Draft Four: The elephant in the room

Defining sexual harassment, and making students feel safer.

Nov 19, 2023

Picture this: You’re a college student, in class, on exam day. The professor, a man, looks around the room and quips: “Boys, please leave the room. The girls will now take an oral exam.”

Or this. You’re in class, and the professor, a man again, says: „Women in the front row, please. I’d like to see you better.”

Or this. It’s the weekend, you’re doing whatever, and your professor – male, female, doesn’t matter – shows up in your WhatsApp. They got your number from the school files, and just wanted to see what you were up to this weekend, maybe also get to know your astrological sign, as they can definitely correlate it with the kinds of weekend fun you should be having.

Are any of these behaviors acceptable? Do they belong in the same category?

What would you do if they happened to you, or your colleagues and friends?

And what should universities do if they learn some of their students go through this?

These are questions the staff of Centrul FILIA, a feminist woman’s rights organization in Bucharest, has been asking for years, most recently in a project called TRUST. TRUST’s purpose was to look at the current higher education context in Romania and get a sense of how it deals with gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and other forms of abuse; see what works, what doesn’t, and make suggestions for improvement.

Along with Carla, a former colleague of mine from DoR, we began reporting a story for Scena9 about this work, because we believe it’s an important lens through which to evaluate the students’ experience. Carla is interested in the topic because she published a series of stories this past spring centered around verbal abuse in class. I’m interested because I edited those stories, and the importance of good university practices stuck with me.

The story will come out in a few weeks, but I wanted to use this letter to draft some of the larger points that emerged in the reporting, as well as get your feedback, reflections or personal experiences.

1 in 2 women know of sexual harassment in universities

Let’s start here: back in 2015, FILIA polled more than 40 universities around the country, out of about 80, 52 of which are public universities. They got 668 answers, 551 from women.

Half of the women said they were aware of sexual harassment in universities.

A smaller study FILIA did at the end of 2020 (368 replies) showed that 1 in 3 women experienced a form of harassment themselves, and slightly more witnessed at least one instance of it.

A more recent but narrower study by ANAIS, an NGO fighting gender-based violence, got 530 replies from students and 114 from professors and concluded, similarly: „there is a high prevalence of sexual harassment in education”, mostly through behaviors by men. Most of these men are students, but some are university staff or professors. (We’re focusing on the latter in our reporting.)

This matters because the impact of harassment and other inappropriate behaviors is well-known: it triggers anxiety, it influences self-esteem, it impacts academic performance, it makes students resort to blaming themselves, or, at worst, can be a cause for depression or even suicidal behavior.

FILIA staff told us they wish they could do a an even more representative survey – larger budget, larger sample, something they can draw statistically meaningful conclusions from –, but even the data we do have suggests a systemic problem, one that is underreported, insufficiently defined, and largely neglected.

They don’t mince words in their report: “The minimal attention that universities devote to addressing sexual harassment perpetuates unequal power dynamics and credibility imbalances between women and men. In the long run, this contributes to a rise in gender inequality and fosters a patriarchal and violence-tolerant society.”

Let’s clarify some terms

I’ll use terms like “sexual harassment” or “inappropriate behavior” in this letter, and will toggle between the two, because they encompass a range of unwelcome behaviors that are of a sexual nature and create a hostile or intimidating environment. These behaviors can include unwanted advances and requests, as well as more subtle forms such as sexist remarks, inappropriate comments about appearance, or intimidation.

The fact that many believe only physical contact counts as sexual harassment is both a myth, and a hurdle, FILIA says, minimizing or ignoring the more subtle forms. These are relevant especially because, when dealing with professor-student relationships, they are closely linked to the misuse of power and authority.

Do universities care?

No university administrator or prof would say they take this lightly. But if one looks at whether the system is set up to increase students’ security, the story is different.

The FILIA report analyzed 85 university codes of ethics, the main instrument one would use to assess the appropriateness of behavior. Almost all mention discrimination, but less than a quarter define it. None of them define discrimination on the basis of gender. Only 38 mention sexual harassment, but just 12 provide a definition. (There are a few laws doing a better job at the definition, including the penal code, but even those are largely not reflected in the universities’ wording).

Those providing extra wording or definition, also perpetuate myths, blaming the victim for not pushing back forcefully enough, or highlighting the physical nature of these acts.

It gets worse: only 1 out of 85 codes lists the steps a student can take in case they were the victim of any kinds of harassment. None provide a template.

Are there recorded incidents?

This is where the figures clash. FILIA also looked at complaints in 52 public universities over five years – there were 44 in total, 22 regarding discrimination, 15 regarding sexual harassment, and 7 that don’t fit a clear category.

Sounds good, right? Maybe we don’t need better definitions, examples and templates. Maybe this just isn’t a problem.

But how do you square this with the surveys quoted above or with national and international reports that all say Romania still has plenty to do when it comes to gender equity, and especially gender violence?

Remember: a third to half of women in universities are familiar with such instances, some having experienced a form of inappropriate behavior themselves.

If definitions and examples of what these behaviors are not needed, why do so many European universities have them?

Here’s a simple comparison. This is what the University of Bucharest’s code of ethics says about harassment, which is listed under “forbidden behaviors”: “Understood as degrading, intimidating or humiliating behavior that affects a young person’s ability to carry out his or her professional or scholarly activities or to exercise his or her rights, regardless of the forms in which it may manifest itself (such as sexual harassment, sexual or psychological harassment and the like).” The ethics code also prohibits soliciting sexual favors.

This is as detailed as it gets.

Do you understand the behaviors I listed in the beginning as belonging under this vague definition? If I get suggestive messages at night from a professor, do I understand it as a breach of the ethics code? What about comments made about my body in class; I felt ashamed and uncomfortable, but since it’s not listed, do they count?

And, more importantly, would the ethics commission that resolves complaints think they count?

Contrast this with a communications school in Denmark, which defines a whole range of behaviors, including examples for each. Here is what they list under “sexual harassment”:

Not desired physical contact, touches, pats, squeezes, pinches, caresses and the like
Unwelcome allusions with sexual undertones, such as lewd stories, jokes, comments about appearance, and abusive verbal assaults
Suggestions, expectations, or demands for sexual favors
Obscene and compromising offers or invitations to sexual contact
Showing pornographic images
Physical abuse
Extraneous inquiries about sexual topics.

Clear is kind (and safe)

Last weekend, we had a group of students from the University of Bucharest over to our office. The group grew out of the FILIA project and aims to keep campaigning for safety in universities. For them, a clearer and more specific language would mean the university cares and takes this issue seriously.

If the behavior is specifically reflected in the code, it’s easier to know how to interpret it. Otherwise, they wondered, is a professor showing naked pictures in class, supposedly as part of a lecture, OK? Is a professor coming onto to a student outside of university premises OK?

Because it’s not clear, because we are still a recovering patriarchal society, such incidents go unreported. Often that happens because, as some victims told us, “it could have been worse”. Other reasons students don’t report is because they fear repercussions (like failing a class or being punished academically), they fear being publicly exposed, and they don’t believe anything will happen to those that wronged them.

You see this lack of reporting at a national level. Although women’s rights advocates have long maintained that instances of rape and domestic violence are underreported, statistics do show over 4.000 thousands convictions for rape over the past 8 years. Convictions for sexual harassment? 19.

Overcoming the resistance

So, what’s going on? Why do we resist simple changes to rules and regulations?

Well, one holdout is the ideas that “boys will be boys”. These types of minor aggressions have been normalized as part of daily life so much that we don’t notice them anymore. Remember rumors of that one professor who’d always bump your grade if your cleavage was showing? Or whose sexual innuendos went maybe one step to far, but hey, that was his creepy self, and it was what it was?

Even some the students don’t see a problem. They laugh at sexist jokes or innuendos in class – sometimes at the expense of a colleague that was targeted. The young organizers at the University of Bucharest told us they reached out to a student association to do awareness training, and only three students showed up. To be fair, a similar group in Timișoara said they have already reached a few hundred students with such sessions.

Yet they are all optimistic it will change. “Person by person”, one of them said.

I don’t think it would be wrong to say that, right now, many universities don’t see the issue as a priority. The FILIA staff followed up their research with an amazing guide: pretty much everything you need to update your codes of ethics and procedures.

They didn’t hear much in return when they sent it to all the universities in their database. Together with ANOSR, one of the largest umbrellas for student organizations in Romania, they also gathered more than 3.000 signatures in a petition demanding better ethics codes, prevention mechanisms, along with staff training. They are yet to receive an answer from the ministry of education.

The best description we found for how this issue is neglected institutionally comes from a report the University of Bucharest has done on itself:

“The research shows that within the university community there are forms of gender-based violence ranging from sexist comments and verbal violence to incidents of sexual harassment. These incidents, while not representative of the UB community, do take place, and there are very few mechanisms in place to address gender-based violence incidents or offer support to victims. For UB, gender-based violence is the elephant in the room, as there are no public discussions, no research conducted so far, no clear official mechanisms of complaint, and no services for victims.”

The elephant in the room, indeed.

One student who has been an active ANOSR representative for years – and who is now working at a European level – told us this is how universities operate. Because they have autonomy, they don’t make changes unless there is a public scandal or outcry. They lack what she called “a culture of quality”, which would entail doing the right thing when no one is watching.

FILIA staff has also talked with representatives in some universities about what’s keeping them from making changes to definitions and procedures. Well, they said, doing so would mean admitting we have a problem.

There are solutions in the works

I recently had my 20-year college reunion, so I also asked my former colleagues if they remember experiencing any kind of discomfort from interacting with faculty. Some mentioned verbal abuse, bullying, mockery, and then one said: yes, there was this one professor who told her, on multiple occasions, that if she wanted a better grade, she should come to his house when his wife was away.

And then another one said she went through something similar. They hadn’t known about each other. Another colleague asked why they didn’t say anything – at least to the rest of the class. They were ashamed, they said. Maybe they had done something to provoke it. They didn’t want trouble. They thought they were alone. And fortunately, that was as worse as it got. They are slowly realizing, 20 years later, how wrong the prof’s behavior was.

With more conversation and more awareness, the FILIA staff told us, our perceptions will change. Yes, innuendos are not unwanted touching. Repeated messages are not assault. Sexual harassment is not sexual abuse. But this is not about equating the behaviors, or even seeking the same level of punishment. This is about becoming conscious that behaviors lie on a scale of gravity, but that they are all inappropriate in an educational setting.

This is something students have to learn, professors need to understand, administrators need to be mindful of, and we all need to accept.

FILIA’s guide is a terrific first step: it even includes templates for how a complaint filed to the ethics commission can sound like. Other solutions are being worked on at the same time, a sign that student safety is climbing the ladder of priority:

A bunch of representatives in Parliament submitted a bill to adjust the definition of harassment and add harsher punishments if it happens in schools and universities. A version of it cleared the Senate, and it might clear the Chamber of Deputies, too.
The national-level institution overseeing Ethics Commissions says it has (finally) drafted an updated code to become a minimum standard around the country. They say it’ll welcome public for comments soon and might be adopted by the end of the year, which should trigger a bunch of individual ethics code changes in 2024. (The drama school changed its code recently after stories of sexual harassment of students were published in the media).
The University of Bucharest has taken its own criticism to heart. Under pressure from European Institutions, it has adopted a Gender Equality Plan that has a list of eight priorities, with prevention and sanctioning of sexual harassment among them. The team leading the charge is the one that wrote the criticism, and they are credible and well meaning. They also drafted a new procedure to report and evaluate student complaints that they say is currently under review by the university legal department.
The Bucharest student group we talked to has also drafted a list of proposed changes to the current code of ethics, and they’re hoping to present them to the university senate soon.

Change will be slow, but it is bound to happen

A few years back there was a horrific incident of a teenage girl that was abducted and killed in Romania. My colleagues at DoR did a story back then, and the teenagers they spoke to said the fear of something like that happening had always been there.

It’s not just them. There is a trend of videos that has recently started making the rounds in which men and women answer the same kinds of questions about feeling safe. The difference is tremendous. Men don’t think about danger as they walk home at night. Women hold keys in order to hit back, they pretend to talk on the phone, so no one accosts them, they cross the street if a man comes towards them etc. This preventive behavior is so normalized many of them don’t even notice themselves doing it. Constant fear is too a high price to pay for safety.

Change is not about punishing men – although those with inappropriate behavior should be held accountable. But it is about not expecting women, especially students, to process and carry the whole burden of pushing back or fix our inability to regulate our own behavior.

For the sake of it, let’s do this one more time.