Some readers may have noticed in the media, recent (separate) reports that two Fellows of Kings College, Cambridge, have resigned/been stripped of their fellowship due to allegations of harassment and misconduct. I haven’t seen any particular details about the accusations, and that isn’t really the point of what follows. Both the men concerned are ones with whom I’ve crossed paths, although they are not ones who’ve ever given me, personally, any trouble. I did know one of them had a reputation for ‘wandering hands’. However, when I think back to the not so-distant past, there are several men in my University whose behaviour I fear has strayed beyond the professional, in ways I find extraordinary at my ripe old age. It indicates that harassment of different kinds is still flourishing here, and no doubt in most universities up and down the country.
More than ten years ago I described one particular unsavoury individual. The fact was he was extremely senior, and the powers-that-be did not want to admit he was a serial harasser, as he undoubtedly was. And was well-known to be. He is someone who said to me at a reception for the University in one of the royal palaces that he ‘did like kissing games’ and prepared to act it out, despite me attempting to retreat as fast as I could. It was not the venue to create a scene. Perhaps even more surprising was his choice to drape himself all over me at a dinner with the VC sitting across from us. She did nothing. Have I mentioned I believe such inaction amounts to being complicit before? Although that previous post about being complicit was more concerned with observing bullying than harassment, the same comment applies. Inaction in the face of someone else being demeaned, bullied, harassed or attacked by any means other than pure scholarly argument, is a failure on the part of the observer.
The man I am describing in the last paragraph held a particularly exalted position within the University. His successor in that role, I’m afraid, I’ve also had cause to complain about. This was brought back to mind when, loading a talk onto a USB stick recently, I found a copy of the letter I wrote to him. In fact, I’d handwritten the letter and scanned it for a record as a pdf, carefully not keeping it on my laptop (always uploaded to the Cloud). I wanted to highlight his bad behaviour, but without advertising this more broadly by allowing others to access it. In due course I got a (handwritten) response, with something of an apology included. So far, so good. Did it change his behaviour – again my complaint was of him draping himself around me inappropriately and publicly? Who knows. What is it about that particular role and that academic discipline that lets the influential leaders believe such behaviour is acceptable?
In both cases these were men in powerful positions, who no doubt held the fate of many of their junior colleagues in their hands. This is what really troubles me. If you are a young researcher (typically the victim will be female), and a man in authority chooses to behave inappropriately, what are you supposed to do? Slap him and tell him not to be so silly? That is something I have never yet managed to have the nerve to do, but another female professor told me this was how she treated the first perpetrator I mention. Good for her, but it didn’t change his behaviour in general and it’s not something a twenty-something academic will do (let alone an undergraduate).
Furthermore, to go back to the two recent examples which hit the news that I mentioned in the opening paragraph, knowing that someone has a reputation of ‘wandering hands’ is insufficient to act. It’s simply hearsay. As a young academic I did once act in that way. I went to the then head of department and said I’d been told a professor in the department did such things as get his secretary to sit on his knee so he could fondle her. Said head of department was sufficiently shocked he immediately went and dressed down the professor and told him if he ever did that again he’d be sacked. None of that would be permissible these days. I had no direct evidence myself, it was all hearsay, and no enquiry was ever instigated by HR. However, it was probably an effective way to deal with wandering-hands-syndrome and one we have lost in the general tightening up of HR policies.
In the cases of the two Kings Fellows, they were both at the end of their careers, one had long been retired before this all hit the news (and I don’t know what had finally tipped the balance to this coming out into the public). One has to assume they had been ‘misbehaving’ throughout their careers. People might say, as they did to me when I publicly complained about one of the perpetrators I suffered at the hands of, ‘it was all different then’. It was of course. Back in the days when I was Master of Churchill College, another head of house admitted that when she’d been an undergraduate, one of her supervisors had done things that these days would be utterly unacceptable without any shame, and she had not thought anything of it then and would never have wanted to complain.
But, power imbalances mean that someone can be both flattered by such behaviour from a senior academic, and that it can be totally traumatic and remain as a shadow in the mind of the undergraduate permanently. I’ve heard moving accounts of long-ago undergraduates who experienced shocking behaviour from those in authority, including a (consensual) affair, which they only felt able to disclose after the death of the perpetrator. One woman wrote to me about her experiences at the hands of a lately deceased male academic and said it was ‘cathartic’ to talk about this decades on.
So, maybe it was different then, but it doesn’t alter the fact that any woman encountering such behaviour now is still placed in the quandary: what do I do? Is complaining ‘worth it’? There are plenty of accounts in the media of people who have complained and their institutions have not been able to handle the complaints in ways that don’t make the complainant feel worse, put through a long-running purgatory of an investigation which may end up going nowhere; with the victim wretched and the perpetrator allowed to continue in their professional role. The only potential protection is for others to tackle the bad behaviour when seen – and so often it will not be. Academia is only worse than other sectors because the power imbalances are more significant. One has to hope that the women (I’m assuming in the plural) who suffered at the hands of the two Kings Fellows, feel some sense of closure with the loss of the fellowships they both have now suffered. I fear it is too little too late.
I’d argue that protection of privilege is the key factor underpinning the failure of senior leaders and even bystanders to call out misconduct.
I am thinking about the motivations behind why your VC did not intervene when a senior member of the University behaved so inappropriately. One supposes that it was possible that she had a quiet word with him later, and we can take it that a dinner in front of others is not an ideal time to take a stand. Nevertheless, is this person so senior that he could have made life awkward for the VC at a later point? What would have been the consequences for the VC had she acted, either then or later? Had a junior colleague behaved in the manner you describe, I doubt that your VC would have been so accommodating to the perpetrator. I think all this is fundamental to why people behave the way they do. To unpack this a bit more, we can look outside of academia.
Before moving to the Metropolitan Police, Sarah Everard’s murderer was known as “The Rapist” when at the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. One asks why, with such a moniker, he was able to work for the police force. Were someone to have suggested to HR that he was not a suitable person to work in the police, it would have shone a light on work culture, and so, well, best not to say anything, because their colleagues would not have thanked them for it.
John Lydon called out Jimmy Savile in 1978 in an interview with the BBC, which was never aired. Lydon did not worry about the consequences of his comments because he was outside of the establishment. But did the BBC investigate their star talent? It does not seem so. The DJ was knighted 13 years later, under the weight of public expectation and lobbying from the Prime Minister. The honours committee had not previously wanted to give him a knighthood because of suspicions of his conduct, but given the formidable nature of Margaret Thatcher, his victims were less important than not rocking the boat. It simply was not worth staking one’s career on blocking his knighthood.
In the Post Office Horizon scandal, innocent people were imprisoned because faulty software was suggesting that they were embezzling. How many people around the top tables of Fujitsu UK and the Post Office knew that this was the case? Not many I’d suggest, but it is likely that some knew. And they all kept quiet. Had they spoken up, they would never have worked at the top of another company again. Senior management would not hire someone who, in a previous employment, had called out misconduct at that level. They would not be “sound”. We rarely hear from senior whistleblowers because of omerta such as this, not because of the impeccable behaviour of those at the top. Why would senior leaders sacrifice their careers for something that was nothing to do with them?
In all of these cases, individuals do nothing rather than risk their standing in their community. The ideas about going with the flow and not being disruptive are old news to feminist thinkers. In her book “Of Woman Born,” the poet Adrienne Rich wrote:
“And, men fear loss of privilege. … Men are increasingly aware that their disorders may have something to do with patriarchy. But few of them wish to resign from it.”
It is not just men who fear loss of privilege. Rich’s remarks apply to anyone with power, because privilege is its flipside and, anyway, we live in a patriarchy. So, your VC’s inaction was likely to have come from an instinctive analysis of the risks to her privilege.
Some leaders are braver than others. After all, dealing with misconduct is an opportunity as well as a threat. Had your VC slapped down her senior colleague there and then, she could have been seen to be decisive with strong values that reflected well on her and the University. But would the risk be worth taking? Ultimately, it is the victim who has to decide, because we cannot trust others to gamble their status, even if it is the right thing to do.