Sexual-Harassment Case at U. of Southern California Prompts Push for Tougher Punishments

One thing has become clear since women and men started coming forward to tell their stories of sexual harassment in the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein revelations: Often those incidents are kept secret. That’s been the case at colleges such as the Berklee College of Music, whose president said this week that 11 faculty members had been quietly fired for sexual misconduct in the past 13 years.

Students at the University of Southern California’s school of social work are trying to change that. Last month, after Karissa Fenwick, a sixth-year Ph.D. student, sued the university and her dissertation adviser, claiming he had made unwanted sexual advances toward her, dozens of students formed a coalition that has been putting pressure on the university to change how it handles cases of sexual harassment.

People in the social-work school, which offers master’s and doctoral degrees, are debating questions that other campuses may have to ask too, like whether investigations into sexual misconduct should be kept confidential and how a university should respond to transgressions that make people uncomfortable but can’t be proved. The students say figuring out the answers to those questions is part of their discipline.

“As social workers, we have a code of ethics,” said Robin Petering, another sixth-year Ph.D. student. “We have a responsibility to advocate for people who are experiencing violence and other types of abuse.”

Ms. Petering helped form the coalition, which also includes alumni, after Ms. Fenwick filed her lawsuit. The group wrote a letter that called on the university “to take concrete steps to ensure a safe environment for students and staff.”

Members of the social-work faculty wrote their own letter saying that they “cannot reconcile the limited sanctions imposed” and questioning why those sanctions had been kept confidential.

The provost, Michael W. Quick, wrote in response that the university needs “to look at our policies and procedures to make sure they are robust.” A task force was created to recommend new policies for how the administration should respond to sexual harassment.

Weak Sanctions

Ms. Fenwick has alleged that an associate professor of social work, Erick G. Guerrero, the chair of her dissertation committee and her “primary mentor,” tried to kiss her in a hotel room in New Orleans, where the two were attending a conference last January. Ms. Fenwick said Mr. Guerrero later told her not to tell anyone what had happened, and assured her that if she did, their dean “would never take your side or let anything happen to me,” according to her complaint.

A week later, Ms. Fenwick reported the incident to the campus’s Office of Equity and Diversity, which investigated and concluded that Mr. Guerrero had violated the university’s policies. He was suspended for the fall-2018 semester without pay and was banned from teaching doctoral students, holding leadership positions, or receiving a bonus for three years.

Feeling that those sanctions were not harsh enough and would not take Mr. Guerrero out of contact with students who didn’t know what he’d done, Ms. Fenwick sued.

“What I was concerned about was him coming back to campus,” she said.

Mr. Guerrero said in a court filing that Ms. Fenwick’s allegations were false. He said she had asked to come to his hotel room while he called her an Uber driver to take her back to her hotel.

Mr. Guerrero also said, in a statement provided to CBS’s Los Angeles affiliate, that he would never put himself in a position that would jeopardize his career.

“I have been a social worker in a female-dominated profession for 20 years and have committed my career to promote equity and empower vulnerable groups,” he said. “I am proud to be one of few Mexican-American professors with tenure at a world-class university.”

Mr. Guerrero filed a grievance with a faculty committee and has a hearing scheduled for December.

‘I Would Want to Know’

For students like Ms. Petering, that Ms. Fenwick’s experience happened in connection with a school of social work — which trains people to defend vulnerable populations — added a layer of betrayal. But as an advocate she said she was prepared to push the university for change.

The coalition thinks Mr. Guerrero should receive tougher sanctions. Its members are also uncomfortable with the level of secrecy that surrounded Ms. Fenwick’s case before she made it public. Even though the university found her claims to be true, there was no way for other students to know about them.

“We understand confidentiality while an investigation is happening, but when someone is held responsible, we feel the right to confidentiality can be voided,” Ms. Petering said. She’s heard the argument that faculty members might then be afraid to work closely with students, but she thinks there has to be some way for them to know if their professors have been found responsible for sexual misconduct.

“If it was me, and my mentor had been found responsible, I would want to know,” she said.

The coalition has an email address that has received many messages about transgressions that fall just beneath the reportable level, Ms. Petering said. She wants the university to focus on preventing that behavior. That could be done, she said, by better educating people about sexual harassment.

“We haven’t really created a culture, broadly in society, for people to say, I’m sorry, I messed up, and I want to do better,” she said. “I’m afraid we run the risk of a backlash and a pendulum swing in the other direction. Everything will get extra-hidden because people are scared of a full-career teardown.”

Ron Avi Astor, a professor at the social-work school and co-chair of the task force, said institutions like his school must at least meet the standards of the profession they’re training their students for.

“I would not want to go to a situation where somebody’s accusations destroy entire careers, so we have to be thoughtful about it,” he said. But when accusations are made, the university must be able to find out whether there’s an institutional problem that’s allowing inappropriate behavior to take place.

“It seems like a window in time where we’re open to change,” Mr. Astor continued. “Things are happening in every institution, including ours.”

Nell Gluckman writes about faculty issues and other topics in higher education. You can follow her on Twitter @nellgluckman, or email her at nell.gluckman@chronicle.com.