An odd reason to take a stand

Re “Fighting the real harassment,” Opinion, Nov. 21

Professor Alexander McPherson demonstrates curious judgment, to say the least, when he chooses mandatory sexual harassment training to take a stand against political influence in academia.

As tenured professors, we might protest the influence of the military-industrial complex on our research through grant funding. We could choose to take a stand against the corporatization of the university. We could stand up to military recruiters trying to make imperial storm troopers out of our students.

There are any number of real injustices out there we could work to correct and pernicious political interference we could lament -- on and off campus. Sexual harassment training is not one of them. In its current form, it is a silly waste of time, nothing more.

Christian Haesemeyer

Westwood Village

The writer is a professor of mathematics at UCLA.

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McPherson’s experience with sexual harassment training reminds me of the “integration orientation” programs forced on teachers in the late 1960s. As I recall, the first of these required lectures began with a district-level administrator informing us that we were all racially prejudiced. The implication was that they would show us how not to be prejudiced. Their approach not only was offensive to us but seemed to encourage students to look for prejudice on the part of their teachers. I did not boycott these sessions as McPherson did with the sexual harassment training -- but I certainly resented them.

James Wakeman

Long Beach

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McPherson writes like a self-centered male who thinks the sexual harassment training requirement is all about him. It is about the people he supervises.

As a supervisor, it is his job to educate and protect employees and students. I am surprised to read of a professor who is so against education that he is willing to give up his job.

Sari Beth Goodman

Los Angeles

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Don Quixote has risen again in the form of a professor of molecular biology and biochemistry doing battle with the windmill of the California law requiring sexual harassment training.

Maybe because I conduct sexual harassment prevention training, I fail to empathize with the good professor’s outrage. I am not in favor of political correctness. But an employer’s demand that supervisors attend training about federal and state laws on sexual harassment -- laws that hold the employer automatically liable for their supervisors’ actions -- does not seem to me to be a “repugnant and offensive” request of those supervisors receiving a salary from management that pays the big legal bills.

Take off your armor, lock up the lab, swallow your pride and, professor, make direct observations by checking out the training for yourself.

Howard Phillips

Los Angeles