[Changed headline and URL from this morning.] See here, here and here for news articles. 3:20 pm, CST, 11 Feb. We are opening comments. We will moderate closely. See our comments policy. From the news stories, we know the following facts:
1. The student is suing Northwestern, not suing Ludlow.
2. The lawsuit alleges that the original complaint was upheld by the NU Office of Sexual Harassment Prevention. Their wording is alleged to have been that Ludlow “engaged in unwelcome and inappropriate sexual advances.” [Per the news articles, it is a fact that the lawsuit contains this allegation. It is not a publicly available fact that this was the wording of the OSHP.]
3. The lawsuit alleges that a disciplinary committee recommended firing Ludlow. [Similarly, it is a fact, per the news articles, that the lawsuit makes this allegation. It is not a public fact that the disciplinary committee made this recommendation.]
4. The university did not fire Ludlow. [Update, 3:50 pm: it's better to say that Ludlow is teaching courses this term at Northwestern.] [Update, 9 am, 12 Feb: see here for more information on Ludlow's teaching schedule.]
5. Through his lawyer, Ludlow denies the allegations in the original complaint.
6. The university changed its policies in January, claiming that these changes would put it in a position to be in better compliance with Title IX.
[Update 9am, 12 Feb: 7. The Chicago Tribue reports: "This was not brought to our attention by either the candidate or his employer," said Rutgers spokesman Greg Trevor. "We are looking into this matter thoroughly, including requesting all relevant information to fully evaluate his candidacy."]
New APPS 
83 responses to “Student sues Northwestern for alleged failure to act on sexual misconduct finding against a philosophy professor”
I take it from what I have read that Ludlow does not deny that he went out with the young woman, or that she ended up at his house. I take it he denies the sexual assault part not that they were never together. In which case one wants to ask
what were you doing on a date with a freshman in the first place?!'. Really!? Even if there was no sexual dimension at all, this kind of thing, which both Richard Heck and GW have both pointed out is so lamentably common, should be strongly censured. It is just one more appalling symptom of the sexism prevalent in the profession. That so many men in our profession crave the attention of young women (even whennothing bad happens’) in this way suggests a deep psychic/emotional problem (to me at least).LikeLike
Not a philosopher: Of course rape emerges out of a culture. But (assuming for the moment that these accusations are true) I know of no evidence that the disturbing aspects of the culture of philosophy that have been the focus of recent discussion had any more influence than rape culture as it currently exists in US culture generally. One could try to draw such a connection if one wished, but it would need doing. One can’t simply gesture vaguely, and none of your analogies strike me as apt. I don’t think of Ludlow, myself, as any kind of “insider in the old boys’ club”. And, at least in his current position, he’s nothing comparable to a “senior executive”.
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Anonymous Prospective Student: When I said it would be “even sadder” if the accusations turned out not to be true, here’s what I had in mind. (I agree that none of this is evident from what I wrote.)
If the accusations about Ludlow are untrue, then this poor woman would still have tried to kill herself two days afterwards and would still have been diagnosed with PTSD. Surely she would not make such allegations in her suit if she was not prepared to prove them. That leads me to think that, if her accusations are not true, then she believes the accusations she has made anyway, in which case she would be every bit as distressed as if she had been assaulted and is probably seriously mentally ill. Plus, she would have caused great and unnecessary distress to an innocent person and, by making a false accusation in a very public way, would have done great political and social harm.
No doubt it is also possible that, if her accusation is false, she has simply concocted it for unknown reasons. But if she did in fact try to kill herself two days later, then that leads me to be deeply concerned about her anyway.
If that doesn’t seem to you to be “even sadder” than if she made a true accusation that was not acted upon, then I won’t argue with you. But it seems terribly sad to me, since, as I said, her emotional state looks just as bad to me in this scenario.
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What seems undeniable however is that either Ludlow concealed from Rutgers the accusation and the investigation that resulted in the recommendation that he be fired or that Rutgers made him an offer in the knowledge of these things. The first is much easier to believe, but who knows. My point though is that one or the other must be true and both possibilities are pretty deplorable.
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Maybe this hasn’t been said because it goes without saying, but the McGinn and Ludlow cases came out at different times.
McGinn was the first, and many people probably think there was somewhat of a too hasty response at first. More relevant is the Colorado affair, which also made its rounds on Slate and such and people had to insist (e.g., on feminist philosophers), that we do not immediately speculate about who is guilty and to be cautious about any hasty conclusions. The information will come out pretty soon anyway, it was stressed.
So the reservation or carefulness is totally expected for a philosopher being accused of such a bad thing this time, and this is in addition to everyone’s reasons above.
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philosophyadjunct: I agree that if Ludlow was on a “date” with his student, then that is completely inappropriate, and it brings it closer to what McGinn was accused of doing. But, of course, the criminal allegations dwarf that one at the moment.
That said, I don’t think Ludlow has admitted to being on a “date” with this woman or anything like that, not that I’ve seen. And exactly what he has admitted seems to matter. If a student of mine told me about an art show because she thought it had something to do with a class she’d had with me, and if she expressed some enthusiasm about going to it, and if I knew her reasonably well, then would it be wrong already for me to suggest we go together? and even give her a ride, if public transport weren’t an option or were inconvenient for some reason? There are no doubt boundaries here, and one has to be very careful about where they are, and err on the side of caution. But it is not obvious to me that, if that were all that happened, that would already be a problem. Surely it would not be a problem if the student were male.
Taking the student to a bar or back to my apartment or whatever would cross the line, definitely. But did Ludlow admit to that?
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Heck writes, “What made the McGinn story noteworthy were several things. First, what he was accused of doing is utterly common. It goes on all the time, in a very large number of departments all around the world. It was exactly the sort of behavior that has been the subject of so much discussion recently. The sort of behavior that makes far too many departments and other areas of our profession unpleasant or even “hostile” places for women to try to work…What Ludlow has been accused of doing is entirely different.”
Talk about gymnastics. Just about all of Ludlow’s behavior, leading up to the far more heinous thing he’s been accused of doing in the end, is indistinguishable from McGinn’s, as philosophyadjunct reminds us,
“I take it from what I have read that Ludlow does not deny that he went out with the young woman, or that she ended up at his house. I take it he denies the sexual assault part not that they were never together.”
Let’s be completely honest with ourselves. The difference in our collective reactions this time around is likely because, as others have already pointed out, Ludlow was either better liked, or we’re suffering from outrage fatigue, or probably both. And instead of spending our time trying to make unhelpful distinctions between these two cases, why don’t we focus on a more pressing question raised by philosphyadjunct, namely,
“`What [was Ludlow] doing on a date with a freshman in the first place?!’. Really!?”
How does one talk themselves into thinking it would be a good thing to hit the town with an undergraduate student?! Unreal.
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Unfortunately, if what is alleged in the Northwestern case is true, then it is not an isolated incident. Almost exactly the same thing happened at my institution about 8 years ago. A philosophy professor got an undergraduate drunk (and possible drugged her), took her back to his house, and raped her. She woke up in his bed the next morning, and ran to a nearby building and called 911. As I understand it, the institution convinced her to not press charges. She transferred. The offender was given a two year leave of absence. He decided to leave for good. The institution bought his house for above-market value. He is no longer teaching philosophy. I will remain anonymous to protect the student. Although this professor was in my department, it was very difficult to get all the facts about this case, due to confidentiality restrictions. Yes, I am still furious. Clearly this happens more than we would like to think.
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Jonathan: Do we know that some Northwestern committee recommended that Ludlow be fired? So far as I am aware, all we know is that such a claim is made in the student’s initial filing. It also seems to me to matter what the timeline was exactly, and I anyway don’t know that.
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Anonymous graduate student: The question that has been raised is why people have reacted differently in this case as opposed to the McGinn case, and my suggestion is that we are reacting, on one case, to an accusation of sexual assault and in the other to an accusation of sexual harassment. Yes, Ludlow has also been accused of the lesser charge, in effect. But I am claiming that what is driving people’s reactions is the more serious charge. I am not suggesting that we should ignore the less serious charge if that turns out to be true (see my response to philosophyadjunct above), not that everything would be perfectly fine if “all” Ludlow were accused of was getting his student drunk, etc. I only claim that people would have reacted very differently in that case.
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Richard,
I’m not sure that this tells at all against the broader point you were making, but FWIW I would never drive a freshman student in my car by myself to an art show. At LSU we are even required to keep our office doors open when meeting with students. I think this is pretty good policy.
Generally, there are excellent reasons for erring on the side of not putting oneself in a position where something problematic might happen. Human beings have a tremendous capacity for deceiving themselves about matters relating to sex. Can you be so sure that you are not creating a hostile environment? Can you be so sure that you possess a Kantain good will? (Kant said “no”). Humility counsels a lot of prudence when it comes to stuff like this.
I’m not claiming that one should be fired for giving a student a ride in the car, but I think our discipline would be better served if the wider disciplinary norms were more like the norms LSU Human Resources encourages.
Also, I’m not claiming to know anything about what happened with the Ludlow and the student other than the kinds of things you articulated about how this is tremendously sad whatever happened.
Jon
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Thank you for your reply, Heidi, that is helpful. I think we should be directing a good bit of our concern toward universities and their procedures. I’m glad to hear that greater transparency may be on the way.
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Richard: The news stories are somewhat ambiguous about that, but it is very hard, at least for me, to imagine that the suit would allege a committee finding that did not exist. My larger point still stands: either Ludlow concealed the accusation, investigation, and (one has to imagine) the finding, or Rutgers offered him a job in the knowledge of these facts. The latter is almost impossible to believe.
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Heidi and Furious: I am not denying that sexual assault happens in the philosophical world, nor that it might lead some people to leave the field. What I said was: “Nor (I hope!) is it true that sexual assault, or fear of sexual assault, by teachers or colleagues significantly contributes to the shortage of women in philosophy“, by which I meant: I don’t know of any reason to think that sexual assault is any more or a problem in our discipline than in any other, so that it makes some significant contribution to the shortage of women in philosophy as opposed to other fields. By contrast, there does seem to be lots of evidence that sexual harassment, of many sorts, is more of a problem in philosophy.
Admittedly, I could be wrong. If so, then my hope was in vain, and things are even worse in our field than I thought.
In any event, that’ll be all from me on this topic. I tend to avoid comment threads, and this one has reminded me why.
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I am grateful for this forum. Given the nature of the allegations against Ludlow I am also very concerned about the some of the comments I read here [and elsewhere]. It is obvious that at this point any comment has to be prefaced with “assuming the allegations to be true …”. But this was certainly the case with McGinn as well. So I am amazed that some people seem to think it should make a difference whether the male philosopher is considered to be a ‘nice guy’ or a ‘jerk’, whether his philosophy ‘has passed its prime’ or is ‘great’. How does this make any difference to the VICTIM? Assuming the allegations to be true: would the student have been more harmed had McGinn been the perpetrator? How so?
I further note with concern that there is little discussion about the role of the university in protecting students. Again comparing information available at the early stages: McGinn had either offered to resign or was made to resign before the story broke. This ensured that the student allegedly harmed was not ask risk to run into him on campus or that he could harm other students. So it would seem University of Miami did not take any chances but put students’s interests over quite senior faculty’s interests [McGinn denied any wrongdoing]. Northwestern apparently conducted an investigation, apparently found some credibility to the allegations – so one is left wondering why no action was taken to protect students. And now that the story made it into national news why is the university still hiding behind legalities: ‘we do not comment’ – IF the university is convinced that Ludlow is innocent why would they not provide very compelling evidence. Anything short of complete certainty that Ludlow is innocent does not excuse the behaviour of NU…
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“McGinn denied wrongdoing” is true de dicto, but (given all of the stuff he blogged) certainly not de re.
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Thank you Richard for your heartfelt and important contributions here. This must be extremely hard for his friends.
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I can add to this from the student perspective, if that would be helpful:
Richard Heck asks: “If a student of mine told me about an art show because she thought it had something to do with a class she’d had with me, and if she expressed some enthusiasm about going to it, and if I knew her reasonably well, then would it be wrong already for me to suggest we go together? and even give her a ride, if public transport weren’t an option or were inconvenient for some reason?”
As a graduate student, my answer is “yes, it would be wrong.” I want to make two points here: first, I am sometimes asked to do things in my department that I would like to say no to (because they are uncomfortable, overburdensome, etc.), but I do not feel like I can actually say no. I am very aware of the hierarchy in which I exist, meaning I don’t feel like I can say no to faculty even if I wanted to or even if they are really lovely and we are close. I think this means there is a problem when you suggest to your student that you and the student attend the art show together because it might not be clear to her that she could really say no without some repercussion (same for a male student, actually. Either because we shouldn’t assume heteronormativity or even if we think there’s nothing sexual about the encounter at all).
Second, something that I really appreciated about the APA site-visit report on CU-Boulder was that it highlighted the department’s problematic blurring of professional and social/personal boundaries. I also experience this in my department and it causes me a good deal of stress and anxiety even though it does not approximate the issues at Boulder. I find that my colleagues and professors sometimes forget that we are in professional spaces and roles and that those roles exist in a very powerful hierarchy. Again, it seems like one of the big themes coming out of the APA site-visit report was that one strategy for protecting potentially vulnerable individuals is to reinforce professional boundaries, which as a graduate student/potentially vulnerable person, I really appreciated. I think that indicates spending one-on-one time with students is a problematic practice whether it’s of a romantic nature or not.
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Thank you, Heidi! I was similarly disgusted by Richard Heck’s speculation about what does and doesn’t contribute to climate issues in our profession.
Had I known anything about these sorts of incidents before I applied (this was before the age of social media where reports spread widely and quickly), I would have very seriously reconsidered my chosen career path. When I was a first-year graduate student many many years, I was sexually assaulted by another grad student. This prompted me to take significant time off before returning. I cannot imagine that my situation is unique. There are countless stories of sexual assault — that I know of personally, that are in the public record, that are on WhatIsItLike blog — that lead to women leaving or taking time off or not pursuing the discipline post-undergrad.
Now, is this specific to philosophy? Are sexual assaults more common in this discipline than in others? I’m not sure, though it would not be surprising given philosophy’s gender disparity and the spate of stories about assault and harassment in the news and on the WhatIsItLike blog. A higher incidence of sexual harassment is not completely unrelated to a possible higher incidence of sexual assault (which includes acts that, from the harasser’s perspective, may seem like the logical next move in the sick back-and-forth to which they’ve subjected their victim). In any case, why does sexual assault have to be unique to a discipline to warrant careful attention and discussion (attention and discussion, that is, qua philosophers)?
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CB, you say, “there is little discussion about the role of the university in protecting students.”
See comments #30, #48, and #63. Please feel free to add your thoughts to this topic.
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It’s worth pointing out that there are ways that the university committee could have arrived at its reported decision besides using different evidentiary standards than “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The scope of ‘criminal’ activity is narrower than the potential scope of actionable misconduct from the point of view of an employer. It’s not hard, I think, to imagine that there could have been proof of actionable misconduct that did meet a “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard, even if were determined that there was not proof of ‘criminal’ activity according to that standard.
But, and I stress this, we don’t know if that’s what happened. I only raise the issue in order to ensure that we are not drawing hasty conclusions about the process from the result that is described in the suit.
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C.L., I am sorry if my post “disgusted” you. Please let me emphasize, again, that I was not downplaying the seriousness or wrongness of sexual assault. I know of cases in which women left philosophy for the sorts of reasons you describe, and I also know of such cases in other fields (linguistics and cognitive science, specifically).
As I have said, the only point I was trying to make was that I know of no reason to think that sexual assault is more of a problem in philosophy than in other disciplines. That obviously does not mean that it is not a problem, nor that we philosophers should not be concerned about it or be talking about it. Nor did I mean to say that philosophers should not discuss the problem qua philosophers, if that means: do philosophical work on it. Many have, and I hope they will continue to do so.
What I meant was just this: There is no point in our asking, at this point, what it is about the culture of philosophy that makes sexual assault so much more of a problem in our field than it is in other fields, since we have no reason to believe that it is more of a problem. The intended contrast was with sexual harassment: We have excellent reason to ask what it is about the culture of philosophy specifically that makes sexual harassment so much more of a problem in our field than it is in fields that otherwise seem comparable, since we have excellent reason to believe that it is more of a problem.
In that sense, but only in that sense, sexual harassment is a problem for me qua philosopher (i.e., member of this profession), but sexual assault is not. That does not mean I do not care about, or devote large amounts of time to thinking about, sexual assault. I have a significant interest in issues relating to the intersection between feminism and sexuality. I believe that the need to control women’s bodies is at the root of sexism (at least in its 21st century, Anglophone form); that the persistence of rape culture is integral to that control; and that putting an end to rape culture is a moral and political imperative. I take a special interest in the obligations men specifically have in this regard. I read extensively on such issues in the feminist blogosphere and post articles and comments on these topics to Facebook all the time, to try to draw more attention to them. Since I think these matters are important, I also think other people should think they are important.
As several people have said, however, it is possible that sexual assault actually is more of a problem in philosophy than in other disciplines. I certainly do not know that it is not. And, more importantly, it is possible that the same cultural forces that make sexual harassment such a problem give sexual predators “license to operate” at philosophy conferences, or in philosophy departments, or what have you. (See e.g. http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/ and http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/20/cockblocking-rapists-is-a-moral-obligation-or-how-to-stop-rape-right-now/, for some relevant reflections, not mine.) That is perfectly possible, and I ought to have mentioned that possibility in my original post, rather than separate harassment and assault as sharply as I did.
But possibility is not actuality, and my focus, in any event, was on trying to explain why people have reacted so differently to this case. Almost paradoxically, it is (as Jonathan said at comment 12) because Ludlow is accused of something so much worse than what McGinn was accused of, or than what seems to have been happening at Colorado. In that sense, it’s not just more of the same, and the situations are not really comparable, so we should not expect people’s reactions to be the same.
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Now, is this specific to philosophy? Are sexual assaults more common in this discipline than in others? I’m not sure, though it would not be surprising given philosophy’s gender disparity and the spate of stories about assault and harassment in the news and on the WhatIsItLike blog. A higher incidence of sexual harassment is not completely unrelated to a possible higher incidence of sexual assault (which includes acts that, from the harasser’s perspective, may seem like the logical next move in the sick back-and-forth to which they’ve subjected their victim). In any case, why does sexual assault have to be unique to a discipline to warrant careful attention and discussion (attention and discussion, that is, qua philosophers)?
I am familiar with a number of other academic disciplines and I have never heard the number of stories of outright physical sexual assault that I have heard from philosophers. Not just in this thread, but from other communications. It is shocking.
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I agree with everything said by C.L. (and some others) so far. I am amazed by the complicated sophisms people are making up for justifying the bland reaction against this case. I remember the McGill case: it was like everybody wanted his blood or his head on a silver plate! I remember people insulting his philosophical work, making sarcastic comments about some footnotes of some of his books, even criticising the literary quality of his sci-fi novel. It was as if they were going to burn all his books next and, I am sorry to say, the quality of the comments in the various blogs dramatically dropped to its lowest level. And – just to refresh our minds – back then, we were speaking about professor who abused his power to send a couple of rather inconvenient and sexist emails. Back then…
… Now there is a serious allegation for sexual assault and a girl who tried to commit suicide, and people are saying things like “we don’t have to be consistent with our comments (about despicable crimes)” or “this episode is about a philosopher, not about philosophy”. I am truly shocked. People crucified a professor who sent two vulgar emails but are very cautious (to say the least) about a professor accused of sexual assault PLUS a department which does not even take action to protect its students. I’m speechless.
I was also wondering: if anything like this happened – let’s say – at a department of mathematics, wouldn’t the mathematicians spoke about this because sexual assault is not one of the reasons for why there so few female mathematicians? wouldn’t they be furious at the fact that a colleague, a mathematician like them, behaved in such a way? wouldn’t they publicly and explicitly and even noisily distance themselves from such a colleague? I wonder…
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Professor Heck asked:
“If a student of mine told me about an art show because she thought it had something to do with a class she’d had with me, and if she expressed some enthusiasm about going to it, and if I knew her reasonably well, then would it be wrong already for me to suggest we go together?”
I just want to agree with the anonymous graduate student poster that yes, that would be wrong. If a professor suggested something like that to me, I would be extremely uncomfortable and would really wonder about the intent. I don’t think that’s at all surprising. If one of my peers invited me to something like this, I would probably think it was a date.
Even if you were somehow completely sure that the student would not be uncomfortable, going on something that looks very much like a date with one of your students is going to have a negative impact on your other students.
Also from Professor Heck:
“Taking the student to a bar or back to my apartment or whatever would cross the line, definitely. But did Ludlow admit to that?”
It would be extremely easy for him to clear this up if the student had never actually been to his apartment.
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I normally keep out of conversations like this and I intend to keep out after this comment. But we should remember that sexual abuse is pretty common, seriously underreported, and generally perpetrated by people we know and are antecedently inclined to think would never do such a thing. So the inference from “there are some reports of sexual abuse among subgroup X” to “there is reason to think subgroup X has an anomalously high rate of sexual abuse” is in danger of forgetting how high the base rate is.
I’m not attributing that reasoning move to anyone in particular; I post it as much as anything because I found myself slipping into it in thinking about this issue.
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update from The Daily, Northwestern’s paper
http://dailynorthwestern.com/2014/02/12/campus/day-after-lawsuit-ludlows-role-at-northwestern-unclear-moving-forward/
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Surely discussions of whether sexual harrassment or assault are more common in philosophy (I agree as it happens that the high ratio of men to women in the profession makes it more likely that the general climate of the discipline somehow encourages this sort of behavior) is largely a distraction. We all agree (I mean people posting in this thread, not, alas everyone in philosophy) that these are large and serious problems in the discipline which we ought to be doing something about. It’s not immediately clear (although maybe some people could come up with ways that it would help a bit) that knowing whether these problems are more pervasive relatively in philosophy would help us do something about them. So it kind of seems wrong if discussions on the topic are dominated by the question of whether or not they are more pervasive in philosophy than other disciplines, regardless of how they get so dominated, instead of on how to help solve the problem, expose and sack and bring criminal charges against the perpetrators etc.. (For the record, I think people often use denial of the fact that the problem is more common as a (usually unconscious) de-railing tactic when discussions on this topic get too uncomfortable for them, but I didn’t get the vibe that that’s what Richard Heck was doing here, although maybe the women on the thread are better placed to judge that than I am.)
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For what it is worth: I was hit on by my gay professor in undergrad. to a degree greater than what Richard Heck described as appropriate but to a lesser degree than sexual assault (no physical contact). I am a heterosexual male and considered his advances inappropriate in the same way they would be inappropriate if one of my female professors had done the same to me.
On the one hand, I want to say that it was wrong in a pretty strong sense and that I perhaps should have told someone about it. However, I also understand how a student can become good friends with a professor, even after just one class, and how blurred the line of inappropriateness can sometimes get in such situations. I don’t think that it is wise or good for any professor to stop adhering to university policy on these issues. Just wanted to point out that for certain (perhaps only a few) cases, it can be difficult how to think about them.
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Can’t we thank Richard Heck for being brave enough to raise these issues even if we disagree with him about some specifics? We can’t expect tenured people to post about these things under their own name and then attack them personally when (as one would expect about any matter of this important) we don’t agree with every sentence they write.
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A few reasons why the reaction to Ludlow’s case might be different:
1) Most of us found out about McGinn’s case after the university and McGinn had already made decisions, so comments were made in the aftermath. This is a new lawsuit and it’s not clear whether Ludlow will be teaching at Rutger’s, so comments are being made on an unfolding situation.
2) McGinn’s numerous blog commentaries invited reply, and people were often reacting specifically to things he said. Ludlow’s attorney has issued a blanket denial, but otherwise Ludlow isn’t commenting publicly.
3) The allegations against Ludlow are serious crimes that could have had rather worse consequences than mere dismissal or resignation from a job! Many of us have reasonably well-informed opinions about employment matters at a university, given our histories, but how many of us have the same level of expertise concerning this lawsuit or the underlying alleged crimes? Perhaps after the McGinn case was hashed out in public and a lot of ugly things were said, people learned to have a little more restraint when they lack the relevant knowledge. (Or is this too optimistic a suggestion?)
4) Because these allegations are so serious, they may prompt an even deeper level of soul-searching in this profession than we’ve already experienced in recent years. If anything about the climate in philosophy departments could be permitting or enabling this level of criminal behavior, then we have not only an embarrassing history of tolerating harassment but a full-scale crisis on our hands! The truths may be uncomfortable and inconvenient. If Ludlow really did these things, maybe we wish he was a complete anomaly in this profession, but can we confidently divorce those actions from what we hear about lesser forms of bad behavior that transpire in our world?
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As Suzy says, “If anything about the climate in philosophy departments could be permitting or enabling this level of criminal behavior, then we have not only an embarrassing history of tolerating harassment but a full-scale crisis on our hands.”
Like Suzy, I suspect that this might be the case. While I acknowledge Richard’s point that we can’t infer that this is a discipline-based problem from isolated incidents of sexual assault (and Richard: thank you again for the phone call today), we do all seem to agree that the discipline has a sexual harassment problem. Sexual harassment and sexual assault are, in my experience, just different points on a continuum of sexual violence, with sexual assault located not on the extreme end of the spectrum, but rather somewhere short of extreme acts of violence committed by individuals with a history of sexual harassment/misconduct (e.g., the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre). Sexual assault can definitely be worse than sexual harassment, but they’re both extremely harmful — and assault tends to be preceded by harassment, which makes the two difficult to distinguish (especially when, as is the case with 1 in 5 college students, one has experienced both, and sees harassment as a fear-inducing precursor to assault).
I don’t pretend to know whether philosophy is unique in having a sexual assault problem, but I’d be very surprised if the problem of assault — yes, assault — isn’t endemic. There is a top-10 Leiter-ranked philosophy department in which formal complaints of sexual misconduct have been filed against four different faculty members in the department in the past five years. Two of the complaints involved first degree sexual assault.
That’s bad. Really bad. But the true crime is that the discipline doesn’t know about it, because the university offered voluntary severance packages with non-disclosure agreements, which means that the few who know can’t talk about it. (I am not one of the direct victims/survivors, by the way, but am familiar with the cases.)
And such non-disclosure agreements are not, contra what some colleagues have suggested, “required to protect the privacy of the victim.” Universities are free to adopt a policy similar to Article 3 of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Charter: “Dioceses/eparchies are not to enter into settlements which bind the parties to confidentiality unless the victim/survivor requests confidentiality and this request is noted in the text of the agreement.”
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I am closing comments at this point.
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