@“Cardinal Fang” @HarvestMoon1
I could be wrong, but I would imagine it’s possible for MIT to deny Lewin access to the list of students watching his lectures (and, of course, cancel any courses he might currently be teaching), without taking down lectures that have already been posted online - which, in and of themselves, are a resource like any TED talk or documentary.
Well there is a difference between edX and MIT OpenCourseWare. There is no interactive feature on OpenCourseWare and it is simply a compilation of course materials and lectures. I have no knowledge of whether they have removed materials from his classes from OpenCourseWare. Don’t forget Lewin retired from the faculty in 2009.
He found the student in question because she made a Facebook group. If I can search Facebook, Lewin can search Facebook too.
I can understand both sides of this position. I found out about the Lewin controversy a few weeks ago; I was at loose ends, and decided to go back and work through the Lewin lectures, which I had started and abandoned awhile ago. The lectures really are exceptional. There is no doubt about it. But when I went to the MIT site, discovered they weren’t there (they are no longer in OpenCourseWare, harvestmoon, that’s where I looked) and started Googling, I soon realized that MIT simply should not let itself be a vehicle for distinguished professors to harass women students. The lectures are exceptional, but Lewin’s conduct was egregious.
There is no doubt that Lewin did what he was accused of. He doesn’t deny that he did it, but he still maintains he did nothing wrong. Ugh.
@“Cardinal Fang” I do tend to come on the side of leaving the materials out there - the lectures are what they are. Lewin is able to search Facebook even now, though one would hope if he decided to return to his dubious ways, the students he contacted him would block him within seconds.
If taking down the lectures is the only way to prevent people from creating relevant Facebook groups, I don’t know where I’d stand on the issue. I’m inclined to think that, when colleges start removing resources from the internet because discussion of them may pose some dangers to the participants, that allows Lewin and his breed to cause more harm still by hampering the spread of knowledge through their conduct.
This isn’t only an issue for female student. Every single male and female professor I have had in the humanities and social sciences continually makes derogatory comments about males, specifically white males, all day every day in every class. Yet no one reports them. Obviously its not the same as physical harassment but if you really think that only female students get insulted you’re very wrong. I see it happen all the time at my university and all the universities I’ve visited and the professors are never and will never be punished or admonished for it because its viewed as ok by universities now days.
I think people in general need to get over being offended about stuff like this. Marcy’s behavior is totally unacceptable but that isn’t what we are talking about right now. It is totally fine in college SJW culture to bash white males all day long, even straight people or just whites in general, all while being offended over the TINIEST “microaggressions” like ninja or viking Halloween costumes being too offensive to certain ethnicities. Enjoy this quote from President Obama:
“It’s not just sometimes folks who are mad that colleges are too liberal that have a problem. Sometimes there are folks on college campuses who are liberal, and maybe even agree with me on a bunch of issues, who sometimes aren’t listening to the other side, and that’s a problem too. I’ve heard some college campuses where they don’t want to have a guest speaker who is too conservative or they don’t want to read a book if it has language that is offensive to African-Americans or somehow sends a demeaning signal towards women. I gotta tell you, I don’t agree with that either. I don’t agree that you, when you become students at colleges, have to be coddled and protected from different points of view. I think you should be able to — anybody who comes to speak to you and you disagree with, you should have an argument with ‘em. But you shouldn’t silence them by saying, “You can’t come because I’m too sensitive to hear what you have to say.” That’s not the way we learn either.”
All two of them, since your other posts indicate that you are a frosh studying petroleum engineering? Also, since your posts indicate that your school is a state school in a very conservative state, some might wonder what you are referring to as “derogatory comments about males, specifically white males”.
In any case, political viewpoints, however noxious, are different from harassment (sexual or otherwise) directed at particular students or others.
There is a difference when the comments are sexual in nature. And certainly when there is physical harrassment or coercion that impacts a woman’s ability to continue or advance in her studies. I acknowledge that it is possible that a female prof could do this to a male student as well, or a gay prof could do it to someone if the same gender, although pretty clearly that is happening less often. But the point is really about using their position of power to advance their agenda for sexual gratification.
I heard an interview today with the Buzzfeed reporter who broke the Marcy story. She said she heard from many in the astronomy academic community that this is a very common issue, and not just with Marcy. Maybe more dominoes to fall… if I were a university president, I’d be thinking about how to get out in front of this.
Back to Marcy - I’ve been to a couple of conferences where he was a panelist, and before and after the panels, he was hugging everyone he knew, male and female. I have a feeling at least some of the complaints were from people who didn’t understand he’s that kind of a person…very touchy-feely.
Unless he hugged a little to long or a little too closely sometimes… it didn’t sound to me like these reports were just hello hugs.
Depending on the contract Lewin had with MIT, taking down the lectures may have been the only option MIT had. At my previous institution, the faculty contract was very clear that if a faculty member left the institution, the university had no rights to use materials the faculty member had created, aside from items retained as records required for purposes such as accreditation reviews (e.g., course syllabi—and even then they couldn’t be reused, they were just kept on file). If Lewin was working under such a contract, once Lewin was no longer affiliated with MIT, MIT would have had to take the videos down.
No idea if that’s the case here, but clearly Lewin has retained his rights to everything he created, and has been posting it all on other venues.
I watched some of Lewin’s entertaining lectures years ago. I was actually rather unimpressed, he was doing exactly the same stuff my Physics 1 professor was doing up the river back in the 70s.
I suspect being generally touchy-feely may be part of the playbook for abusers–it provides them with some deniability in the first stages. Also, they may be the kinds of people who don’t recognize boundaries.
First off, universities in any state, regardless of the state’s political leanings, are liberal. I have friends in universities across the US and its the same. I’ve sat in on classes at the University of Michigan and the University of Florida and several universities on the East coast and its the same mentality.
Next, you’re point that I am only taking a few humanities means I shouldn’t care. Well thats anecdotal because there are plenty of men who takes humanities who sit through this crap all the time too. I’m sure if a female was in one class with a professor making sexist comments, you wouldn’t care if it was one class or 5 classes, it is still is unprofessional and wrong.
As to your last point, I already mentioned ahead of time because I knew someone would bring it up, that derogatory comments are not the same as sexual harassment. I was responding to someone who was complaining about male professors making those types of comments towards females. So all my points still stand. Either everyone needs to stop getting offended so easily or no one should be making those comments period. You can’t have it both ways and be right.
At the same time, while this specific case is clear cut, I’ve seen it applied in reverse; people get accused of serious crimes for pretty normal behavior. For example, one teacher I know was accused of assault for patting a student on the back because said student was upset about a grade or something and reported it as assault.
But this thread IS primarily about physically inappropriate behavior, or comments that clearly indicate that the offender would LIKE to be physically inappropriate. So your comments are a tangent – not related to the original topic, other than the fact that you take offense to them. No one is feeling you up.
I would say that most universities have professors who are liberal (even Texas A&M etc) but this is not a liberal or conservative issue. There are sexist perves in both parties. There are guys like this who are apolitical. I guess it makes it worse when a male professor claims to be so “enlightened” or “progressive” then acts this way. But, I am a firm believer that people will push the limit and act poorly until there are consequences. If you think you will get fired or that your will be a laughing stock or that you will lose your reputation then maybe you will think twice about using your influence over a young co-ed who is less powerful than you.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that that’s really it. Power corrupts and tends to make you believe yourself invulnerable to the very real consequences of your actions. This is a rather natural effect of a pretty absolute hierarchical system.
Well, except that most college professors don’t harass—so that isn’t the natural effect of a hierarchical system… Now, whether a hierarchical system makes it harder to deal with the bad actors, that’s an interesting question (and the topic of a recent Chronicle of Higher Education piece, which has resulted in a lot of discussion with IMO good points on all sides), but an unsettled enough question that I don’t think you can say it’s a “natural” result, either.
Most people in any given organization aren’t bad apples. Professorships are no exception. The real question is how you deal with the ones that turn out to be bad. And I think it’s pretty clear that when the balance of power is as skewed as they are in the student/professor scenario, these sort of issues tend to be swept under the rug.