Best of the Transparent Hummingbird
Part of the reason this new policy was implemented is because of the utter failure on the part of faculty- and administration-led tribunals to deal adequately with sexual assault and sexual harassment on campus. Note that the majority (if not all) of the signatories here are Harvard Law professors. Just take a look at how poorly the law school has dealt with rape on its own campus, even when the evidence was strong enough for Middlesex County to move forward with criminal charges (and let me tell you, that’s a high bar). Academic freedom is something to be fought for, but not any more so than student safety from physical violation. The faculty is threatened by the new policy in much the same way that the administration is threatened by the impending federal funding cuts. Is this really about representing the whole Harvard community? Or is this about protecting faculty interests? Who at Harvard will speak up for the student who has been raped in her dorm room? At a campus party? Or, as one student told me, on the lawn outside of the campus library? The new policy is extremely problematic, but faculty can’t lead us to a better one. Just like the administration, they cannot and they will not speak for students. Students must speak for themselves–so what kind of policy do you want to see? And who do you trust to write it and implement it?
the utter failure of administration-led tribunals to deal adequately with sexual assault on campus and to make the complaints process equitable, transparent and trauma free