Student Forum Addressed Harrasment Procedures

   By Daniel C. Stevenson
   
   Associate News Editor
   
   As part of the continuing scrutiny of MIT's harassment policy, the
   Graduate Student Council sponsored a panel discussion Wednesday to
   focus on student concerns with harassment.
   
   The five panelists and audience members addressed the clarity of the
   definition of harassment, the need for harassment education, and the
   decentralized complaint process.
   
   The forum "got some discussion going," said Anand Mehta G, former GSC
   president and organizer of the event. "It gave us some ideas on where
   to proceed."
   
   Parts of _Dealing with Harassment at MIT_, published in November,
   concerned many people. These included the definition of harassment and
   the distinction between harassment and freedom of expression.
   
   "Everything described in the guide is still changing," Mehta said, and
   the forum was designed to gather student input to "help direct that
   change."
   
   The GSC Peer Advocates Against Harassment committee will now review
   the discussion and "make a formal set of recommendations or
   suggestions to the administration," said GSC President Caryl Brown G.
   
   The five panelists consisted of Jennifer E. Carson '94 of Students
   Against Sexual Harassment, Adam L. Dershowitz G from Student Advocates
   of Freedom of Expression, Sandra C. Dow '96, Undergraduate Association
   Vice President Anne S. Tsao '94, and Assef A. Zobian G, chair of the
   academic projects and policy committee of the GSC.
   
  CLEAR DEFINITION OF HARASSMENT
  
   
   
   The harassment guide asks members of the MIT community to avoid
   testing the balance between freedom of expression and freedom from
   unreasonable offense. Students concerned with MIT's policy have
   focused on the fuzzy distinction they see in the guide.
   
   Seth Finkelstein '85 called for clearer definition of the line between
   free speech and harassment. Dershowitz agreed on the need for clarity,
   describing the current definition of harassment as including
   "everything from being bothered to being raped."
   
   Dershowitz called for a distinction between strict rules about
   harassment and general guidelines describing how to "play nice." The
   distinction between informal guidelines of civility and formal rules
   is "not really addressed in an appropriate way in the policy," he
   said.
   
   The guide defines harassment as "any conduct ... which has the intent
   or effect of unreasonable interfering with an individual's or group's
   educational or work performance ... or which creates an intimidating,
   hostile, or offensive educational, work, or living environment."
   
   Mehta proposed changing the definition to say that harassment occurs
   when unwanted behavior continues after some kind of complaint is made.
   
   "I think [Mehta's definition] would be better," Carson said. Tsao
   agreed, but Dow questioned how many kinds of repeated behavior should
   be defined as harassment.
   
   Glen Adams G asked the panelists to each give an example of an action
   that constituted "illegal" harassment and one example of "acceptable"
   harassment.
   
   Carson and Dow said that shouting a racial slur at someone represents
   a punishable action, but Carson said a crude sexist joke in a
   dormitory lounge would be acceptable.
   
   Tsao said that derogatory sexist comments by a professor to a female
   student would be punishable, and an intentionally rude question about
   a religious practice would be acceptable.
   
   Dershowitz said that offering sexual favors for grades is harassment,
   but a statement like "Women can't handle this place" should be
   allowed.
   
  CENTRALIZATION, EDUCATION DISCUSSED
  
   
   
   Under MIT's current policy, records of harassment cases are kept only
   by the supervisors to whom complaints are reported. This system is
   "not a reliable mechanism," Tsao said.
   
   Panelists and audience members also discussed the decentralized system
   for filing harassment complaints. Under the current policy, any
   supervisor at the Institute can receive a complaint.
   
   Carson said the supervisors are given a large amount of authority but
   varying levels of guidance. She suggested a full-time committee of 20
   rotating members to handle harassment complaints.
   
   While there is a committee on discipline for inter-student conflicts,
   there is no grievance board for student-faculty conflicts, Mehta said.
   The discussion at the forum showed "a consensus that there needs to be
   such a [grievance board]" for students.
   
   "The biggest thing that will help harassment at MIT is education,"
   said Susan Ipri G. In his introduction, Zobian proposed "harassment
   workshops" to educate students about coping with harassment issues.
   
   Dow suggested providing some type of harassment education during
   Residence and Orientation week as part of Project Move Off Your
   Assumptions.
   

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Copyright 1994 by The Tech. All rights reserved.
This story was published on  Sunday,  February 18, 1994.
Volume 114, Number 7
The story began on page  1
and jumped to page  7.

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