Some Female Professors Harassed by Students

A survey by a Purdue University professor has uncovered a type of sexual harassment on campus that is rarely discussed -- the harassment of female professors by students.

Elizabeth Grauerholz, an associate professor of sociology at Purdue, surveyed 208 female instructors at the university about their experiences with students and their perceptions of students’ behavior. Nearly half of the women surveyed said they had experienced some form of harassment from their students.

The most common involved sexist and sexual comments, undue attention, and body language, but one professor surveyed said she had been sexually assaulted by a student. Male students were far more likely than female students to engage in the type of behavior studied, the survey found.

Sexual harassment is often explained in terms of power, such as the power of a faculty member over a student. But Ms. Grauerholz says an important finding in her study is that most female professors believe students can sexually harass professors, regardless of the faculty member’s formal authority.

That many female professors feel harassed by male students reflects cultural power differences between men and women, and highlights the importance of gender in defining a woman’s vulnerability to harassment, Ms. Grauerholz says.