Lawmaker Calls Out a Professor — and Colleges — on Sexual Harassment

An unusual decision by a member of Congress to publicly call out a successful professor of astronomy education for his history of sexual harassment has shone a light on a common but little-discussed practice of passing harassers from one university to another. The move also added fuel to growing concerns about sexual misconduct in science.

In a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives this week, Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California, said Timothy F. Slater had created a sexualized culture in his research group at the University of Arizona. He discussed oral sex with female graduate students, took one to lunch at a strip club, and told another she’d teach better if she didn’t wear underwear, the congresswoman said. Arizona investigated the charges and in 2005 found that Mr. Slater had violated its sexual-harassment policy. He was required to undergo training on avoiding offensive behavior. In 2008 the University of Wyoming hired Mr. Slater and gave him an endowed chair of science education.

Ms. Speier said an Arizona report on Mr. Slater’s misconduct described “lurid” behavior but was sealed while he went on with his career. She added: “Some universities protect predatory professors with slaps on the wrist and secrecy.” Ms. Speier, who said her office had obtained a copy of Arizona’s 38-page investigation report on Mr. Slater, asked that it be entered into the Congressional Record.

Bernice R. Sandler, a longtime activist on women’s issues in higher education who is now a senior fellow at the Women’s Research and Education Institute, said the congresswoman’s speech had raised the level of attention to the long-simmering issue of sexual harassment in academe. “Public shaming is very, very effective,” she said, “when people have behaved badly.”

Ms. Sandler said few universities share sexual-harassment information when a professor is on the job market. That’s primarily because institutions just want to get rid of the problematic employee, she said, and because administrators are worried about liability in disclosing personnel information. “We’ve had so many schools who have passed the harasser on to another school,” she said.

‘Young and Stupid’

Mr. Slater, however, said Ms. Speier had unfairly made him a poster child for the wrong cause. He has reformed his behavior, he said, and since 2004 not a single other sexual-harassment complaint has been filed against him. He also said Wyoming knew about the accusations of sexual misconduct and hired him anyway, after a thorough vetting to make sure no other charges had cropped up. A spokesman at Wyoming confirmed that for The Chronicle.

“There were no surprises here,” Mr. Slater said in a telephone interview. He said he was “young and stupid” when he made sexually suggestive comments to women at Arizona in the early 2000s. Some of his students were about the same age as he was, he said, and he failed to observe appropriate professor-student boundaries. But, he said, his case is an example of how the system of investigating and penalizing sexual harassment in academe should work.

“Should the mistake follow you forever?” Mr. Slater asked. “Or can you understand: Here is how you hurt people, and you never do it again?” He said that after completing a year’s worth of training at Arizona in how to avoid sexual harassment, he has never done it again. “You have to totally change your paradigm.”

The Slater episode is just the latest in a growing list of cases involving well-known professors whose sexual-harassment charges have come under the public spotlight.

Female faculty members and students have complained for decades of discrimination and harassment in male-dominated scientific fields. Last year the American Astronomical Society’s Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy completed an online survey of 426 male and female students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty members working in the discipline. It found that 24 percent said they had felt “unsafe” in their current position because of their gender.

Gender complaints are not limited to science. Female philosophers have also cited a hostile climate for women, and universities have recently removed or forced out several male philosophers following complaints of sexual harassment and assault.

Last fall another, more-prominent astronomer, Geoffrey W. Marcy, left his post at the University of California at Berkeley after astronomers across the country expressed outrage that the university had not punished him more harshly when it found him responsible for harassing female graduate students over a decade.

The complaints were formally lodged against Mr. Marcy only after a female astronomer outside Berkeley began contacting young women who she heard had been targets of his unwanted touching and comments, and encouraged them to complain. Eventually a few did. Once the case against Mr. Marcy became public, more than 3,000 astronomers and others signed an online petition supporting women who had been “targets of Geoff Marcy’s inappropriate behavior.”

Joan T. Schmelz, deputy director of the Arecibo Observatory, in Puerto Rico, headed the astronomical society’s Committee on the Status of Women until last year. She is the female astronomer who helped put together the complaints against Mr. Marcy. And she said he, too, told people that he had changed his behavior. But then, said Ms. Schmelz and other female astronomers, he would do it again. (Mr. Marcy has acknowledged some of the alleged behavior, but not all.)

Ms. Schmelz applauded Ms. Speier’s effort to give more attention to sexual misconduct in academe. “I am grateful for the added visibility,” she said. “This problem has been lurking in the shadows for so long. The first thing you do is shine a light on it, and the congresswoman did.”

‘It’s Not Your Problem Anymore’

Universities typically keep the findings of sexual-harassment investigations confidential, said Peter F. Lake, chair and director of the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy at Stetson University’s College of Law. But that is not because federal law requires it, he said. “Historically the practice has been to remove someone from your environment, and if other people down the road ask the right questions, then you have to tell them the truth,” he said. “But mainly, the thinking is: It’s not your problem anymore.”

Sometimes, however, there are legitimate reasons to keep the results of sexual-harassment investigations under wraps, said Chris Sigurdson, Arizona’s vice president for communications. One is that colleges are obliged to protect witnesses from retaliation. Another is a belief in rehabilitation: If accused harassers are assigned corrective actions and complete them, they go back to being employees in good standing, Mr. Sigurdson said, and their disciplinary proceedings should not be aired.

During her speech on the House floor, Ms. Speier said she planned to introduce legislation requiring universities to release reports of sexual-harassment complaints — and the findings of campus investigations — to other universities. She likened Mr. Slater’s Wyoming move to how the Roman Catholic Church had relocated rather than fired some priests found guilty of sexual abuse.

Mr. Slater said he was shocked to find out that Ms. Speier had been talking about him on the House floor. His professional behavior, he said, has been reviewed three times since the Arizona allegations surfaced — once in 2006 at Arizona and twice at Wyoming. He said he had been candid about the complaints made against him.

“Here is an example of a process that worked,” he said. “We should be celebrating.”

Robin Wilson writes about campus culture, including sexual assault and sexual harassment. Contact her at robin.wilson@chronicle.com.

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