These laws were once necessary measures to ensure equal status for women in the workplace and the academy. Patai, a professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, held a joint appointment in the university's women's studies program before she wrote Professing Feminism in 1994, her first public criticism of feminist ideology. About five times a year, she would be invited to speak about the discipline. There's a lot of implicit blackmail going on in academe. The excesses of sexual harassment law have reached the public consciousness in recent years.
Nothing is accidental or innocent according to current proponents of sexual harassment legislation.
The perpetrator's intent, whether malicious or benign, is irrelevant. Whether or not a particular perpetrator is aware of this situation is beside the point. Thus, the slightest social transgression is denounced with as much severity as rape. The threat of legal sanctions against employers and universities has created an incentive structure that promotes the claims of alleged victims above the rights of alleged harassers. Because sexual harassment suits are processed in the civil court system, the accuser need only provide a preponderance of evidence to pin liability on the defendant.