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University of Colorado Boulder Chancellor replaces chair, suspends grad admissions, and makes other moves to ensure new culture for Philosophy Department after APA report finds sexual harassment and discrimination

January 31, 2014

Earlier today, the campus announced that Professor Andy Cowell will head our philosophy department at CU-Boulder. Professor Cowell is a professor of French literature and a former chair of two departments, French and Italian and linguistics. This change was made to improve the climate in philosophy for our faculty, staff and students and, specifically, to improve the climate for women.

We have made these changes based upon the recommendations of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in a recent report that we are making public today, as well as on evidence gathered from faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students in the department. That evidence points directly to the need to create a stronger, more inclusive environment in the department for women as scholars and students, that prevents acts of sexual harassment and discrimination, and that allows faculty to work together in a collegial environment of mutual respect.

Under Professor Cowell’s direction, the department will take key steps to improve the overall climate in philosophy. These steps include mandatory training on issues of sexual harassment; bystander intervention training to aid individuals in confronting acts of discrimination when they are observed; and focused, facilitated workshops to improve faculty collegiality and the scholarly climate in philosophy. In addition, we will assist graduate students in the processes involved in allocating resources.

I want to make it clear that we cannot allow patterns of misconduct and breaches of integrity to go unchecked. I expect this campus to operate at the highest levels of personal and professional integrity in everything we do. As we move ahead, we must stay on the course of creating an inclusive campus that fosters student success, improves retention and progress toward graduation, and that elevates the university’s reputation in all ways, at all times, with all our key stakeholders.

Philip P. DiStefano, chancellor
University of Colorado Boulder

Posted in APA, Feminism, Improving the philosophy profession, John Protevi, Women in philosophy

68 responses to “University of Colorado Boulder Chancellor replaces chair, suspends grad admissions, and makes other moves to ensure new culture for Philosophy Department after APA report finds sexual harassment and discrimination”

John Protevi

January 31, 2014

See also this story in the campus newspaper: http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_25035043

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John Protevi

January 31, 2014

Two follow-ups:
1) Many thanks to the APA CSW for this report.
2) Good on the CU upper administration for acting so strongly; but on the other hand, what took them so long?

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Nicolas McGinnis

January 31, 2014

The report notes, among other things, that
“The Department uses pseudo-philosophical analyses to avoid directly addressing the situation. Their faculty discussions revolve around the letter rather than the spirit of proposed regulations and standards. They spend too much time articulating (or trying to articulate) the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior instead of instilling higher expectations for professional behavior. They spend significant time debating footnotes and “what if” scenarios instead of discussing what they want their department to look and feel like. In other words, they spend time figuring out how to get around regulations rather than focusing on how to make the department supportive of women and family-friendly.”
I find this specific kind of derailing frustrating and really problematic. It assumes that rules, to be good rules, should be perfectly unambiguous. In the background of such ‘discussions’ is the notion that any ambiguity could potentially be ‘used against’ innocent faculty, and that such alleged potential is more important than addressing the actual victims of oppression and sexism.

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Mark Lance

January 31, 2014

Standard operating procedure for philosophers. Remember the debates on APA ads for schools discriminating against gays?

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dmf

January 31, 2014

if the quote is accurate (I don’t know this group but have certainly been in such meetings)what does this say about the thinking/response-abilities of the faculty involved, the education they received, and the education that they are providing?

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DS

January 31, 2014

Maybe we take away something about this regarding the dominant ideals of philosophical methodology: emphasis on rigor and clarity, endless reflection through hypotheticals/counterexamples/thought experiments etc…
What we take away might be that these are, at best, ideals of philosophical methodology and nothing more.
To quote Kierkegaard on related theological issues:
“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close.”
Polemical and extreme, but sometimes that’s what is needed.

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Julie Klein

January 31, 2014

Thanks to the APA CSW for such important work.

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Mark Lance

January 31, 2014

There is no methodology that is proof against hypocritical use. Those lacking in virtue will be able to make use of any methodology, and procedure, and set of rules to work against a just society. So while I think it is really common for analytic philosophers to logic chop as a way to avoid dealing with pressing social issues, the important point is not that there is something wrong with logic chopping, but just that this is the tool they are most likely to use. We have to work on improving ourselves and our seriousness about things.

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Robin James

January 31, 2014

Is anyone else bothered by the use of a normative ideal of the (bourgeois) family as a/the way to ensure that women are protected from sexual harassment? “Family friendliness” is a constant refrain throughout the report. There’s a very specific image of “the family” that’s deployed in the report, and it makes me wonder which particular kinds of women this report thinks it is helping. Like, I could imagine an interpretation of “family friendliness” that was very damaging to transwomen and genderqueer people.

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DS

January 31, 2014

That was more or less what I was remarking on, it was not my aim to suggest that logic-chopping was inherently problematic, but that we should be wary of our relationship to it. At most I wanted to suggest that the analyses may not have been ‘pseudo-philosophical’ but straightforwardly philosophical and that logic-chopping lends itself particularly well to certain forms of evasion.

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Dan Hicks

January 31, 2014

This is the authors’ gloss on “family-friendly”-ness: “Events should be held during normal business hours (9-5) and should be such that you would feel comfortable with your children or parents being present.” (6) Later they add that being family-friendly “includ[es] recognizing that community members with small children or other obligations cannot attend after-hour social events.” (8; see also 12) If that doesn’t assuage your worries, could you explain them a bit more?

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Ed Kazarian

January 31, 2014

Depending on how that standard gets interpreted, I can certainly see it being a problem–and the implicit norm is, as you say, troubling.
But this also makes me wonder about the norm of socializing in general: what I’m getting out of the whole line of thinking that’s being couched in those ‘family friendly’ terms is both a pretty strong pushback against ‘socializing’ as a professional expectation / norm of departmental life, with the clear implication that such socializing tends to create a climate of harassment, and an attempt to avoid saying that the expectation of socializing, per se, is inherently problematic. In other words, there seems to be an implicit presumption that a healthy department would support a ‘social life’ and that preserving some kernel of it is necessary.
But I’ve heard plenty of folks say (as I suspect others here have as well) that this sort of expectation of social collegiality is pretty broadly uncomfortable for a lot of folks, especially those outside the privileged positions. I’ve also seen an awful lot of people in the privileged positions who are utterly unaware of any potential for discomfort on the part of other folks and who would fail to see unwillingness to participate in departmental socialization as anything other than being a ‘bad colleague.’
So with all the standard caveats about trying to draw too many conclusions from what is clearly a bad, bad situation, one does wonder…

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LogicFan

January 31, 2014

Does anyone have any idea what happened at Colorado to warrant such a damning report? I wasn’t aware that the Department had a reputation for sexual harassment/hostile work environment/etc., although I did have the sense that it had a bad reputation for arguably objectionable behavior related to hiring.
While I tend to trust this survey, it is always disturbing to me when no factual evidence is provided. Surely there are ways to anonymize the facts that protect the victims involved. But when these reports are totally devoid of factual content, as this one is, they’re easy to rationally dismiss it as being overzealous or unfair.

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Michel X.

January 31, 2014

Well, there’s the fact that at least 15 complaints were filed with ODH. There’s also the fact that the university itself is taking action (and commissioned the report, spending 25k on it), which probably isn’t something it would do for no good reason.
What I find worrisome (and this is in no way more worrisome than the content of the report, nor does it detract from that content) is the thought expressed on p. 12: “The reputation of the CU Boulder Philosophy Department as a place extremely unfriendly to women is well known in philosophical circles and among prospective graduate students.” This attitude of “everybody knows” is one I’ve seen thrown around a lot, but it worries me because it’s not clear to me that enough people–let alone everyone-know what’s up. Especially not prospectives.
Now, I can only speak for myself (and report some of the chatter that’s been going on online), but it definitely doesn’t seem like these things are even widely known among prospectives. I know of rumours from a handful of departments, no more, and Boulder wasn’t among them. But I learned them after becoming a PhD student and attending a few conferences. Prospective students can only rely on what their advisors know or choose to communicate, and I’m not convinced that’s enough.
I guess that just stresses the importance of contacting students at a department before accepting (or perhaps even applying). But I wonder if it might not be a good thing to have these sorts of things hidden behind fewer layers of secrecy.

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LogicFan

January 31, 2014

Michel, that’s not evidence of wrongdoing. Most discrimination complaints are found to be unsubstantiated. The proportion varies with the institution, but typically less than 33% are substantiated. So we can’t draw too much from that number. There could have been 1 or 2 instances of harassment/discrimination/etc., or 15. That’s why it’s important for these reports to break out the numbers a bit.
Also, I’m afraid you’re expecting too much when you assume that a university only acts for good reason. Big bureaucracies are weird things and not always rational, especially when it comes to ethical matters.
It’s just not at all clear to me why the report couldn’t have included something like this: “Faculty member X was alleged to have bullied graduate student Y by telling him that his work was ‘stupid’ and ‘could get him kicked out of the program’. These remarks were overheard by a disinterested third party, unaffiliated staff member Z.” There’s no danger to the victim there whatsoever. That’s what the authors of these reports need to include to get people to understand exactly what’s going on and the need to combat it.

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Anne Jacobson

January 31, 2014

Logic fan, what evidence is there for the claim “Most discrimination complaints are found to be unsubstantiated”? It looks to be extremely indefinite (most academic? most workplace? In the US? Canada? Australia? China? Europe?) and probably impossible to know.
In addition, the standard for going forward with federal complaints seems to me in part a product of very underfunded offices flooded with complaints. (I say this as someone whose case did make it into mediation.)

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LogicFan

January 31, 2014

Hi Anne–
All the data that I’m aware of are from the USA. I’m sure you’re right that this proportion varies substantially, both by country (the situation in Saudi Arabia I’m sure is much worse) and by profession (it seems reasonable to assume that investment banking is worse than academia).
In any case, the most reliable data come from the EEOC, the federal agency responsible for enforcing federal discrimination laws; protecting women, people of color, veterans, LGBT people, et al. from illegal discrimination.
You can find the EEOC data here: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/.
Consider the most recent data for sexual harassment charges. In only 7.6% of cases was reasonable cause found to substantiate the charges. Note, though, that this value understates things for our purposes, since some cases of bona fine harassment fall under “administrative closures” and “settlements” for the EEOC’s purposes. But in any case the proportion of genuine sexual harassment charges is quite low–around, roughly, 20%.

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Nicole Wyatt (@nwyatt)

January 31, 2014

I must admit despite reading the APA report with interest and endorsing the senior administration’s intervention in this case, I’m a little worried about the effectiveness of the “public shaming” approach in this case. It is one thing to publicly report on an individual’s bad behaviour — e.g. the circumstances surrounding Colin McGinn’s resignation. It is another thing for the administration to make public a report which (a) did not have the general public as an intended audience and (b) was restricted by confidentiality from actually identifying bad actors.
It does not seem to me that publicizing the details of the report will help the department improve as opposed to simply putting them on the defensive (a problem that the APA report itself identifies with earlier administration action). Further, bringing in an external chair who is not a philosopher does not seem likely to achieve buy-in from the department. Let me be clear here: I am not saying that the department deserves to be protected from the bad publicity. I just am unpersuaded that this “put them in the stocks” approach is best route to improving the environment of the department.
Given that there are clearly known sexual harrassers in the department, it seems strange that those people in particular have not been -ahem- invited to retire. An external search for a chair who is a philosopher but not entrenched in the current problems of the department would seem appropriate also.

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Justin E. H. Smith

February 1, 2014

I share the concern about public shaming. Clearly, a good number of people in our profession do not. I have already seen, elsewhere, people mocking Graeme Forbes’ department website photo as “creepy,” and speculating that he is “probably best friends with McGinn.” I’m certain this sort of reaction is only going to get worse as the story festers on the Internet. Please, colleagues, try not to get caught up in the fervor of purging. Try not to demonize individuals, especially not for features such as advanced age, facial physiognomy, or single relationship status… yes, I have also seen comments suggesting that there is something inherently unfriendly about an environment with unpartnered men in it. Needless to say I find this sort of normativity, family values malgré soi, unacceptable. Try not to attribute moral vices to individuals when there is no evidence for these. And please, please let us retire the “creepy old man” stereotype. All this is important not just as a matter of principle, but also for the success of the very goals of inclusiveness and culture change that we all agree are needed.

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Michael B

February 1, 2014

“The Department uses pseudo-philosophical analyses to avoid directly addressing the situation. Their faculty discussions revolve around the letter rather than the spirit of proposed regulations and standards. They spend too much time articulating (or trying to articulate) the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior instead of instilling higher expectations for professional behavior. They spend significant time debating footnotes and “what if” scenarios instead of discussing what they want their department to look and feel like. In other words, they spend time figuring out how to get around regulations rather than focusing on how to make the department supportive of women and family-friendly.”
Contra warnings about geometric ignorance, this should be above the door of every philosophy classroom.

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russell

February 1, 2014

Would anyone be willing to comment on whether the allegations at Colorado extend to the experiences of undergraduates at their summer program? I’ve been encouraging students to apply to that and don’t know whether I should stop.

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Rita N

February 1, 2014

Am I the only one who finds the spirit of the report somewhat chilling?
In themselves, many of the proposed steps may make sense. But when you put it all together: ban on alcohol, ban on socialising, ban on email communication, ban on meetings outside business hours, bystander training will encourage and enable people to report anyone who is perceived to engage in inappropriate behaviour, individuals must call out disrespectful comments and those called out should receive the correction without being defensive, and so on. This suggests a spirit of vigilance against anyone falling out of the line, a public shaming of those who do – this reminds me of certain things, and none of those things are good.
I was also wondering who will want to work or study at this department after all this.

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John Protevi

February 1, 2014

Alright, with Rita’s oh-so-clever “feminazi” allusion this comment thread has officially outlived its usefulness. Y’all can find some other venue to demonstrate the adage about comment threads on the topic of feminism showing the need for feminism.
NB: I specifically exempt Nicole Wyatt’s and Justin Smith’s comments from this last observation.

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John Protevi

February 1, 2014

After some FB discussion, I’m re-opening this thread. I will be moderating, after the fact, as is the custom here at NA: http://www.newappsblog.com/comments-policy.html

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Julie Klein

February 1, 2014

I agree with Nicole and Justin re shaming. Reading the CSW report, it looks like university, as well as the dept, needs to get serious. Clearly, we are looking at some longstanding problems.
I worry a bit, too, about the language of “family-friendly.” From the report, it sounds like going “family friendly” is a corrective for a situation that is out of hand. It is also a convenient shorthand for describing what would appear to be the opposite of what’s been going on. I would prefer to frame the issue in terms of promoting an atmosphere of respect and equality and recognizing that faculty and students have personal, as well as professional responsibilities and commitments.

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Ed Kazarian

February 1, 2014

Nichole Wyatt and Justin Smith both make extremely well-taken points here, especially when linked up with Robin James’ point above. The issue of normalizing a certain picture of appropriate personal life (‘family-friendly’) as a way of protecting against harassment is worrisome, to say the least.
It’s also worth interrogating the administration response here a bit along the lines Nichole suggests.
First, much of what the administration has done seems to be more or less what they are legally obligated to do under Title IX given the existence of such a damning report. Failing to make a significant effort to address the overall climate of hostility in the department would leave the University open to legal action, and taking the sorts of steps they have taken will likely be of at least some use in insulating them (obviously, how successfully would depend on many other factors).
Second, the above said, it does seem important and genuinely positive that the administration is looking at the overall climate and the systemic issues at the level of the department, rather than simply seeing the problem as bearing exclusively upon certain individuals. If there is genuine follow through and a serious attempt on the part of all concerned to listen and respond to the concerns of those who have been suffering harassment, that’s good news. I would reserve judgment, however, until it becomes clear what precisely will happen in this regard. A few mandatory ‘canned’ training sessions that provide the institution legal cover (and these exist and are readily available) will be grossly inadequate. There needs to be a substantial critical and reflective process that puts the onus of change upon those who have been actively or passively enabling the creation of a hostile climate.
Third, if there are clear indications that certain individuals have been active harassers, those folks need to go if at all possible. Failure to take this step will render any of the others basically useless and mark them out as window dressing.
So it seems to me that we still have some way to go yet before we see how serious an administrative response this is.

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PPhil

February 1, 2014

I have a good amount of information about this case, but I’m going to remain anonymous because there is tremendous political pressure to agree with a specific story promoted by the APA report and the administration. I’ll start with a response to LogicFan and Anne Jacobson. 2 of the 15 ODH complaints were substantiated. Many people are baffled by the repetition of the “15” number in the report. It seems to us that 2/15 shows that there is widespread over reporting rather than widespread harassment and discrimination.

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John McCumber

February 1, 2014

Section 2 under “Findings and Suggested Best Practices” refers, mysteriously, to “lack of civility, collegiality, and respect for members of various groups.” Then it talks about “incivility, a lack of collegiality, verbalized disrespect for one another, and sexism.”
What groups? What verbalized disrespect? Is the problem strictly one of sexism/gender harassment, or is that located within a wider culture of disrespect?

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Matt S.

February 1, 2014

There is surely a way to take strong action on behalf of the current and future women associated with the department without shaming the entire department. There are good people whose careers could be damaged by the publication of this report.
For example, consider someone who has just been hired by that department (e.g., someone hired in the past 2 years). That person will soon be assumed by all to be a part of a horribly sexist department worthy of collective shaming. It will be hard for that person to escape that stain. But s/he will have had very little to nothing to do with the problems in the department. Why should this person be publicly shamed by the publication of this report? Or, consider also good hearted junior faculty who fear that they will not get tenure if they speak up (if the climate is that bad, one wonders whether there was fear that reporting the bad behavior would earn one retaliation).
The report by an outside monitoring body itself was very important. It is very good that it was produced and shared amongst university leadership and the members of the department. It is the publication of this report about which I raise questions. Of course, if the only alternative was doing nothing, then the report should have been published. There is, though, a vast array of strong responses available between no response and the public shaming of the entire department.

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John Protevi

February 1, 2014

I think this passage from p 8 of the report is relevant here: “Standards of professional collegial behavior are higher than the legal and policy requirements. Perhaps as a result of the history of harassment in the department, people have set the bar low. Just because a behavior was not egregious enough to avoid [sic; I think “merit” is better here] a finding of sexual harassment, does not mean that it meets the standards of professional collegiality.”

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anonphil

February 1, 2014

Preoccupation with alleged “public shaming” seems misplaced, as usual, regarding institutional problems of well-known types.
More specifically, is there any indication that the writers of the APA report, who apparently believed that it would be confidential, were trying to shame anybody? Is there any indication that the CU administration was trying to shame the philosophy department, as compared to acting with transparency in publicly releasing the report?
More generally, is public shaming supposed to consist merely in making known to outsiders behavior likely to be viewed as bad or embarrassing, even when there is a systematic or longstanding problem that others (e.g., prospective stakeholders) have good reason to want to know about? If an institution is so concerned about being unfairly tarred on the whole, shouldn’t it be vigilant about identifying and preempting or dealing with serious problems, rather than worrying about public perception after that fact?
One last question: Doesn’t collegial insistence on the feasible possibility of promoting positive change through genteel means presuppose a good faith commitment to change, when the persistence of serious problems often suggests that genteel means were not and are unlikely to be nearly effective enough?

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r

February 1, 2014

I’m sympathetic insofar as I’m reluctant to move to a general model of professional academic life (or, really, workplace life) where a wide range of formally accepted sociability is excised because of its potential for leading to inappropriate exchanges. In a culture where we work all the time, drawing the lines between ‘colleague’ and ‘friend’ that much more clearly results in people spending much less of their life getting friendly contact, a form of contact that greatly contributes to the quality of life.
However, in situations like this it can still be utterly appropriate to take such measures. Bad environments are self-reinforcing, and can easily require drastic action to re-set them–actions that would not be necessary under the ordinary state of affairs, and which may well be abandoned once things are sufficiently back to normal. Perhaps tongue-in-cheek, as we would say to a child: you can have your drinks at faculty receptions back once we know we can trust you with them.

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PPhil

February 1, 2014

Yes, John, it’s right that not meriting an ODH conviction does not imply meeting the standards of professional collegiality. All I was addressing was the “15” number trotted out again and again. We should look at each piece of evidence individually, and I was looking at one piece. If we want to take a wider view of the report, I suggest that we look at the striking evidential disconnect between reported facts and editorialized conclusions in the report. I also suggest that we look at the methodology for the collection of those facts. Of course, that wasn’t reported.

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John Protevi

February 1, 2014

Page 2 of the report lists the procedures employed by the site visit team.

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Matt S.

February 1, 2014

It is also worth noting that the report says that almost all members of the department did not engage in harassment. There was a failure to act by many, of course. But, there is a difference between being slow to respond to something wrong and committing that wrong. It seems that good people who made mistakes, perhaps out of a variety of morally complicated motives that are familiar to all of us (fear of reprisal, and so on) and other familiar motives that are not praiseworthy but are still not utterly damning (e.g., cowardice in the face of social pressure).
I am not trying to excuse inaction so much as to point out that the entire profession (and other elements of the academy) coming down quite hard on the entire department seems out of line. Inaction merits a condemnation, but from whom and in what way?

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Matt S.

February 1, 2014

Oh didn’t see your comment. I wasn’t pointing a finger at the APA report writers. It appears that it was the university administration that released the report.
It seems irrelevant whether those releasing the report intended to shame anyone. But, it is a foreseeable consequence. So, any damage done to innocent people’s reputations by the release of the report is a straightforward case of blameworthy negligence.
“Merely making the truth known” involves more than the publication of this report. The truth is vast and complicated. The best thing to do is to be careful in what is revealed instead of painting with a broad brush. In other words, it’s better in such cases to aim at saying the most amount of true things and to minimize suggesting falsehoods, at least when those falsehoods can be unfairly damaging to someone’s standing in a community.
I am not recommending collegiality over action. Rather, I am recommending that people respect those who are not responsible for the wrongs, or who are excusable, instead of just casually creating the conditions in which many are viewed unfairly as sexist cowards.

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Anon

February 1, 2014

A number of contributors to the thread have asked whether the report should have been released, on the basis of the public shame of the department that has resulted. Forbes in particular seems to be taking a disproportionate amount of flak. And Leiter’s blog now reports that the CU faculty had understood it would not be released.
I agree these are valid concerns, but those who have them should consider these other options the administration could have taken:
1) Bring in an outside chair and say nothing about why
2) Bring in an outside chair and make a brief statement that the change relates to improving the climate for women in the department
3) Bring in an outside chair and release a more extensive statement explaining the decision
The content of the report is drawing the attention, but given the decision to bring in an outside chair, there was almost certainly going to be a lot of attention on the department of some kind. Imagine the sorts of speculation options 1 or 2 would have set off! And while option 3 would have provided an opportunity for a more politic report, that report would then have been from the CU administration, so it would most likely be dismissed as a whitewash.
My point is that much of the unfortunate speculation and oversimplification of the past day’s discussions (present thread excluded) is inherent to that decision. And that decision was likely the proper one, given the content of the report. The unfortunate focus on Forbes, however unfair, was also probably inevitable (although the administration’s statements accompanying the report could have done a much better job explaining that the change was for structural reasons and not related to his personal conduct, as I read the report as saying). You just can’t brush a change like this under the rug. So I’m having trouble seeing the release of the report as being anything other than the right call.

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Ed Kazarian

February 1, 2014

Your reply seems to have no other purpose but to introduce confusion about the seriousness of the existence of 15 formal complaints and 2 proven cases of harassment.
1. Anne Jacobson has already explained in the remark you reference that it is extremely difficult to prove these sorts of cases to an officially actionable level. She is completely correct about this, and indeed recent Supreme Court decisions have made it even more difficult than it has historically been by narrowing the scope of actionable conduct even further. Moreover, it is widely understood that, if anything, harassment and other forms of workplace hostility tend to be generally underreported. If you want to claim that in this one specific situation, somehow the opposite is true, you would need to provide an account, a specific account, of why that should be the case here. Otherwise, we have every reason to believe that the widespread patterns would hold here, in which case 2 provable instances and 15 formal complaints gives every impression of a serious and systematic problem.
2. Claiming ‘inside info’ from an anonymous position, especially without in any way specifying the content of what you know, in order to conclude that all of this is overblown is simply laughable. You provide no evidence that you know anything, nor do you make specific claims the content of which can be tested, in order to conclude that the people who did investigate these circumstances must have been exaggerating the severity of the problem. Vague intimations that you might suffer ‘politically’ don’t do anything to make that less abusive, either.

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Linda S.

February 1, 2014

PPhil said:
“I have a good amount of information about this case, but I’m going to remain anonymous because there is tremendous political pressure to agree with a specific story promoted by the APA report and the administration. … 2 of the 15 ODH complaints were substantiated. Many people are baffled by the repetition of the ’15’ number in the report. It seems to us that 2/15 shows that there is widespread over reporting rather than widespread harassment and discrimination.”
The APA report:
“We found common misinterpretations of what ‘no finding’ means when issued by ODH.”
That a claim could not be substantiated by an investigation did not mean it did not happen. The claim that this is a problem with over reporting and not a problem with conduct is incredible.

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Anne Jacobson

February 1, 2014

Ed, thanks for your supportive comment. I tried to put up a reply specifically to LF, but John closed comments while I was composing it.
Let me explain a bit more. I think that generally making a complaint starts internally, and then may go on and then may go onto the federal level.
Here are some features of the process that really mean one can’t infer there was no merit if the case falls flat.
1. Much of the process may be handled by lawyers. I’m surprise any one makes it through the federal EEOC and gets the case heard without a lawyer. But even contingency representation asks for a basic fee in the thousands – at least as far as my experience goes.
2. At the university level the people hearing your case may have a conflict of interest. A lot of universities operate with a hierarchy, and it can be difficult, to say the least, to bring a case against someone “above” one. Further, one has to prove one was injured, so a lot of reports of threats are put on hold to see if, e.g., one is actually graded unjustly. (I think the interpretation of the law was clarified last year to deal with some problems here.)

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John Protevi

February 1, 2014

A very important post has just gone up at Feminist Philosophers: I highly recommend reading it: http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2014/02/01/colorado-what-we-do-and-dont-know/

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anonphil

February 1, 2014

Matt S., I appreciate the reply, though I’m having difficulties with it. “Public shaming” is, and has been described by various commenters as, a specific form of activity (e.g., “an approach”)–and is not simply a supposedly foreseeable consequence of what otherwise might be a reasonable course of action.
Your type of response seems to involve various kinds of speculation (or maybe you have inside information). The APA report paints the CU philosophy department as an institution, not the particular individuals comprising it, with “a broad brush.” Outsiders have no way of knowing, or even closely speculating about, who the individual offenders are. Indeed, I have not seen any such speculation here, at FP, or at LR–the major philosophy blogs. So I am at a loss as to how the report going public has meant “suggesting falsehoods” about individuals. Nor, though, do outsiders have much idea about which members of the CU department we are supposed to respect–i.e., “those who are not responsible for the wrongs, or who are excusable,” and so which of the “many” should not be “viewed unfairly as sexist cowards.” Outsiders also have no basis for speculating about which members might feel shamed and why–and whether any shame might be warranted by their own actions or inaction.
In short, the report provides no basis for speculation about the fault of individuals, one way or the other. Perhaps you think that this itself is deeply unfair. But such is life as a willing member of an institution that has serious problems.

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Ed Kazarian

February 1, 2014

Anne,
That’s very helpful in explaining exactly how the percentages play out as they do, and it’s completely consistent with what I’ve seen and heard of the various levels of the reporting process.
One point I’d make in response, re: the position of ‘university level’ authorities like EEO compliance officers is that rather than seeing a conflict of interest, one might perhaps say, simply, that those people are there to protect the university first and limit its legal exposure. That is their primary interest, and anything they do for an employee / student is going to happen within that context if they are doing their jobs.

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Matt S.

February 1, 2014

Anonphil –
Often when an official report says, “Institution X is bad,” readers take those directly associated with institution X to be related to the badness.
It’s a Humean associationism thing. That’s what I meant by “painting with a broad brush.”
You might scrupulously withhold judgment about the people in the CU department, but a lot of people won’t. They might be tempted to ask of any given member of the faculty, “Hey Professor A, why the hell didn’t you speak up? Are you a cowardly shmuck?”
But, things are complicated! People should have spoken up! We all should have done more sooner about so many things. This is not to excuse not acting, but to say that we should be careful not to create conditions in which the wrongdoing of few is associated with very many who did no such wrongs.

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Ed Kazarian

February 1, 2014

So what you’re saying is that we should never criticize the institutional climate or the systemic conditions anywhere but only ever talk about specific individuals?
I’m going to outsource the critique of what’s wrong with that attitude (or that attempt to derail criticism at the systemic level) to Jay Smooth, who addresses it very nicely here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjGQaz1u3V4&feature=youtu.be

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Cynic

February 1, 2014

Though anticipated, it is quite sad to see Leiter continuing to lawyer the CU situation on his blog. A comparison of his various tones between CU, the McGinn fiasco, and Oregon indicates the failure of impartiality which the reasonable have come to expect from legal positivists.

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Charles R

February 1, 2014

I take it anonphil’s point is exactly that because people paint with a broad brush, which is on them, the broad brush painters, since the reasonable and prudent judgment to make is that a broad brush stroke merits no judgment about any individual member of a collective stroked (sort of an internal logical inconsistency anonphil recognizes with the logic of judging a collective rather than starting from individuals [intensional judgments: bad; extensional ones: good]), then people need to understand one’s associations are risky ventures, not things we should enjoin unless we are fully acknowledging the risk involved. All of which, of course, is predicated on shaming actually functioning in the way people claim it does—appeals to social conventions of respect or civility, embarrassment and humiliation motivate individuals to correct themselves prior to judgment—when in reality, if we’re at all honest with the logic of shaming, we’d acknowledge shaming doesn’t work and hasn’t really in quite some time.
For, if shaming did work, then these kinds of problems (racism, sexism, nepotism, croneyism, &c) would never reach institutional level. But now that we have institutions of such things, it’s time we start recognizing a different logic of change is needed.
So, if shaming doesn’t work, then the publication of the report is just that: dissemination of information. How that information will get worked by moral standards has to follow new logics, not the logic of shaming that clearly is not working. In which case, how we think about the publications of these institutionalized forms of oppression or suppression (think bigger: the NSA files, DEA’s cartel connections, pretty much everything about the CIA, &c) shouldn’t be caught up in hashing out the right stance to take on where the shaming blaming falls. Shaming blaming will not work to correct these things. All you have to do to see with eyes that see is look at how the technical arguments so easily shift around and prolong any actual systematic attempts to instill a culture that proactively corrects just these kinds of horrible situations. Rather than directly grow philosophers who have humility and consensual concern for one another, we’d rather figure out the proper procedure for first deciding what actually counts as something not to be publicized. That’s part of this other discussion about whether or not certain philosophical methodologies employed contribute to harassment atmospheres. It’s already right there on the Reports. I was really curious why Leiter took this incident to proclaim with some adamancy that certain approaches in philosophy are “without merit” and we’d be “better off without them.” It’s a curious sort of contemporary language. In the wake of a departmental scandal, a state of emergency is declared; the state of emergency calls for new rules, and malabused freedoms are right out. This situation is far too serious to be concerned with a purely ideological diatribe from certain ignorable factions who seek a place at our tables! This is not the place to suggest doing anything of that sort. People’s lives are at stake! —Or so, but then if this is not the time and not the place, why go off on this sort of tangent about pluralism, when it’s clear, from the very beginning, if we all just cultivated in ourselves and for our students and our peers a life of humility, then it really will not matter whether we’re on this side or that side or the other other side on whatever dimension of sides is fashionable for disagreement.
Who knows? Maybe if we were less concerned about shame and more concerned about our own humility, we might actually end up liking each other. And, maybe, learn a little bit in spite of ourselves.

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Matt S.

February 2, 2014

Ed –
Why are you reading what I am saying so uncharitably? I am not saying that we should never criticize the institutional climate or systemic conditions anywhere. I am saying that we should do it carefully and sensitively. Simply releasing a report that effectively says, “Institution X is terrible!” is not a particularly good way to go. And, it seems important to say, when discussing any such institutional criticism, “Many members of institution X agree that there are problems in their institution. We should give them the support necessary to address those problems.” And so on.
Also, you have not dealt with the other problem, namely that people totally unconnected to the wrongs in the department may have recently been hired by or admitted to study at that department. What of their reputations and their futures?
I doubt you think that the maximalist approach is best: Where there is systemic wrongdoing, immediately try to burn the whole system down!
The people who are part of the CU department – faculty, grad students and staff – are ultimately the ones who will be rebuilding that department. Many of them are very good people. They deserve the support of the community as much as the wrongdoers merit scorn.
Or do you think that I am just being too wimpy in the face of harassment?

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Mark Lance

February 2, 2014

“Simply releasing a report that effectively says, “Institution X is terrible!” is not a particularly good way to go. ”
Agreed. Happily, no one has done any such thing.
I take it that the rest of your caricature here is supposed to be some sort of expressive performance of the sort of unreasonable reading of the report you are worried about – and that you think will lead the weak-minded to unfairly blame individuals? (I mean it is literally impossible for me to believe that you think “Immediately try to burn the whole system down” has any sort of relation to what was written by the APA committee.)
If so, then I guess we return to Ed’s question: since anyone can ignore what is written and draw absurdly unfair conclusions from any report on systematic problems of any sort anywhere, how does taking this worry seriously not have the implication that we should never criticize institutional climate or systematic conditions?
(ftr, I am not here expressing an opinion about the report as a whole. I think the femphil comment on what we know and don’t is basically correct. There may be aspects of the process and the report that are quite legitimately criticizable. I’ve heard some prima facie disturbing things from some insiders. But this in no way justifies the sort of blanket caricature and dismissal that I’m here responding to.)

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Crimlaw

February 2, 2014

It’s true that a claim not being substantiated does not mean it did not happen. It’s also true that a claim not being substantiated does not mean it did happen. The claim that this 2/15 shows a problem with over reporting is not clearly correct. Any claim that this 2/15 reveals a problem of conduct is also not clearly correct.

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