In addition to laying out formal and informal procedures to follow when faculty members are accused of misconduct, the proposed policy offers a new version of a sexual harassment policy. If approved, it would mean that faculty would fall under a different sexual harassment policy than others in the university community. That does not translate well to an academic environment where there occasionally is a need to discuss controversial or sexually graphic issues, Geirsson said. Faculty may raise issues in the classroom that cause students to feel uncomfortable, such as a sociology professor discussing prostitution or an English professor discussing the beat poets of the 1960s. But that is what teaching is about, said committee chair Jack Girton, zoology and genetics.
Students often become uncomfortable in the classroom, but that's the point.
We need to make them think. Denise Vrchota, journalism and mass communications and the third member of the committee, said the committee added a sexual harassment section to the conduct policy to assure academic freedom for faculty. While the current policy mentions academic freedom, Geirsson said it is at the end of the policy, included more as an afterthought, and is too vague. The committee's version of the sexual harassment policy says conduct that is reasonably regarded as offensive and substantially impairs academic or work opportunities may be defined as sexual harassment. Geirsson noted that some universities with sexual harassment policies similar to Iowa State's have lost recent court cases.