Some one was released from Michigan in the last few years (yes, being purposely vague) due to unwanted sexual advances against their students. Undergrad and grad.
Not even everyone in their department knows why they left. I only know because I’m friends with one of the people they harassed.
@simba9 Don’t confound the two “complaints” and their respective signatories.
The first is a formal EEOC complaint signed by seven UR faculty members and one graduate student. That case, as well as the allegations about how the administration treated the original complainants, is now under further investigation. The EEOC filing did not tell students not to attend the university; it outlined Jaeger’s actions and the actions of the administration in response to the original complaint and requested a formal review of the situation by an independent source. The professors were not warning students against attending the university; they were taking legal action to insure that the university is a safe place for their current and future students.
The second is an open letter to the UR trustees signed by 400 faculty members from OTHER schools saying that they will not recommend Rochester for their own students considering grad school or employment there. While a handful of the signatories on that list may have or had previous ties to the university, this is a document that was intended to spur the trustees to take action to reassure the academic community in general of the university’s stance on this issue. It focused specifically on recommendations re. graduate students and prospective faculty rather than being the general admonition against the school as a whole that is suggested by most headlines.
An appalling number of the harrasers on that Geocogntion list of 571 continued teaching.
@simba9 states:
The professors complaining actually WERE the victims if you read the second EEOC complaint. Because that complaint, released in September, is about more than the Jaeger situation. It is also details the ways in which the administration had allegedly retaliated against the original EEOC complainants, which resulted in a “hostile environment.”
And, while you may be right that UR professors and staff aren’t necessarily happy about the “boycott” letter from outside institutions, based on my own observations, most have been supportive of the students and staff at Rochester who have spoken up to denounce Jaeger and the administration’s handling of the original complaint.
A large number of UR Professors have also signed an open letter promising to hold their own labs to higher moral standards (click on the link in the last sentence of the article for names)
I’m just going based on what was in the article. Filing a complaint doesn’t mean it’s true. These days the term, “hostile environment” gets used when someone near you simply doesn’t agree with you.
I think it’s perfectly legitimate to complain about how the administration handled the whole issue. Just don’t pretend that the Rochester professors who are telling potential grad students not to attend the school are doing anything effective or honorable.
@simba9 You obviously aren’t on top of the issue. Either that, or you’re intentionally misinterpreting the comments above. ** The professors currently at Rochester are NOT part of the open letter to the trustees telling students not to attend the school.** In fact, if you follow the link that @AroundHere posted, you’ll see that more than 300 members of the UR staff and faculty have signed a letter that supports further investigations of the allegations while at the same time offering support and advocacy for the students they teach.
@EllieMom, I live in California and won’t pretend to be obsessed or immersed with what goes on at Rochester. I’m just going by what’s in the original article. Seems to me like any of the professors who have or had a relationship with the school and signed the letter telling students not to attend aren’t taking any personal risks or doing anything constructive to help the situation.
@simba9 A boycott can’t do more than send a message, but what’s wrong with sending a message?
@simba9 I have a current student at UR (undergrad, not BCS), so I have been aware of the situation since early September. And I find it unfortunate that people who have little understanding of the situation or those involved are making blanket statements about the university and casting aspersions on the professors at Rochester who are involved in the EEOC filing.
So, I do feel the need to pipe up when someone says things like, “Just don’t pretend that the Rochester professors who are telling potential grad students not to attend the school are doing anything effective or honorable” as if that is an issue. Because there are NO Rochester professors doing that. If you look at the link on the first page of this discussion, you’ll see that only two of the 400 signatories of the boycott letter are currently associated with the university (one visiting assistant professor and one med-center fellow, neither permanent faculty at the school).
Since you referenced the article in the OP, there was one quote that did ring true to me: “The fact is that many students, faculty, and administrators at the University do not recognize the institution described in the letter circulating on the Internet. They are proud of our school and find it to be a welcoming and supportive learning environment. It is regrettable that the letter is signed by many people who do not have direct knowledge of the actual circumstances here." I think the same can be said of some who are discussing that letter as well.
As I’ve stated before—this is an important issue. And a complicated one. But it is not one that is unique to University of Rochester.
It’s not quite at the same level, but the people who loot stores while rioting about some social issue often justify it by saying they’re sending a message such as, “No justice, no profits.” They’re hurting people who aren’t involved, and then for some crazy reason expect the people they’re hurting to take their side. They should go after the school’s administration, not the school as a whole.
That sounds like something I agree with, which is why I disagree with those defending the idea of a boycott.
I suppose it’s like the women who came forward to say “Al Franken didn’t harass us.” It may perfectly well be true, it doesn’t make the stories the others told and the photos less true.
I’m sure that there are plenty of women who were not harassed by this professor and plenty of professors at UR who do not harass. But when a law firm writes up a 100+ page complaint of things they think they can prove in court, there’s gotta be quite a bit truth in there, too.
Professors at UR have votes in the faculty senate and other ways of effecting change at their institution.
Also, getting the attention of powerful people who wouldn’t otherwise get involved is how minorities always get justice – though I prefer sit-ins, boycotts, marches, and other forms of peaceful protest.
@AroundHere, you seem to be locked onto the idea that I’m defending the person accused of harassment, Rochester’s administrators, or claiming the harassment didn’t exist. At what point did I say or imply that?
My criticisms have to do with the way people are reacting to it. Telling students to boycott the university punishes the whole university, including people at the school who were not involved. I’m not sensing a lot of support for the boycott from people who work at the University of Rochester. If anything ,they seem to resent it. That tells me they think it’s ineffective and unfair.
And while I’m not a lawyer, I’ve been around enough to know that when a law firm writes up a complaint against someone, they’ll hyperbolize like crazy in their documents, so you have to reserve judgement.
One of the schools I went to recently had a scandal where the dean of the medical school was found to have been engaging in some unseemly behavior. At first the administration let him slide, saying they did an investigation and found that his behavior, while bad, wasn’t bad enough to dismiss him. He just happened to be a great fundraiser for the school. But then the media, the community, and alumni publicly began criticizing the administration and the dean to the point where there was no alternative but to let him go. A boycott of the school wasn’t necessary, and nobody had suggested it. That’s how Rochester should deal with it.
What you seem to be missing is that the boycott is OUTSIDE of Rochester. Saying that Rochester “should” have dealt with the issue without a boycott confuses the issues. The boycott gained momentum and garnered publicity as a way for the academic community at large to put pressure on the board of trustees to make sure that the administration, not just Jaeger, are held accountable for the creation of a hostile work environment. As is often the case, if the matter had been handled correctly in the first place and the university not tried to cover things up, this issue would be forgotten by now. The boycott is not about Jaeger, but about how the university handled the complaint against him.
Is it fair that Rochester has been singled out at a time in history when sexual harassment is a “hot topic”? Probably not. BUT, it is imperative that as a society we look beyond sexual harassment as an individual act and start assessing the role that institutions and corporations play in perpetuating it. The slogan adopted by protestors at UR has been “If you love something, you hold it accoutantable.” And, from my POV, that sums it up well.
Dr. Jessica Cantlon and Dr. Celeste Kidd named one of Time’s Persons of the Year as Silence Breakers
http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2017-silence-breakers/?xid=homepage
According to Cantlon, the university combed though her private email on the UR server looking for reasons to make them look foolish or to turn the rest of the faculty against them.
Lawsuit has been filed here:
https://www.scribd.com/document/366696664/UR-Lawsuit-by-EEOC-Complainants
I’ll confess that I didn’t read the document above, but Scientific American found this gem:
Seligman - president
Clark - provost