Students and staff allege sexual abuse and harassment by Indiana University academics in anonymous Google form
Out of 1,200 submissions, 11 came from IU
Echoing Moira Donegan's "Shitty Media Men list", Professor Karen Kelsky of TheProfessorIsIn.com launched a similar survey last month to expose the issue of sexual harassment in the academy. The public, anonymous Google document is open for all victims of sexual harassment to share the details of their experiences completely anonymously.
"I hope that gathering stories will allow women in particular to know they are not alone, and create conditions for women to thrive in their chosen careers," Kelsky wrote on her website.
Out of the 1,200 submissions written in "Sexual Harassment In the Academy: A Crowdsource Survey", 11 came from Indiana University. The accounts were written by anonymous undergraduates, graduate students and faculty members.
One of the posts came from an undergraduate student who recounted an incident that involved her tenured professor in December of 2013.
“[H]e forced himself on me. Pulled the back of my head toward him and forcibly kissed me, tongue and all. Later, touched and exposed my breasts even as I told him no.”
Another student in her first year of graduate school described the inappropriate behavior of her future advisor and tenured professor.
“Over the past couple of years, I have seen him touch women without their consent on multiple occasions. He obviously gets a kick out of toeing the line between “vaguely inappropriate” and downright unacceptable. I have since changed my entire study focus in order to avoid working with him.”
Discrimination against female faculty members at Indiana University is also present in these accounts. A female faculty member described her experience being denied tenure because of her gender.
“I went to the Associate Dean to ensure I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing in regards to research, teaching and service. Her response stunned me. 'Oh are you in X department with So & So?'…Oh I know all about him and HE is never going to support a FEMALE FACULTY in HIS department'."
Not all sexual harassment cases were reported to the University, yet the accounts reported were allegedly met with no more than “sad nods” and advice “to just move on and not attack a man’s livelihood.”
Dr. Kelsky’s goal, “is for the academy as a whole to begin to grasp the true scope and scale of this problem in academic settings.”
The University has not yet officially responded to the allegations in the document.