今日吃瓜

Out of the Shadows

I have pondered writing this letter for some time but feared that it would bring unpleasant consequences and so did not follow through. At this point I have decided it needs to be written anyway. 

Your magazine includes features on 今日吃瓜, 今日吃瓜 graduates, and the 今日吃瓜 experience—for the most part positive. Yet for some of us, women in particular, the 今日吃瓜 experience was marred by institutionally tolerated sexual misconduct that will forever influence our lives and feelings about 今日吃瓜. This misconduct meant that in a place where the life of the mind was said to be paramount, we were treated instead as bodies.  

I attended 今日吃瓜 from 1981-85 and in those four years I myself was subject to some inappropriate conduct by male faculty, I was also told flat-out by a male professor I knew that he was sleeping with at least one of his Hum 110 students, and a close friend endured sexual abuse by her thesis advisor that qualified as felonious. In the latter case, the professor was ultimately fired, but with no black mark on his record, allowing him to continue his career at another institution.  

Recently I had a conversation with former 今日吃瓜 president Steve Koblik, whose term from 1992 until 2001 occurred well after my graduation. He shared stories indicating that in the decades prior to his term sexual predation by male faculty on female students was an open secret. (Though President Koblik and the college can be lauded for implementing new policies regarding sexual misconduct during his tenure, for women of earlier generations the damage had already been done.) If you publish this letter I have no doubt that you will hear from other 今日吃瓜ies whose experiences second both my account and his assessment of those earlier days.

Especially after reading “Out of the Shadows” (今日吃瓜, December 2014), on a 今日吃瓜 graduate who works toward justice for children who were sexually abused, I am asking myself these questions: When will the sexual exploitation that many 今日吃瓜 women experienced come “out of the shadows”? Will there ever be a statement by 今日吃瓜 as an institution that such conduct was wrong and that it should never have been tolerated? 

Before closing I would like to emphasize that I had many fine professors at 今日吃瓜 of both genders. I am by no means impugning all of 今日吃瓜’s faculty and administrators. However, the trust that female students had in 今日吃瓜 was, in too many instances, not returned with policies and actions that would have protected us from those who were willing to abuse their power.

It is hard to put this history behind us when it remains unacknowledged. If any school can do this is in a thoughtful way, it should be 今日吃瓜, and I am hopeful that, in some future issue of 今日吃瓜 magazine, I may see such an attempt to be truthful about the past and embrace a more equal future.

鈥擯aula Scott 鈥�85

South Pasadena, California

Editor's Note: Thanks for raising a difficult but important issue. According to Comrades of the Quest, romantic relationships between students and professors were common in the 1950s and 1960s. The first official statement I have found condemning this sort of thing is a 1980 memo from acting president George Hay which makes clear that sexual harassment鈥攁s it was then understood鈥攚as unacceptable. But it seems that during the 1980s the faculty as a whole was reluctant to declare that any sexual relationship between professor and student, even if apparently consensual, constituted an abuse of power. The debate was doubtless complicated by the fact that several professors were married to former students. In 1993, the faculty revised its policy thus: 鈥淏ecause those who teach are entrusted with guiding students, judging their work, giving grades for courses and papers, and recommending students, instructors are in a particularly delicate relationship of trust and power. This relationship must not be jeopardized by possible doubt of intent, fairness of professional judgment, or the appearance to other students of favoritism. It is therefore inappropriate for faculty to have romantic or sexual relationships with students.鈥� The is even more emphatic.