Resist Together: A Practical Guide to Fighting Harassment in the Workplace

Notes from the SCS Boston Meeting 2018

by Anna Simas

As part of the Women’s Classical Caucus’s two-year advocacy campaign “Resist Together: Fighting Harassment in the Profession,” WCC graduate student co-liaisons Caitlin Hines and Anna Simas organized a workshop with the goal of training participants to recognize and fight harassment in Classics and related fields.

Held on January 6, 2018, the workshop provided participants with practical solutions to harassment based on the expertise of three speakers.

The first speaker, Rebecca Futo Kennedy, is co-chair of the Women’s Classical Caucus and Professor of Classics at Denison University. She discussed her experience participating in the development and implementation of university-wide policies at her institution regarding harassment, bullying, and discrimination and offered insight into the challenges that come with that process.

The second speaker, Barbara Gold, is the Edward North Professor of Classics at Hamilton College. She shared her experiences as both victim of harassment and administrator attempting to advocate for others who have been harassed, and spoke from her association with the SCS Professional Matters Committee to the steps that the Society is taking to combat harassment and discrimination at all levels.

The third speaker, Regina Ryan, is the founder and president of Discrimination and Harassment Solutions, LLC, an organization that provides interactive and specialized training sessions to employees to create a workplace free of harassment and discrimination. Her training and the discussion prompted by it opened up an important dialogue among workshop participants about legal recourse in situations of workplace harassment.

We hope that the following notes from the workshop will be valuable to all who face harassment.

Rebecca Kennedy noted that because of demographic changes, younger women often work with older male professors in a context where they’re the only woman. Sometimes, as in her own case, her colleagues were not harassers, but that isn’t always the case. Regardless, seeing the experiences of others and coming out of her own experiences of more than a decade first in graduate school and then as a contingent faculty member, she asked, how could I get involved with issues of harassment and bias on campus?

She started with the university student conduct appeals board in a volunteer-based appointment to speak in cases of student conduct, esp. Title IX issues, vandalism, student violence, etc.

Some of the problems she discovered:

• There were potential conflicts of interest with students on the board trying other students
• There could be bias in investigations
• Most cases are in an ambiguous situation, and experienced harassers will know how to “spin” the situation.
• There was inadequate training and support mechanisms

Since Rebecca pointed out some of these difficulties the university started contracting outside for a professional investigator and removed students from the hearing board. She also kept petitioning to get more training and support mechanisms for everyone involved in Title IX and harassment policy on campus. The more everyone knows about their rights and what counts as harassment, the less harassers can get away with it.

When the opportunity arose to participate in a task force to rewrite the faculty and staff harassment policy, she ran for the position (no one else did and she got elected). As part of the task force, Rebecca worked with the university legal counsel and HR to make a policy with “teeth”. She then ran for and was elected to the university Personnel committee and pushed to have the policy adopted and implemented. She did all of this before receiving tenure.

Lessons learned:

• Sometimes you have to let go of the fear of retaliation and take a chance instead of continuing to be a bystander
• Strike when universities realize they’re in a lot of legal trouble (she participated in a Title IX Office of Civil Rights investigation and used knowledge gained to move policy)
• Junior faculty may not know their rights, or may not feel comfortable speaking up because of tenure concerns; those of us with tenure need to speak up for them and fight for them if necessary
• Sexual harassment is only one manifestation of harassment
• Colleagues will make excuses: “It’s impinging on my academic freedom,” as if you’re free to sexually harass someone as part of the job. Ignore them.
• “Let’s mediate it… do you need to talk to a counselor?” Mediation should come after someone has been found responsible for harassment, not before! Push for all reports to be investigated.
• Take more collective action: sometimes there is power in multiple voices.
• A policy isn’t enough on its own. You have to keep pushing to make change happen.

Barbara Gold began by telling of her own harassment and commented on what it feels like: “When no one seems to believe you or the effect harassment is having on you…” She recalled being interviewed by an all-men search committee in a hotel room which was a bridal suite with a mirror on the ceiling while she was sitting on a bed. After being hired, she did not get tenured due to sexism; lost a lawsuit, but found support to go forward. These feelings and experiences prompted her to promise herself to find ways to help those who came to her to talk about their experiences of harassment.

She is fortunate now to work in a place with strong policies and protections. Hamilton has a policy with a robust definition of what sexual harassment is, a dedicated Title IX officer and a second person who does education, training sessions and develops curriculum; there are also several student organizations including SMART (=Sexual Misconduct and Assault Reform Taskforce) dedicated to ending the culture supporting sexual assault on campus through committees on policy, programming and activism.

Code of conduct at SCS Conference

The SCS is taking harassment at our conferences seriously and is working to make the conference a place where everyone in the field feels safe and welcome. New code of conduct statement on harassment that will be printed in the program and registration from now on will require checking a box indicating that the registrant has read the statement and will abide by it. By attending the meeting, all participants agree to uphold the code of conduct and members should be aware that they are bound by the codes of conduct at their home institutions. It is possible to remove members who have violated the agreement of conduct from the conference and report their behavior to their home institution. The strongest sanction is removal of individual membership.

Actions:

• Harassed members should make a written report to the VP of professional matters
• If anyone witnesses a serious incident of assault or harassment at the conference, call hotel security first, deal with formal complaint later
• It is important to protect identity of victim and perpetrator
• Contact the named individuals in the program. They will contact SCS attorney and legal liability insurance provider.

Barbara cautions that: “We need to make sure we do not become blasé about and desensitized to” the term “sexual harassment” and related behaviors as they become more publicized.

Regina Ryan spoke about legal issues concerning Title IX and the Civil Rights Act. Massachusetts is one of the leading states for protections. She advises that everybody learns the laws of their state.

• Title IX applies to everyone on campus, forbids retaliation, requires Title IX coordinator
• Title VII: Civil Rights Act of 1964/1991
• Under Title IX sexual orientation is not a specific protected class, but comes under “gender discrimination”

Relationships in the workplace

• Where someone is in a supervisory position, offering promotion in return for a sexual relationship is sexual harassment
• There is strict liability on the employer.
• “Consensual” relationships are not illegal, but where there is a power differential it is important to consider the impact

Hostile Work Environment

Unwelcome sexual conduct based on sex or gender stereotypes that is severe enough to interfere with a person’s employment, academic performance, or participation in university programs creates a hostile work environment.

Examples:

• displaying pinup calendars or sexually demeaning pictures,
• making sexually oriented jokes or offensive remarks,
• subjecting another employee to unwelcome sexual advances or touching,
• repeatedly asking someone out on dates

The behavior must be severe and/or pervasive. It must be subjectively and objectively offensive to a reasonable person. An employee or student need not communicate objection to demonstrate its unwelcomeness. An employee’s or student’s failure to respond positively may demonstrate unwelcomeness. On campus, a harasser can be anyone on the campus, and the burden is on the university to protect the victim.

Recommendations:

• Document everything: email chains make it easier to report retaliation
• Report anything you hear (even rumors) and protect yourself. Any email or visit to the HR office counts as a formal report — there is no such thing as an informal complaint
• You must take action in writing if someone comes to you with a report
• Policies follow university members to university-sponsored events, even out of the country a on an archaeological dig (Title IX and Civil Rights Act may not)
• Look at who the Title IX coordinator and grievance coordinators are; keep their information handy
• Universities have a duty to remedy and must provide an option for a graduate student whose advisor has harassed them. They must provide a solution that does not deprive the student of their educational opportunity
• In the case of external speakers invited to a university, both universities could be on the hook
• OCR may investigate, but it will be a long process

Proactive measures for universities:

• Anti-harassment policy should be distributed annually and lay out the terms that harassment is unlawful and so is retaliation
• Employees should be trained
• Anti-harassment policy should be monitored
• ALL allegations of sexual harassment should be investigated
• Provide a grievance procedure and coordinator
• Universities should investigate all complaints, document everything, determine whether harassment occurred

What’s next? The landscape is changing:

• If you witness harassment, use it as a teaching moment!
• Hold colleagues and employees accountable! (69% of victims of sexual harassment at the workplace leave the job within 2 years — how can we stop this?)
• #metoo is happening — take advantage!