of sexual harassment having to "confront" her harasser. I merely said that "You should only make accusations if you are justified in doing so," and that feeling "uncomfortable" is not, per se, a justification. Suppose a woman turns down an unattractive classmate for a date, he never makes advances toward her again, but she feels awkward and "uncomfortable" being in the same room with him. I wouldn't deny her feeling, but she would not be justified in filing a complaint. Filing a complaint and letting the Title IX office sort out whether wrongdoing occurred would itself be very wrong.

As to whether or not Title IX investigations are technically "criminal charges," this is an irrelevant semantic issue. Title IX investigations can lead to criminal charges and all sorts of other serious penalties, such as being expelled or loosing your job. Some people do engage in sexual harassment, and bad things ought to happen to them. But unjustified reports/charges made to the Title IX office lead bad things to happen to good people. Look at this story: A neighbor witnessed a USC football player and his girlfriend roughhousing, misinterpreted it as assault, and reported it to the university. USC's Title IX office expelled the man from the football team, even though his girlfriend repeatedly told the Title IX investigators that she had not been abused. Now the girlfriend hired a lawyer to try to compel the Title IX office to accept the fact that she wasn't abused, and make them stop punishing her boyfriend. This is what happens when you take all accusations at face value without asking for justification.

[Sigaba]

@TakeruK and @rphilos what are the two of you trying to accomplish with your back and forth in this particular thread? 

[rphilos]

1 hour ago, Sigaba said:

@TakeruK and @rphilos what are the two of you trying to accomplish with your back and forth in this particular thread? 

I said that accusations of sexual harassment should be justified. TakeruK objected. I explained why I think it is morally wrong to make unjustified accusations.

Multiple people (e.g., @NoirFemme) down-voted my posts saying that we should be careful about making accusations potentially based on false information or innocent misunderstandings. The vast majority of the people commenting on this thread said that the behavior described by OP in her original post was a clear-cut case of sexual harassment, even though the facts given in the original post did not support that verdict. Making false accusations is itself a horrendous, socially destructive thing to do. What I am trying to "accomplish" with my back and forth with TakeruK is to encourage people to rethink their immoral position that false accusations aren't a big deal.

[dr. t]

33 minutes ago, rphilos said:

I said that accusations of sexual harassment should be justified. TakeruK objected. I explained why I think it is morally wrong to make unjustified accusations.

You might want to re-read @TakeruK's posts, because that's a caricature of what they said, and no one here thinks anyone should make unjustified accusations.

Edited August 2, 2017 by telkanuru

[rphilos]

52 minutes ago, telkanuru said:

You might want to re-read @TakeruK's posts, because that's a caricature of what they said, and no one here thinks anyone should make unjustified accusations.

telkanuru, can you please provide evidence that I caricatured TakeruK? TakeruK said that you "should not have to justify or...determine whether or not the action they are complaining" about fits the definition of sexual harassment. They say: "If anyone feels that something is amiss, they should make a report/complaint" and "the Title IX coordinator decides that the report/information is actionable." TakeruK explicitly says that you should make a complaint even when you were offended by someone who "just doesn't know the social norms," which in practice means disproportionately reporting people who are on the autism spectrum or are for some reason socially impaired.

[TakeruK]

5 minutes ago, rphilos said:

telkanuru, can you please provide evidence that I caricatured TakeruK? TakeruK said that you "should not have to justify or...determine whether or not the action they are complaining" about fits the definition of sexual harassment. They say: "If anyone feels that something is amiss, they should make a report/complaint" and "the Title IX coordinator decides that the report/information is actionable." TakeruK explicitly says that you should make a complaint even when you were offended by someone who "just doesn't know the social norms," which in practice means disproportionately reporting people who are on the autism spectrum or are for some reason socially impaired.

None of what I said (including what you quoted here) implies that I think someone should accuse another person of misconduct because they are uncomfortable. I have said it twice now in this thread but I am not sure what the misunderstanding is. 

If someone is feeling uncomfortable by the actions of another, and they do not feel comfortable enough to talk to that person directly, they should be encouraged to report it to the appropriate place. If it's related to Title IX, then the Title IX office is the right place. A report is not an accusation. As I said earlier, when action is warranted, I believe that the most common action is just education/training/providing resources. It doesn't result in disciplinary action or loss of privileges. If someone is acting inappropriately without malice, I think that in most cases, the best course of action is someone from the Title IX office having a discussion with the person to let them know why their actions were inappropriate and to come up with strategies to avoid this behaviour in the future.

I agree with you that it would not be good to promote policies that unfairly discriminate against people on the autistic spectrum. But I don't understand your point on asking people to not report if it's "just doesn't know the social norms". I don't see how not knowing social norms should allow a person to make others feel uncomfortable. If someone doesn't know the social norms or is inadvertently making people feel uncomfortable, reporting it would help prevent this from continuing.

As we both agreed on, if someone doesn't know social norms and the complainant is comfortable doing so, it's probably ideal to have the two parties discuss it. But sometimes, external help from resources like the Title IX office is needed. Title IX is supposed to exist to help students and the campus---it is not a disciplinary process. By the way, the Title IX office investigates and comes to a decision on whether policy was violated but they do not discipline. They forward the decision to whomever is in charge of the reported person (e.g. a Dean for students, Provost for faculty members, HR if staff, etc.) 

 

[rphilos]

41 minutes ago, TakeruK said:

I agree with you that it would not be good to promote policies that unfairly discriminate against people on the autistic spectrum. But I don't understand your point on asking people to not report if it's "just doesn't know the social norms". I don't see how not knowing social norms should allow a person to make others feel uncomfortable. If someone doesn't know the social norms or is inadvertently making people feel uncomfortable, reporting it would help prevent this from continuing.

A large percentage of people are not capable of learning social norms well enough to always avoid inadvertently making others uncomfortable. This article talks about a professor (on the autism spectrum) who was driven to suicide by the pain of continually offending his colleagues: http://quillette.com/2017/07/18/neurodiversity-case-free-speech/

You keep saying that reports to a Title IX office aren't "accusations." I'm not sure what you mean. American Heritage Dictionary defines "accusation" as "A charge of wrongdoing that is made against a person or other party." The only reason to submit a report to a Title IX office is to inform them of some sort of wrongdoing. You say a Title IX investigation is "is not a disciplinary process." I guess an "investigation" is not a "disciplinary process" per se, but Title IX investigations can lead to serious, formal punishments. And, as a matter of fact, there are countless examples of Title IX committees committing travesties of justice (I gave one example above where Title IX officers expelled a USC student from the football team for abusing his girlfriend while the girlfriend kept protesting that he was innocent).

[dr. t]

Oh, we're at the dictionary definition part of the argument already?

[rphilos]

37 minutes ago, telkanuru said:

Oh, we're at the dictionary definition part of the argument already?

Good comeback. I guess you won the argument.

[orange turtle]

13 hours ago, rphilos said:

I never said anything about a possible victim of sexual harassment having to "confront" her harasser. I merely said that "You should only make accusations if you are justified in doing so," and that feeling "uncomfortable" is not, per se, a justification. 

@rphilos: Let's ask this another way. If a person was uncomfortable and feeling unsafe, what should they do? 

From what I read from the US Department of Education (Questions and Answers on Title IX and Sexual Violence (PDF) - US Department of Education), "responsible employees" have an obligation to report if a disclosure was made. Students or other persons can request the *school* keep it confidential and the school will consider it, but it seems the report still has to be made. ?Some exceptions? apply like if disclosure was made to counselling or if the person was not a "responsible employees" (e.g., janitorial staff). I'm not sure if I interpreted it correctly, so if someone knows otherwise, please feel free to correct. 

What I'm saying here is that the student or employee themselves don't have to go to the Title IX office for a report to be made. All the student or employee has to do is confide in a person of authority. If students and employees then worry a lot that the issue was unjustified and might get the person they were uncomfortable with into trouble, the number of people coming forward and asking for help will decrease significantly.

So what should a student, or other members of the university community do if something had *possibly* happen?

Going to friends *almost* always hypes it up as your friends are usually on your side as friends like their friends and are not necessarily objective. There is also a possibility things get more sensational as among friends, other discussions happen, like "OMG, u remember what X did to Y? This is like that!" In actuality, it might be completely different.

Not everyone has access to counselling or forums. Maybe they don't know it exists, or the wait list at counselling is long.

So what should people do? How do they determine if their gut feeling is wrong? They can't talk to a trusted person like a faculty member as that person has to report. So what should they (I, if I were in the US) do?

I understand your concerns, but I think many people in my situation are at a loss as to what to do. Practically do. We can argue about the semantics of what is appropriate and what isn't. But at the end of the day, these arguments will have someone going around wondering if they had over-reacted and worrying about the consequences to the person they were uncomfortable with.

I have not slept properly since these encounters. I have to see the guy again tomorrow. Worrying about whether I was unfair to him just makes it more difficult to speak to someone in person. Yes, I'm aware you have now said it was justified given my disclosure of context, but now I'm also walking around worrying that another person of authority or peer will react by saying things like "it was a compliment" or you should "justify" why you were uncomfortable because the other person might be on the spectrum or something.

So what should I do? What should people in my shoes do? Because just like the person who was "unfairly" brought to the attention of the Title IX (as you repeatedly say is unfair), people like me have to live with it, too.

 

[Sigaba]

@rphilos put down the shovel.

On 7/30/2017 at 5:53 PM, orange turtle said:

So I confided in my supervisor that a faculty member in our faculty (different department) asked me to sleep with him and that I was upset by the offer.

The first sentence is the OP is the one that mattered. No additional details were needed for anyone who has had any training in how sexual harassment is defined or on how to conduct oneself professionally in the work place.

You have attempted to hijack the thread by going on and on and on and on about "morality" and the law, uniformed statements about legal "semantics," hypotheticals about unattractive men getting turned down for a date (a revealing example), and comments about autism.

Women don't need the permission of or validation from men to feel the way they feel about their own experiences or if they want to take action. If men don't want to be accused of improper conduct, they should do some soul searching, learn the relevant policies, get some training on how to act appropriately, dial up their situational awareness, stop thinking with their Johnsons, and govern themselves accordingly. 

In regards to soul searching, you should look in the mirror.  To repeat--the OP provided all (read: all) of the information needed. A faculty member propositioned a graduate student for sex and the student took umbrage. Your demand for additional information and ongoing attempts to shift the conversation indicate that your first, second, and third thoughts are that it is okay for someone to exploit a position of power for sex.

 

[Concordia]

I'll try again, speaking from ignorance of this situation (and Canadian regulations): if the official machinery of reporting harassment is more than you want to undertake, can you request to get moved from this guy's project?  When asked for a reason, you can just say that you weren't thrilled that he propositioned you.  If someone in admin wants to take that to the next level, they can.  If not, it leaves it on the record.

[EliaEmmers]

3 hours ago, Sigaba said:

You have attempted to hijack the thread by going on and on and on and on about "morality" and the law, uniformed statements about legal "semantics," hypotheticals about unattractive men getting turned down for a date (a revealing example), and comments about autism.

THIS. I mean, the sheer mental gymnastics that rphilos engages in to try to justify to himself why women should not speak up when facing harassment  deserves its own gold medal on BS. 

[fuzzylogician]

Ignoring the sidetracking comments, @orange turtle, you are completely justified in your feelings, and I am sorry that happened to you; your advisor's reaction is demoralizing and a real shame, in part because of what it probably means about her experiences of being a woman in your field and more importantly for how it's impacted you.

Since we're talking about Canada and not the US, you can talk to someone in a position of authority without them being required to report it (as I understand it). It's up to you if you choose to do so and what other steps you choose to take. I can see several decisions that might make sense, given other circumstances. One thing to definitely do from now on is to document every interaction with CreepProf, so you have contemporaneous notes of everything that happens. From there, it's really a question for you and unfortunately a question of politics as to what makes sense next. It seems pretty clear that your advisor isn't going to be a supporter on this front, but an important question is whether she will object, or if this could affect your letters from her. (I'm assuming that you're definitely not getting a letter from CreepProf, so you're already limiting your options given that this is someone you've worked with who otherwise would write you a letter.)

I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that an older married dude who's been around for a while has done this before. You can't possibly be the first one. Now, it's a whole other matter whether the department is aware and what it would be willing to do about it. It could be that each person thinks she's the only one, worries for her career, and doesn't report. It's also unfortunately entirely possible that people have reported in the past and didn't get the necessary support, and were pushed out one way or another. There has to be some rumor mill surrounding this that maybe has some info. This is crucial -- doing this alone is possible but very difficult. It's much easier if there is someone who can be on your side. And even so, unfortunately, the victim bears the burden of proof and you have to continue wallowing in it for a long time, since these procedures can take months and months. I am not trying to tell you what to do at all -- but it's important to be aware of the potential consequences and to do it the right way. Either way, your concern should be for your own well being and your career, definitely *not* for him and how he might be impacted! 

[TakeruK]

@orange turtle: Sorry for sidetracking with all the Title IX discussion. I felt it was necessary to respond to the comment that seemed to discourage reporting because others who read this might feel discouraged from reporting when it could make a difference.

Back to Canada, as I wrote earlier, each province has different policies and laws. They are similar to the United States Title IX policies though. There are province-wide rules that are general as they mostly just govern what workplace-specific policies are allowed. Here is the policy of the largest university in the province where I live, hopefully you can find something similar for where-ever you live/work: http://bullyingandharassment.ubc.ca/. Each policy will be different, but the chain of escalation (if you wish to do so) is pretty much the same. This particular policy does require people like your supervisor to forward your complaint to a higher level. In any case, you did the right thing by going to her first, but since that didn't go anywhere, if you want to go further, you can escalate this above your supervisor. However, it's up to you how far you want to go. Maybe you want to just do what you need to do in order to avoid contact with the creepy prof, but you do have the right to go further if that is what you wish!

[rphilos]

11 hours ago, Sigaba said:

@rphilos put down the shovel.

You have attempted to hijack the thread by going on and on and on and on about "morality" and the law

Guilty as charged. It's very sad that you and some others on this forum don't care much about morality, and are unable to follow my arguments. I thought this was supposed to be a message board for scholars.

[rphilos]

11 hours ago, orange turtle said:

@rphilos:

So what should I do? What should people in my shoes do? Because just like the person who was "unfairly" brought to the attention of the Title IX (as you repeatedly say is unfair), people like me have to live with it, too.

I have already said that you are justified in making a complaint, based on the information you revealed. But I'm disturbed that you put scare quotes around the word "unfairly" to describe the false accusations made against the USC football player. In that case, a neighbor who didn't know the facts made a complaint, the girlfriend told Title IX officers that she was not abused, and the boyfriend was punished anyway. Now the supposed victim in that case hired a lawyer to defend her boyfriend. If you struggle to see the "unfairness" of that, and the damage that can result from false accusations, that is a problem.

[rphilos]

7 hours ago, EliaEmmers said:

THIS. I mean, the sheer mental gymnastics that rphilos engages in to try to justify to himself why women should not speak up when facing harassment  deserves its own gold medal on BS. 

Is "mental gymnastics" just your way of describing "rational thought." If there's something wrong with my arguments, quote what I wrote and explain why it's wrong.

Edited August 3, 2017 by rphilos

[cowgirlsdontcry]

On ‎7‎/‎30‎/‎2017 at 7:53 PM, orange turtle said:

So I confided in my supervisor that a faculty member in our faculty (different department) asked me to sleep with him and that I was upset by the offer. My supervisor responded that I was over reacting and that he meant it as a compliment as he was attracted to me. She went on to say that if I want to progress in academia, I should learn that working below men was normal and that I should get used to being hit on and recognize a compliment when I was given one. She then reminded me he didn't actually attack me, so "get over it and stop being so sensitive."

I was so upset by her comment I had to go home, and then I just cried and cried. I couldn't come to work for a few days because I was just dejected.

Now I'm just confused. Am I over reacting? I thought it was sexual harassment before I spoke to her but now I'm just confused. I was thinking of talking to my graduate program head and that's why I approached my supervisor for advice. Now I'm scared of talking to the head as I'm worried he will just behave exactly the same way. If it matters, my program head is a man and while he is nice, I am uncomfortable and afraid to tell him. The deputy chair is also a man. Both don't know me well except that I am in their department. I was hoping my supervisor would go with me, but her response was so unexpected. My supervisor is also well liked and popular with the faculty and students, and I am worried this will make her response more accepted and credible by the faculty.

But I don't think I could take another faculty member tell me I'm just being emotional for no reason.

 

I had not read some of the posts before I wrote the below. It may still be of value in some context.

What context was this said in? Did you go with him somewhere outside of the university where he could get the idea that such a suggestion was permissible, not that you did anything to bring it on--but if he could have perceived it was a date, then it's possible he asked in that context? Or did he say this while in his capacity as a professor versus yours as a student? I see you're in Canada and I don't know how they handle situations like this. If you are a grad student in the US and working as a GA/TA/RA at a public university, then every faculty member, staff and grad student, as state employees, must take a sexual harassment test provided by the state every year. You watch a powerpoint presentation or a video, then answer questions. I was concerned for a moment when first reading your post, that the female faculty member was going to tell you that it was necessary for you to sleep with him. I have never, since I've been a student, had a professor say something like this to me. It was common in the workplace until the US passed federal laws against sexual harassment. I had men say lurid things all of the time to me and had no recourse. But now there is recourse. Since you aren't in the US, you don't have Title IX counselling on campus, which this might fall under. But I'm sure there may be similar laws in place in Canada. I'm sorry you are having this difficulty.

Edited August 3, 2017 by cowgirlsdontcry

[orange turtle]

2 hours ago, rphilos said:

I have already said that you are justified in making a complaint, based on the information you revealed. But I'm disturbed that you put scare quotes around the word "unfairly" to describe the false accusations made against the USC football player. In that case, a neighbor who didn't know the facts made a complaint, the girlfriend told Title IX officers that she was not abused, and the boyfriend was punished anyway. Now the supposed victim in that case hired a lawyer to defend her boyfriend. If you struggle to see the "unfairness" of that, and the damage that can result from false accusations, that is a problem.

I wasn't referring to the USC player at all. I'm referring to all the people who would potentially reported.

Read the context of what I said and what I quoted from your posts. I never mentioned the USC person. I said "the person" (any person) not "that/the person you mentioned" or "the example you quoted" in any sentence.

Rphilos: "...feeling "uncomfortable" is not, per se, a justification"

I said "unfairly" in quotes because, you know what, people who don't know social norms and the like could also be predatory and / or inappropriate. So yes, "unfairly" because it is dependent on a case by case basis. And to borrow your train of thought, not knowing social norms is not, per se, justifcation for making another person uncomfortable.

Also, you used "uncomfortable" in quotation marks, so you know how it is used. Unless you meant that all women (and men) who feel uncomfortable are definitely not valid to feel uncomfortable.

You have spent all this time defending the person (Note: NOT the USC player or the neurodiverse prof in the article you linked) who might or might not be "unfairly" accused. What say you about the people who are on the receiving end? 

I am asking you what should people do when they need advice on their experiences. Because having to explain my context to you and then have you derail it repeatedly with all the other examples seems like a nefarious attempt to just shift the focus from the main question. 

[TakeruK]

2 hours ago, rphilos said:

Guilty as charged. It's very sad that you and some others on this forum don't care much about morality, and are unable to follow my arguments. I thought this was supposed to be a message board for scholars.

Disagreement with you does not mean I do not understand your arguments. I understand what you are saying. But let's talk about just one specific thing: the idea that people should report things that "feels" wrong to the Title IX office (if it's relevant to Title IX). I argued that this is important in order to ensure a welcome and safe campus. You argue that if reporters/complainants do not take care to ensure that a Title IX violation actually happened, then these reporters are causing more harm than good. Is that correct?

I already wrote about why I think more reports is better because students generally are in a position of less power and when one does not know how things are supposed to work, people in power can take advantage. The student may feel that this is normal behaviour that they "just have the deal with" or that they are just being "too sensitive". You countered by saying that harm comes to people being reported. I argued that a Title IX report is not an accusation and that a Title IX investigation is distinct from discipline/punishment. 

You presented the case of the USC football player. I don't know of the details of this case case and your telling of it sounds like it is an example of Title IX gone badly. But cherry-picking specific cases where the above idea failed doesn't mean that the entire idea is bad. From working with the Title IX office from my old campus, I know that there are many cases where something inappropriate happened many times but the proper resolution only happened because people said something. Many students have reported something, thinking it was just something small and insignificant but it was actually a clear violation. Or, someone thought it was just a one-time thing that only happened to them, but after reporting it, was surprised to hear that 10 other students reported the same person for the same violation. Your example of the USC football player shows that the system needs further adjustment but it is the failure of that Title IX process, not the fact that the neighbour made the report that led to that outcome.

This is how I parsed this specific point of the discussion. From my perspective, when the system fails, it is not due to "unjustified" reports, but because some other process broke down. I am not privy to the details of the USC player's Title IX investigation (I believe these are meant to be confidential) so I can't comment on where it broke down. But to say that the neighbour's report is responsible for an unfair Title IX decision would be placing blame on the wrong part of the process. Again, I wasn't there, but the story that you linked would suggest to me that the problem was with how the Title IX office handled the complaint, not the fact that the complaint happened. 

[orange turtle]

@serenade, @avflinsch, @NoirFemme, @Hope.for.the.best, @Pandas, @aberrant, @Comparativist, @TakeruK, @Concordia, @fuzzylogician, @telkanuru

@cowgirlsdontcry

@Sigaba, @EliaEmmers

I have read all your advice, suggestions, possible departments /individuals to approach, sympathies, and thoughts. Thank you.

I have a meeting tomorrow where CreepProf, as Fuzzy christened him, will attend. I am going to take it step -by -step for now. And start by seeing if I am too uncomfortable attending the meeting. And if I am, then I will consider approaching another PI who is younger and seems quite motherly (I know I'm completely stereotyping here and it's unfair that women often get burdened with more disclosures). I think I'm gonna make an appointment with counselling, too, just to see if they might have ideas as professionals.

For now, I think I will try and "move on" and try not to let him affect my work. It just doesn't seem worth it. And this board / forum has been immensely helpful in helping out things in perspective, including the *initial* questions about context @rphilos and @Comparativist. I appreciate (very much!) that women and men who are uncomfortable with a proposition should not have to provide context, *but* I can also appreciate that if I am asking for advice, I should have to contextualise it for more complete advice.

Thank you. This has helped clarify the yes-it-is-no-it-isn't thoughts.

And I'm gonna bring lots of chocolates for the meeting tomorrow. A female friend in my department always reminds me for all stressful days that "chocolates help when dementors are nearby." (Harry Potter fans will understand) :-)

P.s., if I left anyone's name off the list, my apologies.

 

Edited August 3, 2017 by orange turtle

[Sigaba]

3 hours ago, rphilos said:

Guilty as charged. It's very sad that you and some others on this forum don't care much about morality, and are unable to follow my arguments. I thought this was supposed to be a message board for scholars.

Again, put down the shovel.

Your arguments are being followed just fine. That others of different temperament and backgrounds disagree with you doesn't mean that you're not being understood. Quite the contrary.

The pretense of scholarly conversation and pleas for moral conduct fall flat from the weight of your repeated efforts to control a conversation so that it's about you, and from the ineffective aggression you display when you don't get what you want. 

Just so there is additional confusion on your part, here's a summary.

Sexual harassment includes unwanted advances.

A person's interpretation of a traumatic experience doesn't need your approval or understanding to be valid. 

The perception of being harassed is generally enough to initiate a response as laid out by an institution's policies and applicable laws. 

It's the system's responsibility to provide due process and to protect the rights of the accused, not of the recipient of the unwanted advance.

Faculty members hitting on students is unethical because there is an inherent and insurmountable disparity in power.

If you ask out a classmate, you put yourself at risk. If you don't want to be at risk, don't ask out your classmates.

If you don't like the rules, the appropriate way to voice one's concerns doesn't include an interrogation by you.

You are not qualified to lecture people on matters of law and morality. If you were, you'd have cited laws and/or peer reviewed scholarship and/or professional publications to support your points.

EOM/NRN