From: stewart@geophysics.harvard.edu (Cheryl Stewart)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Sexual Harassment Rally at MIT
Date: 22 Nov 1992 01:14:03 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

Boston Globe 

Saturday Nov 21 1992

At MIT 100 Rally over Harassment

In wake of woman's case, University's Procedures 
are called inadequate to the task

By Susan Pollack Special to the Globe

Cambridge--About 100 students, faculty and staff members 
rallying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
yesterday charged that sexual harassment is a widespread
problem that is not being properly dealt with under existing 
university procedures.

Students said the US Department of Educations office for Civil Rights
is investigating a complaint that alleges that
MITs handling of sexual harassment cases is neither timely
nor equitable.  A department spokesman confirmed the
complaint but indicated that the decision
to investigate, made in 19990, did not mean the department had 
concluded there was a problem. 

Rally leaders urged victims of sexual harassment 
who were unhappy with the way they were treated by MIT
to contact the department.  

The rally was called in the wake of a jury verdict earlier this month
clearing an MIT business professor, Gabriel Bitran,
of sexually harassing Marina Erulkar, a Sloan School
graduate who had worked as his assistant.

"We're not talking about one case; 
we're talking about an atmosphere of fear
at MIT because of the inability of the 
MIT administration to deal with sexual harassment
head-on," said Corrie Lathan, a graduate student
who helped organize the rally.

While the students charged that there had been 1000
complaints, Mary Rowe, assistant to MIT paresident
Charles M. Vest, said her office received 200 
informal complaints of sexual harassment during the 1991-92
academic year.

Yet only a handful of students followed through
with a formal grievance, according to Jay Keyser, 
MIT's associate provost.  Asked about the disparity, 
Keyser suggested that "people are reluctant to go formal."

He denied that MIT's grievance procedure wis inadequate but 
conceded that the university might not be dealing with the
issue as quickly and as forcefully as possible.

At the rally, Ann Russo, a lecturer in women's studies,
charged that those who suffered sexual harassment were 
often forced to "drop out of school, move out
of the dorms," or suffer alone because of the inadequate
university procedures for handling complaintes. 

She and other rally participants endorsed an ad hoc 
committee's 1989 call  for a "centralized staff specifically 
trained to deal with sexual harassment complaints", as
well as a centrailized system and location for recording
complaints.  The said the current MIT guidelines,
issued in 1991, are a watered down version of these 
proposals.  However, some others on campus
had criticized the guidelines as too stringent.

The organizers yesterday began circulating a petition calling
for a binding referendum on adoption of the ad hoc committee's
recommendations.  

Keyser said that MIT's current system of dealing with
sexual harassment complaints involves numerous people
and university departments.  He said he did not see
the need for the kind of centralized system outlined
by Russo, gut he said he planned to meet next week
to discuss that issue with the rally organizers.

After the rally, Erulkar said she would appeal the
recent jury ruling against her.  She also said that had a more
effective and accounatble system been in place to handle 
sexual harassment complaints, she would not have found it
necessary to bring her legal case.

=30=


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