A Convening of Leaders in Academia to Prevent Sexual Harassment Webcast: November 9, 2018

…[M]ore rapid and sustained progress … is jeopardized by the persistence of sexual harassment and its adverse impact on women’s careers in … colleges and universities.

On November 9, 2018, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine offered a convocation on developing and implementing policies, procedures, and practices to prevent sexual harassment in academia. Building on the recommendations in the recent report Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Science, Engineering, and Medicine, this event brough together academic leaders, Title IX and diversity officers, ombudsmen, researchers in sexual harassment, and leaders from professional societies, foundations, and federal agencies to discuss strategies and share promising practices. Summary of, and images from, the webcast sessions follow.

Opening Remarks from National Academies Leadership

Frazier Benya, Senior Program Officer

NSF was lead sponsor, joined by NASA, NIH, NIST and others, representatives from many here today as funders also have role to play.  Encourage to strive to create a culture where it stopped before it starts.

Victor Dzau, President, NAM

Academies bring together experts to evidence-based advice. Report has already spurred action among a number of organizations.  Each of the Academies is now examining its own policies and procedures and defining codes of conduct.  Report found that issues aren’t limited, absolutlely must change to prevent women from continued to be bullied out of carreer paths, and to protect integretity of institutions.  IF take a public health approach, need to address culture and climate that allow SH to continue.  Medical encourages that some discomfort is to be expected, therefore reluctance to come forward. 

Dan Mote, NAE.  Engineering has long struggled to find talented people to study.   To this end, working to increase recruitment of women, but progress has been too slow. SH is a serious impediment, plus morally reprehensible in the first place.  Cannot reach full potentional in engineerring or are pushed out all together.  Must implement system wide change.  Firmness on this matter is mandatory for future of engineering.  IEEE Spectrum Op-Ed, enthusiatic endorsed by editorial team.  “Will and need to make substational changes are here, so lets do it. “

Myth Busting: responding to the most common misperception[s] about sexual harassment

Kathryn Clancy, Associate Prof. of Anthropology, U Illinois; Lilia Cortina, Prof. of Psychology & Women’s Studies, UMich; Vicki Magley, Professor of Psychology, UConn

Figure 1. https://www.nap.edu/visualizations/sexual-harassment-iceberg/ 

  

Myth:  misplaced romantic feeling, physical SH is worst type

Sexual harassment (SH) omes in three forms:

• sexual coercion (SC), e.g., quid pro quo, stereotypical “sleep with me or fired”
• unwanted sexual attention  (USA), i.e., touching, hugging, repeated requests for dates or kisses, sometimes assault
• gender harassment (GH), “a broad range of verbal and nonverbal behaviors not aimed at sexual cooperation but that convey insulting, hostile, and degrading attitudes” that convey that women don’t belong or aren’t smart enough to succeed, also sabotage.    Not about romance or conquest.  About contempt. 

 Only 37% of women faculty hadn’t experienced any SH in the two years prior to survey.  Most experienced some type of GH.  GH is the most common form of SH encountered by women students.  GH rates vary by discipline, and medicine encourters most.  Engineering experinces more sexist GH.  Think of it like an iceberg (see image).    Put downs (and out), not come ons.   SH because based on sex or gender.  Is it true that verbal harassment is not nearly as “bad” as physical?  None of assumptions held up to scientific scrutiny (See Figure 2).

While SC and USA lead to more lawsuits and bad publicity, they are low frequency.  GH is pervasive.

Myth:  SH is no big deal, but false accusations are a big deal (see next paragraph for this part).

Can’t you just suck it up?  No.  Rude behaviors of malicious intent are directed more at women

of color.  Low level, unchallenged behaviors have a massive cumulative effect.   Looked at impact of being the “only.”  We have to hire more…., but have to keep up our standards?  Implies the Other person there is not => internal gaslighting. Uncertainty permeates.  When not the Only, develop meta awareness and cognition that it’s not them.  Students ARE standing up for faculty and checking in on them, but what does that say about the institution that they are the only ones that do? 

Fig 2.  Impact of gender harassment on health and satisfaction.

Myth: False accusations are a really big deal.  They do happen, but do so in every type of crime.  Why do we care so much more about false accusations here?  How much effort is put into questioning credibility of robbery victims?  2-8% of reports are false, while 14-40% of men are sexually harassed in the workplace, so men are far more likely to be a victim of harassment themselves than to be falsely accused!!!

False reporting red flags:  know accuser, have prior relationships, no severe, young victim, inconsistent details.  What science tells us is that these are normative! 

When over worry about false reports, results in poorer mentoring—leads to closed door meetings, failure to engage students, one on one conversations, treating women differently.   Can also make you a bad administrator, as bad risk management to avoid perpetrator lawsuits rather than future victim lawsuits. 

Myths:  there are Magic bullets to try to fix the situations

Harassment Reporting:  If institution gets it right, investigates perfectly, then will end SH affliction!   So, if really happened, will report, and no negative ramifications-not scary, or hard.  Research doesn’t support.  In reality, SH reporting is a LAST resort.   Most likely to Avoid, seek social support, relabel, appease harassers, self-blame, endure, deny.  Across 20 years:  formal reporting remains about 6%.  Hasn’t increased with empowerment of women, so should we focus here?  Research on labeling of SH experiences.  Assume people are naming behavior as SH, but most are not.  Does labeling matter?   Yes (see Fig 3), but focusing on the experiences is more important that reporting or the label.  Relevant facts:  both professional and social retaliation (see Table).  Fear of retaliation is the #1 reason not to report.  

Fig. 3    

Relevant Fact:  Reporting can breed retaliation
Professional Retaliation	Social Retaliation
Given less favorable job duties	Shunned or excluded by others at work
Unfairly demoted	Slighted or ignored by others at work
Denied a promotion I deserved	Gossiped about in an unkind way
Denied an opportunity for training I deserved	Threatened
Given unfair poor job performance appraisals	Criticized for complaining about the situation
Transferred to a less desirable job	Blamed for the situation
	Considered a troublemaker
Cortina &Magley (2003, Jn Occupational Health Psy) (Note: table text has been transcribed from a photo)

Myth:  training is the other silver bullet.  Because WE care, our training works. Because we have low reports, must be working. One and done!  Lots of  support for training,  Very little published on training efficacy.  Training increases certainty, but not percentage of correct responses to knowledge questions.  Only one question that trained people did do better:  on legality.   Untrained people are more likely to say “I don’t know.”  Trained were more certain that they answered right, even though they scored the same.  They are slightly more likely to response that SH is trivial and expect false/exaggerated reports.  What we want is for behaviors to cease.   

Employee cynicism matters. 

Employees are good at sniffing out when only directed at compliance, which affects perceptions of tolerance.  Need to work on best approaches, assessing impact, reducing cynicism.

Questions:  As long as institutions aren’t paying women as much as men, how are men expected to respect us as much?  Uncertain how to respond, because Amen.  Pay inequity is an example of GH.  Data based on the people still there, but doesn’t capture those lost (lost willingly or fired in retaliation). 

Reporting is necessary, but insufficient, puts excessive burden on victims, and ignores their (justifiable!) fears.  Need to dispel belief that it is only appropriate for most egregious acts, set appropriate sanctions and enforce.

Labelling of behavior—“I would never grope, etc.” without recognizing that they engage in “put down” behaviors.  Absolutely don’t want SC and unwanted sexual attention, but also need to deal with rest of the iceberg.  Remediation doesn’t need to be limited to those things above the bar of legal definition of SH. 

Trainings that allow for more perspective taking, theater based, are more impactful than online knowledge based. 

Glad we did this first today, as first thing need to deal with!  Need to consider retaliation aspect more—who happens to, and when.  Happening as a deterrent, before and during reporting as well as after.  Institutions haven’t figured out best practices to intervene.  Much of the time its social retaliation-shut out, shunned.  And institutions don’t know what to do about those.  Example of a successful practice:  At moment of report, management team should set up a non-retaliation plan.  Not much on best practices:  hope  afternoon sessions (not webcast) will address. When universities respond, there is a large swell of volunteers.  And perpetrators situate themselves in on those committees.  Make look like good apples when not.  Shift framework.    Workforce and pipeline development:  anecdotally, hear that women can be harder than men on bringing certain subjects forward.  Is there a real difference? Anyone is capable of harm; women also soak up the lessons of patriarchy and culture norms.  May push women to complete studies faster and get out situation, rather than fixing the situation.  For women, 98% of perpetrators are men.  For men, ~50%.  Which doesn’t bear out that women are harder on women than men are. 

Title IX coordinators are working within a troubled construct to begin with-recommendations are ignored.   Livelihoods and careers of the victims are on the line.  Google last two cases at Univ of Illinois, didn’t rise to legal threshold but sanctions recommended, but were not levied.    Think of Title IX—think legal, investigation, adjudication, not the counseling concerns and mental health ramifications.  PhD student—if I go forward with complaint against renowned scientist, my own future screwed.   Training slides were disheartening!  If more and more training, will you still see?  Look at what is significant difference.  When focusing on prevention and leadership responses, will see.  Right now, going through traumatizing experience that often doesn’t help the victim.  Diffusing the power network for the student also improves outcomes. 

Moving Beyond Legal Compliance and Toward Prevention 

Lynn Pasquerella, President, Association of American Colleges and Universities; Lorelle Espinosa, Assistant VP, Center for Policy Research and Strategy; Lorelle Espinosa, Vice President for Research, American Council on Education; Kimberlee Eberle-Sudre, Director of Policy Research, Association of American Universities; Kacy Redd, Assistant Vice President of STEM Education Policy, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities

At doctoral granting institutions, 20% have women presidents, considerably less than percentage at all US colleges and universities. When you look at all institutions, only 5% of presidents are women of color.  Looking for parity by 2030, to move on action rather than just talking about it.  Do we actually have data that women presidents do better?  NSF INCLUDES research.  Diversifying faculty remains a concern. 

AACU.  Results of undergraduate student surveys were sobering, showing much higher rates of assault than had official reporting mechanisms.  “I don’t report because I don’t know where to go.” 

How do organizations support change makers?  APLU has been action oriented, bringing institutions together to work.  Bringing in more diverse faculty.  Look at institutional culture to be more welcoming and supportive. Hiring faculty that support that.  Looking at intervention.  Looking at bias training in search committees, how are you using exit interviews.  Each institution has a plan to work through.  How are you connecting these?  Some institutions looking at departmental climates.   Regional summits and moving to online formats to deliver content to people wherever they are.  Bring disparate leaders together to do situational and table top discussions.   Campuses are more comfortable with diversity conversations than equity, as they don’t understand what that means. Have been looking at things as if they don’t permeate classroom environment.    Don’t want to “unnecessarily lengthen the syllabus.”  People don’t see themselves as fundamentally part of the picture.  Its other people. But It is part of the learning environment.    Microaggressions—address in the moment or after class?  Need strategies.  LGBT+ students experienced the most harassment.  80% of schools said they “changed it” for a specific populations.  Not all inclusive.  Leadership on campus can do a lot through rhetoric, accountability and monetarily.  More we can equip graduate students with the skills to be compassionate faculty members, those are game changers.  Networks, need to be top down.   Reaching into disciplinary societies.  Need to include all levels in the conversation. 

Questions:  Structures to address are institution based.  But experience and research show that local institutions are not equipped to deal across all interactions.  Are there opportunities among your organizations to develop a collaborative system to investigate, something that institutions could buy into? You are talking to many different layers.   An independent entity that could adjudicate?  Sounds really smart.  EEOC.  Grants and agencies also hold people accountable. Think critically important not to impose hetero/cis paradigm.  What do we do with larger community issues?  Leaked memo from NYT that defines biological sex.  All of the panel organizations have an advocacy role.  Campuses can set the tone and ensure it permeates through campus.  Modeling dialog, empowering student voices.  What is the role of the Offices of General Counsel?  They can be conservatizing.  They provide info on the law, but can also provide us with info of what we see in our job.  Former General Counsel in audience shared personal story:  asked who is the client?  Was fired for asking for an GC investigation.  What role has GCs played to make sure past crimes were not shared with the public? 

Try to find institutions that are ahead of the pack, and nucleate others around them. Are we putting as much energy into proactive measures?  SH is about power.  What are other places doing about relating to SH intervention?  Compounded by social media—stalking takes multiple forms.  Looking at using technology as safe forms of reportings.  Calisto for example.  Chat Box.  Transphobia can take the form of SH, and SH is not a women’s issue but a gender affected issue.  NSF INCLUDES, IGEN,  Onus needs not to be put on people of color or LGBT because tend to me more junior. 

Thoughts and guidance for postdocs, fellows, medical residents who aren’t easily tracked because so many different possible titles and capacities, but not captured under student, faculty or staff umbrellas. Many are concentrated in medical centers.  Also subject to all of retaliation. 

The Role of Federal Agencies

Kelley Bonner, Workplace Violence Prevention & Response Program Manager, NOAA; David Chambers, Equal Opportunity Program Manager, NASA; Rhonda Davis, Head, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, NSF; Lawrence Tabak, Principal Deputy Director, NIH; Rachel Gettler, General Attorney, Office of Civil Rights, Department of Education

University Title IX perception “Fox guarding the chicken coop.”  Can go directly to any grant reporting agency—they all have their own title IX coordinator, and can report there within 180 days of incident and have adjudicated more fairly.  But limited resources, so smart action is “shotgun approach” to multiple agencies.  Pay equity, EEOC is the best bet instead.   How to ensure harassers don’t have access?  NSF director sent out to 3000+ institutions that SH would not be tolerated.  Put together a task force, and met every two weeks as launching, now bimonthly.  Went into effect in October if there is a SH  violation, and they are unable to carry out terms of grant, working on that process now. 

NIH has Indirect and direct approaches.  Indirect—extensive anti-harassment program that they hope is a model, with option for anonymous reporting, central investigations, will issue a survey of all NIH staff in 2019 about workplace environment.   Issued a federal register note to indicate to institution that speaks to what employees and grantees can do to pursue.  Support much needed research.  In December, will launch a working group/advisory council on this topic.  Frazier Benya spoke to packed audience not that long ago. External funding:  always had policy that if an individual’s status policy changes, the institution is obligated to notify the NIH.  Typically by VP of research.  Reflex is to take away the grant, which has collateral damage, particularly taking away support of the individual that reported.  Work with university.  Truthfully, agencies don’t make a big deal where a PI has been removed because of legal framework issues—speaking about someone else’s employee. 

NASA has a robust anti-harassment process.  Pre-award, there is a civil rights assurance form, compliance reviews.  Indirectly, try to focus on the environment that allows harassment to breed.  Do you show gender diversity on your website?  Do you also recruit at Society of Women Engineers and Association of Women in Science?  Promote promising practices as well as compliance? Title IX requires self-evaluation.  Are you using GRE math score as gateway criteria which shuts out those with tremendous experience and references, reducing diversity)?  Mediation with wronged party rather than invoking title ix "broken" investigation process could empower them while educating the aggressor.  (this could work IN SOME CASES, but without also fixing other aspects of system, how to reduce retaliation?) 

NIGMS has announced that there must be an anti-harassment training and dual mentoring to distribute power and achieve results that are more favorable.  Series of initiatives to diversify the work place in terms of gender, race and ethnicity.  Improved early investigative stage.  Diversifying panels—not just old white guys, but post docs, young professionals. 

What is one thing you will invite colleges and universities to do to help efforts?

·        Have Research Office communicate with Title IX office.  Be intentional about culture change efforts.  Be honest and forthright. 

Questions? 

Do you have policies to prevent supervisors from have sexual relationships with supervisees?  NIH does, and has a mandatory reporting requirement. Adjudicate each situation, and if truly consensual, readjust the reporting relationship. How do you define consensual?  Getting ready to get married (really?!) Nat. Academy staff has new training on the way.  Recommend providing flexible funding for grad students to diffuse power structure.  But not generally allowed to pool funding.  Parental leave concern:  Usually can extend for a year for family issues.  Having child as a woman, negative impact, for man, positive impact (how was he unaware of this prior to this study).  Some societies are redefining scientific misconduct to include sexual harassment. 

Reporting has to be the silver bullet for the agencies, as otherwise they cannot act. How do respond?  Still report, but bypass the institution.  Title IX didn’t anticipate influence of today’s social media.  Tremendous strength in numbers.  What if a PI or co-PI came and said we had to remove an individual because of harassment?  Not stopping at those levels. If we hear of something through another form would follow up to confirm safety of parties and determine if institution can still fulfil terms of grant. Could be delayed by loss of lower levels as well, but don’t have to notify. Accommodations could be made.

How does anonymous reporting actually work?  Hire a contract organization so there are none of our employees are involved, and use a system of checks and balances for web forms or phone call.  With an anonymous report, may not get enough info to proceed.  Reporter may come back later, but cannot seek.  With regard to Title IX structure and review—if there are issues, does that trigger a review of what the office should be? 

Don’t think the report highlights an “emerging threat.”  Problematic behavior has been present a long time and limiting performance.  Need to increase inclusive practices across the board to tamp down bullying, 

Compliance isn’t enough, but it has to be part of it.  What can institutions be doing beyond reporting?  Can be diversifying senior leadership and throughout organizations.  Ensure equity, review every department for equity measures and tie institutional reward system to it. 

Recordings are now available at:  https://vimeo.com/album/5561695
Afternoon Concurrent sessions and closing plenary were not webcast.