Fairness Problems With Harassment Policy

   We write both to applaud and to criticize the most recent effort by
   the administration to clarify MIT's harassment policies and
   procedures. The new guide is a notable improvement over past efforts.
   One specific point that we felt would be very helpful was the pull-out
   resource chart, which offers an extensive list of people to contact
   who may be helpful at various stages of a complaint process.
   
   Our central critique of the guide and a multi-access system in general
   is not that people shouldn't have many choices, but that the
   implementation of the policies is unlikely to be consistent, fair, and
   supportive of victims. Every supervisor will interpret the numerous
   vague passages in the guide to fit his or her own particular style and
   views, and it probably will continue to be "business as usual." A
   single half-day workshop for representatives from each department or
   division will not be nearly enough to address this problem.
   
   The policy needs to define much more clearly what is and is not
   "harassment." The current guide gives a few easy examples but evades
   most of the difficult questions. Further, although the social and
   legal definitions of harassment are connected to discrimination and
   inequality, these are largely absent from the current guide.
   Harassment is reduced to "offensive behavior" and the offenders are
   mostly characterized as ignorant -- people who will be very willing to
   change their behavior once informed. This emphasis on ignorance and
   offensiveness leads to the trivialization and minimization of
   harassment as an abuse of power.
   
   One the key failings of the current system is that because of the
   crushing power differential in many harassment situations, some
   victims are unable to fully avail themselves of the machinery that
   already exists and feel harassed by the system itself in pursuing a
   complaint. As a result we believe that MIT needs a professionally
   trained staff that will serve as advocates for victims of harassment
   and help to guide people through all stages of the harassment process.
   This staff would also be responsible for education, training, and
   continued development of the policies and procedures.
   
   In addition we suggest creating the equivalent of the Committee on
   Discipline for harassment complaints. A standing committee would
   ensure some consistency from case to case, and would not be dominated
   by one person's biases or views. Associate Provost Samuel J. Keyser
   has strongly objected to this idea. It also appears that high level
   administrators and faculty are very reluctant to be judged by anyone
   who is not one of their own.
   
   A final point is one of reporting and statistical tracking of
   harassment complaints, which is central to stopping repeat offenders.
   The guide repeatedly mentions reporting but provides no coherent
   statement on what specific information will be gathered, and what will
   be done with it. It emphasizes that privacy will be preserved in
   informal approaches to harassment since no records are kept, but why
   not keep records without names and still track important information?
   Names of the accused and/or the complainant could be optional, but
   strongly encouraged, and perhaps victims could specify a time after
   which their complaint could be used to substantiate a pattern of
   harassment. In addition, perhaps accurate statistics of harassment at
   MIT would break through some people's denial about the seriousness of
   this issue.
   
   Scott T. Hofmeister G
   
   _Ad-Hoc Committee Against Harassment
   

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Copyright 1993 by The Tech. All rights reserved.
This story was published on  Friday,  November 12, 1993.
Volume  113, Number 57
The story was printed on page  4.
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