CAMPUS CORRESPONDENCE : Universities Hide Scope of Violent Sexual Harassment

A sexual-harassment lawsuit filed against a UC San Francisco psychology professor last month epitomizes the popular perception of gender relations on campus. Sex, academics and power mingled until the woman publicly condemned her alleged harasser--also her dissertation supervisor and former lover--potentially destroying both their careers.

Sexual harassment naturally evokes controversy on campuses, the frontiers of “political correctness” and sexual politics. Unfortunately, what is lost in the power-charged debates over offensive speech and “Oleanna”-like he-said, she-said recriminations is the true scope of gender crimes on U.S. campuses.

At UCLA, four sexual-harassment lawsuits settled in secret came to light when the Daily Bruin, the campus student newspaper, sued for and won their release under the California Public Records Act. The university edited out all names, but the seriousness of the alleged incidents--repeated rapes and forced masturbation--were evident. Nearly $1 million of public money was spent to settle the cases.

If UCLA is representative, college administrations may be covering up large settlements made to alleged victims of sexual harassment to avoid costly, high-profile lawsuits. The often violent nature of the crimes is obscured by confusing and contradictory university harassment policies that leave victims little recourse but to settle quietly.

Trying to hide the dark side of campus life goes hand-in-hand with sexual harassment, because of the fear and shame the victim and harasser share. Frequently, confidentiality must be assured if a resolution can be found.

It should be noted that the Daily Bruin sued for access to documents detailing sexual-harassment claims settled for sums in excess of $100,000 during the past four years at UCLA. In other words, there may have been many such settlements involving less money at the university.

Private universities are not obliged to reveal anything they want kept secret. And in the case of public universities, which can be sued under public records statutes, the process of disclosing sexual harassment can be difficult. For example, the campus paper for Nassau Community College sued twice for documents detailing sexual harassment charges against a professor, but did not win enough documents to learn much.

No simple solution exists. Public knowledge of each and every case would be overwhelming and would probably cause more problems than it solves. But students and taxpayers have a right to know how their tuition money is spent, how victims and alleged harassers are treated, how the process works and whether the results are just. To this end, universities could make available--in redacted form--the case backgrounds and how they were settled. Light would then be shed on the subject, while protecting those involved.

Secrecy protects the innocent and the guilty. By preventing us from knowing the extent of the sexual harassment problem on campus, it also keeps us in the dark about how we should combat it.