Thanks for your questions, Sehoya. The National Academies report on the Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequence in Academic, Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018) recommends that university policies and procedures embody the values of inclusion, diversity, civility and respect. It found that a number of concrete steps that can be taken by institutions to help integrate these values into their systems, which  include (but are not limited to):

1. Taking explicit steps to achieving greater gender and racial equity in hiring and promotion
2. Improving the representation of women at every level
3. Combining anti-harassment efforts with programs to promote civility
4. Using training approaches that aim to change behaviors and focus on developing skills to intervene when inappropriate behavior occurs

We recommend checking out Interventions to Preventing Sexual Harassment, a handout developed based on the findings and recommendations of the report. It provides additional specific actions institutions can take based on the four recommendations in the video.

Great question, Isabelle! The research documented in the report shows that women who have multiple marginalities – for instance, women of color and sexual and gender minority women – experience certain kinds of harassment at greater rates than other women. This is because the cultural context in which people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds operate can have effects on how they experience sexual harassment. The research shows that sexual harassment experienced by women of color often manifests as both racial and gender discrimination, leading to overall higher rates of harassment in these populations. Interviews commissioned by the committee demonstrate the complexities of this. The respondents noted an inability to disentangle the discrimination and bias as stemming from their gender or their intersecting identities. 

The committee noted that more data and research is needed to fully understand the experiences of women in underrepresented and/or vulnerable groups, including women of color, disabled women, immigrant women, sexual and gender minority women, postdoctoral trainees, and other. More research is needed on the experiences of these populations to ensure that the recommendations from the report do not only improve the environment for straight white women.  

For more information see: p. 41, 44-46, 77-78, 124-126 of the report on Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequence in Academic, Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018)

Thanks for your questions Camelia. The report notes that there is one promising incentive mechanism already in use for incentivizing departmental and institutional change toward improved gender representation. It is known as the Athena SWAN (Scientific Women’s Academic Network) program, which begun in the United Kingdom. The departments and institutions work to be awarded a bronze, silver, or gold status based on the work they have done to address gender equity issues. Currently AAAS is developing a United States version, which they are calling SEA Change and it is addressing gender and racial diversity issues.

For assisting institutions in making this change, the National Academies has launched an Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education. This is an effort to bring together leaders from academic institutions and key stakeholders to work toward targeted, collective action on addressing and preventing sexual harassment across all disciplines and among all people in higher education. This Action Collaborative creates an active space where colleges, universities, and other research and training institutions will identify, develop, implement, and research efforts that move beyond basic legal compliance to evidence-based policies and practices at the individual and systems levels for addressing and preventing all forms of sexual harassment in higher education.

The report did not recommend any specific ramifications for institutions, but instead presents the research that shows that if these recommendations are not implemented then institutions will continue to enable sexual harassment to thrive.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments! One outcome of this report has been the creation of an Action Collaborative to Prevent Sexual Harassment in Higher Education. The action collaborative is designed to be an active space where colleges, universities, and research and training organizations can research and develop efforts that move beyond basic legal compliance to evidence-based policies and practices for addressing and preventing all forms of sexual harassment and promoting a campus climate of civility and respect. Please stay tuned for more developments on this front!

In regards to the role of federal funding agencies, there certainly is opportunity for federal agencies to support and encourage these changes in higher education and some of this work is beginning in the federal agencies. There is currently proposed legislation in the House Science Committee that would create an interagency group to examine how all the federal agencies handle issues of sexual harassment among their grantees. Additionally NSF and NIH have made recent announcements about changes or work they have initiated in response to the report. Lastly, we had a great conversation with federal funding agencies (including NSF, NIH, and NASA) about this at our most recent convening on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education on November 9, 2018.

Thank you, Breanne, for bringing forward this important question. 

The four recommendations presented in the video are from the 2018 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus study report “Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine”. These recommendations, and 11 others, were identified and developed by members of the special ad hoc study committee of researchers, academic and business leaders, and others with expertise on this topic to investigate the issue and how sexual harassment could be addressed. When examining policies, strategies, and practices for preventing and addressing sexual harassment, committee members reviewed research on training, institutional policies and procedures, and institutions’ legal obligations. The committee examined the national structures for handling sexual harassment, including federal research misconduct policies and processes; cross-institution and federal agency systems for reporting, preventing, and responding to sexual harassment; and the role of professional societies and organizations in addressing these issues.

There are a number of practical strategies that institutions can use to implement them. These include:

• Creating diverse, inclusive, and respectful environments
• Improving transparency and accountability
• Diffusing the hierarchical and dependent relationship between trainees and faculty
• Providing support for the target

More information on practical strategies for combatting sexual harassment at the institutional level can be found here.

Thanks Erin. The committee recommends that institutions  prevent and address sexual harassment by updating hiring, promotion, and tenure processes so that they reflect the values of diversity, inclusion, and respect, for instance focusing evaluation and reward structures on cooperation, respect, and professionalism rather than on solely individual level performance. I recommend the material in Chapter 6 of the report, where the committee dives into faculty hiring, evaluation, and reward practices. 

Great question, Regina! One of the most important messages of the report is that the legal system alone is not an adequate mechanism for reducing or preventing sexual harassment, and institutions need to move beyond legal compliance to address culture and climate.

The flaws with the legal system are with the interpretation of Title IX and Title VII. The committee that authored the report points out two issues:

1) The inaccurate assumption that a target of sexual harassment will promptly report the harassment without worrying about retaliation

2) The way it has incentivized organizations to create policies, procedures, and training on sexual harassment that focus on symbolic compliance with current law and avoiding liability, and not on preventing sexual harassment

The committee recommends that judges, academic institutions (including faculty, staff, and leaders in academia), and administrative agencies should rely on scientific evidence about the behavior of targets and perpetrators of sexual harassment when assessing both institutional compliance with the law and the merits of individual claims. The committee also recommends that federal judges should take into account demonstrated effectiveness of anti-harassment policies and practices such as trainings, and not just their existence, for use of an affirmative defense against a sexual harassment claim under Title VII.

Regina,

Your point is well taken: the study committee of the 2018 Sexual Harassment of Women report found that legal compliance is necessary, but not sufficient, to address and prevent sexual harassment. They found a number of effective points of intervention, both at the departmental and institutional level, including (but not limited to):

• Taking explicit steps to achieve greater gender and racial equity in hiring and promotions
• Focusing training on changing behavior, not on changing beliefs
• Creating mentoring networks or committee-based advising that allows food a diversity of potential pathways for advice, funding, support, and informal reporting of harassment
• Developing ways research funding can be provided to the trainee rather than just the principal investigator
• Providing alternative and less formal means of recording information about the experience and reporting the experience and reporting the experience
• Making the reduction and prevention of sexual harassment an explicit goal of your leadership tenure

More information on practical strategies for combatting sexual harassment at the institutional level can be found here.