XPost: school.teachers, ny.syr, alt.politics.obama
XPost: soc.women

The recent case of Avital Ronell, an NYU professor suspended for
sexual harassment, and the scholars who rallied to support her
highlights the intense politics of academia.

A famed professor. A student claiming they were sexually
harassed. A months-long internal investigation.

Many of the particulars of the case against Avital Ronell, a
professor of German and Comparative Literature at New York
University who an internal investigation found responsible for
sexually harassing Nimrod Reitman, a former graduate student of
hers, are familiar. Reitman accuses Ronell of kissing and
touching him repeatedly, as well as sending inappropriate email
messages, among other things. After its investigation, the
university found that Ronell’s conduct was “sufficiently
pervasive to alter the terms and conditions of Mr. Reitman’s
learning environment,” according to The New York Times, and
suspended her for the upcoming academic year.

In the #MeToo era, versions of this story have played out with
other prominent academics. But the twist here is that the
alleged harasser is a woman, when so often these cases involve
male professors, and a feminist who’s the target of a complaint
filed under Title IX, a federal policy created to advance gender
equity. But the responses to Reitman's accusations against
Ronell from her fellow academics in some ways echoed the
defenses that male scholars, from MIT’s Junot Díaz to Boston
University’s David Marchant, have gotten when faced with similar
accusations, and is a striking example of the power structures
at work in academia.

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Among those who rallied to Ronell’s defense were a host of
prominent philosophers, led by one of the country's most notable
feminist scholars, Judith Butler. They wrote a letter to the
university asserting Ronell’s innocence and arguing that Reitman
harbored malice towards the professor. “We deplore the damage
that this legal proceeding causes her, and seek to register in
clear terms our objection to any judgment against her,” they
wrote. In a draft of the letter, which was published by Brian
Leiter on his philosophy blog, Leiter Reports, the professors
admitted that they did not know all of the details of the case.
But Joan A. Scott, a signatory and professor emerita at the
Institute for Advanced Study, a research center in Princeton,
New Jersey, told The Chronicle of Higher Education that “many
people who signed the letter knew more than they could say.”

Ronell did not respond to a request from The Atlantic for
comment. In a statement to the Times, Ronell said: “Our
communications—which Reitman now claims constituted sexual
harassment—were between two adults, a gay man and a queer woman,
who share an Israeli heritage, as well as a penchant for florid
and campy communications arising from our common academic
backgrounds and sensibilities. These communications were
repeatedly invited, responded to and encouraged by him over a
period of three years.”

[Colleges foretold the #MeToo Movement]

This is not the first time a group of academics have come to the
aid of a prominent intellectual accused of sexual misconduct.
When Díaz, who in addition to teaching at MIT is a Pulitzer
Prize-winning author, was accused of forcibly kissing one female
writer and verbally abusing others—the university ultimately
cleared Díaz after an investigation—a handful of academics wrote
an open letter, published in The Chronicle, excoriating the
press and social media users for its treatment of the writer:

We do not intend to dismiss current or future accusations of
misconduct by Díaz or any other person. We also acknowledge the
negative and disturbing effects of verbally or psychologically
aggressive acts or toxic relations on the women who experience
them.

Instead, they argued, they were taking issue with the way the
accusations were being characterized and situated in the broader
#MeToo conversation. (A response to that letter, also published
in the Chronicle, argued that by publishing the letter
criticizing the media, the group of faculty was sending “the
very message they claim they do not want to convey”—that they
were endeavoring to protect Díaz. )

While it’s unclear how much demonstrations of support from one’s
colleagues determine the outcome for the person accused of
misconduct, there have been several examples of powerful men in
academia who faced disciplinary action but were allowed to stay
on the job. In some cases, male professors managed to skirt
punishment altogether for years, even as egregious allegations
of sexual harassment mounted.

It’s hard to know exactly how the social dynamics and power
structures of any given university affect the handling of
harassment allegations. But research that has mapped the strange
caste system academics inhabit could offer some insight into the
dynamics that might lead them to band together in support of a
prominent colleague.

[MSU is a case study in how sexual harassment can fester in
higher education]

One factor: Universities are hierarchical. At the apex is the
chief executive officer—often a president or chancellor—and
under that person are the deans of individual schools within the
university; then there are the heads of the school’s often-
decentralized academic departments, who typically enjoy immense
influence over departmental decisions, from salaries to
curriculum. Less officially, tenured professors hold a great
deal of sway, determining their own research and teaching
priorities while getting some say over departmental decisions.
At the bottom: the untenured academics—hourly wage adjuncts,
grant-funded researchers, contracted instructors, and the like.
Overseeing all this are a school’s governing bodies—boards of
trustees, for example—which are often composed of leaders from
outside the university who come with their own set of financial
interests, political beliefs, and personal networks. This leads
to a tendency toward tribal politics, in which professors tend
to be loyal to their discipline and department.

In his 1998 book on the dynamics of higher education in the U.S.
and around the world, the Australian social scientist Brian
Martin argued that in academia, like any other hierarchy,
“people exercise power not by virtue of their personal talents
but by virtue of the position they occupy.” With some
exceptions, he suggested that a professor's position on the
university pyramid—and their “informal alliances”—determine the
extent to which the individual can escape accountability for his
or her actions. Academics in lower tiers “are very dependent on
the good graces of their supervisors” and others with influence
over promotional decisions. If an academic in the upper echelons
of the power structure commits some wrongdoing, his or her
subordinates might feel pressured to disregard it or to come to
the professor’s defense. This dynamic also, according to some
adjuncts, enables bullying.

What effect, if any, this hierarchical system has on internal
investigations such as NYU's of Ronell, it's impossible to know.
But it is a feature of universities—present in other
organizations, but seldom as pronounced—that is important to
consider whenever complaints are alleged, buried, and/or
disputed. And it isn't hard to see how when someone toward the
top of the pyramid is accused of sexual misconduct, the other
people making up the pyramid might be more concerned with the
position of the accused than the details of the case.

There's a persistent phenomenon in academia, known as Sayre’s
law, which in one version goes, “academic politics are so
vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” Various
political scientists, including Henry Kissinger, a former
Harvard professor and Secretary of State, cited this idea when
expressing frustration with academic politics. Some scholars
argue that the exact opposite of Sayre’s law is true, with
viciousness in higher education owing itself not to low but to
high stakes—the threat of a lost promotion, for example, or of
exclusion from an academic “tribe.” Few stakes could be higher
than professors being accused of harassing students, so it makes
sense that, in such a situation, the vicious, ever-present
tribal dynamics could be inflamed.

Fire the bitch.

Any heterosexual would already be drawn and quartered.

Why is this lesbian getting a pass?

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/08/why-do- academics-defend-colleagues-accused-of-harassment/567553/
 

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