IHE: Old Dominion and Accusations / U of Michigan Sexual Misconduct

[Wahoo Redux]

More good news.

Old Dominion defends writer

Lawsuit Against U of Michigan Sexual Misconduct

[Parasaurolophus]

Wow, that ODU story is something else. Holy carp. (Also, who gives so many flying fucks about Roth that his biographer gets to be somebody? FFS.)

Also, a significant copy editing failure:

(all were adults by the time of the alleged crimes, which Bailey denies)

[marshwiggle]

More good news.

Old Dominion defends writer

Lawsuit Against U of Michigan Sexual Misconduct

It seems there's an inordinate need to "jazz up" the allegations. For example:

Previously, Bailey was accused of rape and attempted rape, including by some of his former middle school students (all were adults by the time of the alleged crimes, which Bailey denies).

If they were adults at the time of the alleged crimes, the fact that they had been his students in middle school has no bearing, other than sounding salacious.

The allegations are based on two recent investigative reports conducted by a law firm and published by the university that detail decades of sexual assault by Robert Anderson, a former doctor who molested hundreds of students, and sexual harassment by Martin Philbert, a former provost who had inappropriate sexual relationships with employees and graduate students.

"Inappropriate sexual relationships" has got to be in a different category than sexual assault.

And here is what is alleged:

While dean of the School of Public Heath, Philbert was in sexual relationships with at least three staff members, including having sexual relations in university offices and sharing explicit photos that Philbert stored on his university-owned devices.

For nearly his entire tenure as provost, Philbert was in simultaneous sexual relationships with at least two university employees. He engaged in sexual contact with them in university offices, including with one woman on a near daily basis for a time.

There's no suggestion of coercion in those allegations, so "harassment" may be a stretch.

The point isn't that there may not have been inappropriate behaviour, but slanting the accusations toward something more serious than apparently occurred is bad journalism.

[Hegemony]

Part of the ODU defense is that "No one ever -- ever -- complained to ODU about 'grooming,' attempted rape, 'attempted kissing,' or any of the other incidents highlighted," and "it beggars belief that an attempted rape of a faculty member by another faculty member would remain unreported for more than half a decade." I guess those on the side of the defense have never heard of the tirade of abuse, dismissiveness, and grief that people who report such things typically get put through. What went on at my grad school also "beggars belief," most particularly a prof who was known for pursuing students to the point of showing up at their doors (unwanted, though he shouldn't have been showing up at their doors wanted or unwanted), declaring that he couldn't live without them and couldn't be responsible for his actions should they turn him down, etc. I saw this first-hand through sharing a place with one of the students. What we didn't know at the time, but was revealed to me later by a fellow prof (who mistakenly thought I knew) was that he had a history of getting the students pregnant and then threatening them until they agreed to an abortion. The two students that I know of who underwent this then each dropped out.

None of this, not one word of it, was ever the subject of a complaint to the authorities. Everyone involved suspected that the complainers would be targeted, blamed, harassed, dismissed, and given a terrible time. I believe it as well.

Said prof soon moved on to another job. I talked to someone at the next university, and he told me with a shaking of his head of some of the crazy accusations some of the students had come up with.

Which is to say that there are many reasons women don't make official complaints — well known and well documented ones.

[Parasaurolophus]

Hegemony: yeah, my harasser did that too. And I didn't say anything until I'd left.

It's extortion, pure and simple.

[mamselle]

Yes.

And as long as the fear of reprisals reigns, the deafening silence will let them continue, and go on and on and on...

M.

[fishbrains]

It seems there's an inordinate need to "jazz up" the allegations. For example:

Previously, Bailey was accused of rape and attempted rape, including by some of his former middle school students (all were adults by the time of the alleged crimes, which Bailey denies).

If they were adults at the time of the alleged crimes, the fact that they had been his students in middle school has no bearing, other than sounding salacious.

I disagree. Going after your former middle-school students is super-creepy and reveals a very disturbing state-of-mind.

I need a shower.

[Wahoo Redux]

What can realistically be done to encourage victims to come forward?

[Ruralguy]

I don't think you can do anything but adopt a fair an open process, but as you see from the related thread, that can sometimes lead to the guilty going free (though it would seem many fear the opposite more) which will further frustrate witnesses and victims waiting in the wings.

[smallcleanrat]

What can realistically be done to encourage victims to come forward?

Maybe, for a start, promote education that reduces the incredulity that someone who was assaulted may not come forward right away. But I don't really know how much impact this has anyway. I just get very tired of hearing "well, if they were really raped..." followed by an expression of pure ignorance.

A frequent (and legitimate complaint) is that people accused of perpetrating assault are often pilloried in the court of public opinion regardless of whether an investigation has even started let alone come to any conclusion.

This also happens to victims because many people have narrow, preconceived expectations of how a "real" assault victim would behave, and a nauseating amount of confidence in their own ability to spot liars and false accusers.

[marshwiggle]

What can realistically be done to encourage victims to come forward?

Maybe, for a start, promote education that reduces the incredulity that someone who was assaulted may not come forward right away. But I don't really know how much impact this has anyway. I just get very tired of hearing "well, if they were really raped..." followed by an expression of pure ignorance.

A frequent (and legitimate complaint) is that people accused of perpetrating assault are often pilloried in the court of public opinion regardless of whether an investigation has even started let alone come to any conclusion.

This also happens to victims because many people have narrow, preconceived expectations of how a "real" assault victim would behave, and a nauseating amount of confidence in their own ability to spot liars and false accusers.

This is the problem on both sides, and why we have to rely on evidence. Anyone who is convinced they "can tell" who's telling the truth regardless of evidence is a dangerous ideologue of one sort or another.

[Ruralguy]

I can't tell, I can only suspect, and even so, I don't let that dictate the verdict. I agree that evidence dictates the verdict, though there can be disagreement on issues of incapacitation and thus consent, and thus assault, and thus then responsibility for the assault. By the way, any weakness in this chain of reasoning is supposed to favor the
respondent (accused perpetrator; defendant).

[Parasaurolophus]

What can realistically be done to encourage victims to come forward?

For a start, don't "lose" the complaints which are filed, then pretend ignorance or deny any were ever filed when it all blows up because one of the complainants decides to go public.

True story. My guy harassed at least eight of us. At least four of us said something in an anonymous survey of the department's climate. But when I left and came forward, the person in charge of the survey (who was interrogating me about the harassment in a not-too-friendly-or-kind-manner) just said "I wish someone had said something in the climate survey." When pressed, she "went back and checked" and supposedly found nothing.

Who knows what happened to those surveys in the end? They probably went into the circular archive.


While we're at it, I did try to complain officially at the height of the harassment, when I was absolutely desperate for help. But the admincritter in charge of the procedure said there was nothing they could do (particularly due to the extortionate threats of suicide) and that I should just wait it out. That was not helpful either.

[Caracal]

It seems there's an inordinate need to "jazz up" the allegations. For example:

Previously, Bailey was accused of rape and attempted rape, including by some of his former middle school students (all were adults by the time of the alleged crimes, which Bailey denies).

If they were adults at the time of the alleged crimes, the fact that they had been his students in middle school has no bearing, other than sounding salacious.

I disagree. Going after your former middle-school students is super-creepy and reveals a very disturbing state-of-mind.

If the story was that he had a relationship with one former student years later when she was an adult, I think Marshwiggle would be right.

The pattern is the problem. One relationship it would be fair to say "well, sometimes people who originally met under one circumstance later reconnect in a totally different one and it isn't really anyone's business if everyone is an adult." However, when it is a pattern, it seems pretty obvious that he considers current students to be people he might sleep with later. The descriptions of his behavior when these women were students of his doesn't help either.

[Ruralguy]

I have to admit, that even with a procedure in place regarding all forms of sexual misconduct (including extortive threats of anything), I am not sure what can be done about a tenured faculty member. We'd have the hearing alright. But would we dismiss him? Even if we recommended that, there are procedural appeals, and in any case, the president can put his foot down before that point and deny the "de-tenuring" (dismissal).  I am not saying that people shouldn't go through the process or that you won't meet with many sympathetic individuals, I just think that especially with tenured faculty cases, expectations on what happens to that person should be low, though there have been high profile cases that have led to dismissal/quitting in the face of dismissal.