To Prevent Sexual Harassment, Academic Institutions Should Go Beyond Legal Compliance to Promote a Change in Culture; Current Approaches Have Not Led to Decline in Harassment

The National Academies has just released a report titled – Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 

Alice Agogino was pleased to serve as a member of the National Academies’ Committee on the Impacts of Sexual Harassment in Academia (co-chaired by Paula A. Johnson – President Wellesley College – and Sheila E. Widnall – MIT engineering professor) and co-author the report. 

From the press release: A systemwide change to the culture and climate in higher education is needed to prevent and effectively respond to sexual harassment, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. There is no evidence that current policies, procedures, and approaches – which often focus on symbolic compliance with the law and on avoiding liability — have resulted in a significant reduction in sexual harassment.

The report, which examines sexual harassment of women in academic sciences, engineering, and medicine, concludes that the cumulative result of sexual harassment is significant damage to research integrity and a costly loss of talent in these academic fields. The report urges institutions to consider sexual harassment equally important as research misconduct in terms of its effect on the integrity of research.

Colleges and universities and federal agencies should move beyond basic legal compliance to adopt holistic, evidence-based policies and practices to address sexual harassment, the report says. It notes that sexual harassment often occurs in an environment of generalized incivility and disrespect. In contrast, sexual harassment is less likely to occur when organizational systems and structures support diversity, inclusion, and respect.

“A change to the culture and climate in our nation’s colleges and universities can stop the pattern of harassing behavior from impacting the next generation of women entering science, engineering, and medicine,” said Paula Johnson, co-chair of the committee that conducted the study and wrote the report, and president of Wellesley College.

In addition, the report urges Congress and state legislatures to consider a range of actions, including prohibiting confidentiality in settlement agreements and allowing lawsuits to be filed directly against alleged harassers, not just their institutions. It recommends that judges, academic institutions, and administrative agencies rely on scientific evidence about the behavior of targets and perpetrators of sexual harassment when assessing both institutional compliance with the law and the merits of individual claims. And it urges professional societies to use their influence to address sexual harassment in the scientific, medical, and engineering communities they represent, and to help promote professional cultures of civility and respect.

For more information see the full report, video summary of recommendations, Infographic: The Iceberg of Sexual Harassment, Infographic: Preventing Sexual Harassment in Academia, National Academy of Science President’s Marcia McNutt’s video.

A media analysis for the first week of the report indicates that over 6 million people may have been reached by the news coverage, examples below:

Daily News Coverage – June 13, 2018

How Universities Deal With Sexual Harassment Needs Sweeping Change, Panel Says
The New York Times
“There is no evidence to suggest that current policies, procedures, and approaches have resulted in a significant reduction in sexual harassment,” said the report, which was more than two years in the making, starting well before the #MeToo era. It was issued by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, independent agencies that advise the government and the public.

Half of women in science experience harassment, a sweeping new report finds
The Washington Post
The solution will require a “systemwide change to the culture and climate in higher education,” the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine conclude.

Science, too
The Washington Post
On Tuesday, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine unveiled a sweeping two-year study on women’s experiences of sexual harassment in academia.

Sexual harassment is rife in the sciences, finds landmark US study
Nature
Sexual harassment is pervasive throughout academic science in the United States, driving talented researchers out of the field and harming others’ careers, finds a report from the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington DC.

Sexual harassment rampant in science, culture change urged
Associated Press
In fact, it’s time to treat sexual harassment as seriously as research misconduct, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine concluded in recommendations aimed at U.S. institutions of higher education and the groups that fund them.

Sexual harassment isn’t just about sex: Groundbreaking report details persistent hostility female scientists face
Science
Ask someone for an example of sexual harassment and they might cite a professor’s insistent requests to a grad student for sex. But such lurid incidents account for only a small portion of a serious and widespread harassment problem in science, according to a report released this week by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Sexual harassment at universities must stop, report says
NBC News
Libarkin is far from alone. More than half — 58 percent — of women in academia have been sexually harassed, the the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) says in a new report. That makes academia second only to the military in terms of rates of sexual harassment. Nearly 70 percent of military women say they’ve been sexually harassed.

Report Calls for Widespread Change to Combat Sexual Harassment in Academia
Time
The report — released Tuesday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine — warned that persistent sexual harassment is jeopardizing any progress toward closing the gender gap in STEM fields.

Statement on National Academies sexual harassment study
National Science Foundation
The new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine brings together — for the first time — behavioral research on types of sexual harassment and their prevalence, data on legal and policy mechanisms, and new approaches for changing the climate and culture in higher education.

New report finds a sexual harassment epidemic in science — just how bad is it?
San Diego Union-Tribune
According to a 300-page report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, life for women in the hallowed halls of our universities and research institutions is a nasty and thoroughly familiar minefield of gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion.

Sexual harassment in academic science, engineering, medicine needs systemwide change
San Diego Union-Tribune
Maltreatment of women is about as common in science, engineering and medicine as in more publicized fields, according to a report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine.

Sexual Harassment Remains Common in the Sciences
Scientific American
Women in some science careers—ones in which trainees may find themselves effectively hidden away in laboratories, patient rooms or field sites—are particularly vulnerable to harassment because of that isolation, according to the report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. 

4 big takeaways from a huge new report on sexual harassment in science
Vox
Science needs to reckon with the #MeToo moment, and it needs to do it immediately, says a new report from the prestigious National Academies of Sciences.

Title IX’s limits exposed by major study of sexual harassment in sciences
Axios
Sexual harassment is a pervasive problem in science and academia, and it’s going to take a cultural shift to stop it, according to a new study released from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine.

Half of women in science have experienced harassment, study finds
The Hill
More than half of female faculty members in the sciences have experienced harassment based on their gender, according to a study released Tuesday by theNational Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).

National Academies: Policies Must Change to Curb Sexual Harassment
The Scientist
Up to half of women in science experience sexual harassment, and the policies to prevent it aren’t working, according to a report released today (June 12) by theNational Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

National Academies call for systemwide steps to fight sexual harassment in science
Geekwire
A newly published report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine calls for dramatic steps to curb sexual harassment in scientific and technical fields. The report cites a University of Texas survey suggesting that about 20 percent of female science students, more than a quarter of female engineering students and more than 40 percent of female medical students have experienced sexual harassment from faculty or staff.

Sexual harassment is rampant in science — and current policies aren’t cutting it, landmark report finds
STAT News
Sexual harassment takes a significant toll on women in academic science and medicine — and there’s no evidence that current policies are significantly helping to stem the issue, according to a sweeping new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Harassment Unchecked
Inside Higher Ed
To effect real change, colleges, universities and research centers must move beyond treating harassment like a legal problem and treat it like a cultural one — one with major implications for institutional and scientific excellence. So said a group of science leaders Tuesday during a news briefing on a highly anticipated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

A Major Scientific Society Says Harassment Derails Women’s Careers. Critics Say the Group Hasn’t Done Enough.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Sexual harassment is derailing the careers of far too many women in science, engineering, and medicine. That’s the central message of a searing new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicineon the prevalence of sexual misconduct in those fields.

Sexual harassment of US women in science is widespread and is worst in medicine, report says
The British Medical Journal
Sexual harassment of women is rampant in US academic sciences and is worst in medicine, says a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Amid rampant sexual harassment in science, academies aren’t ejecting abusers
Ars Technica
Sexual harassment is widespread within the scientific community, and policies and institutional safeguards to address the problem are more effective at reducing liability than protecting members and changing harmful work cultures, according to a long-awaited report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Damning New Report Lays Out Science’s Sexual Harassment Problem
Gizmodo
A landmark report by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) out Tuesday details the wide extent of sexual harassment, bullying, and ostracization of women within the scientific world. It also offers a series of proactive, far-reaching recommendations to combat its further spread.

Report says universities need to overhaul how they deal with sexual harassment
American School and University
The New York Times says that the report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine makes 15 detailed recommendations, some of them overturning long-entrenched systems of funding and mentoring in academia. It calls for significant changes to academic advising practices so that students and junior researchers are not dependent on one senior researcher for mentoring and access to grants.

This new study reveals the shocking reality of sexual harassment in science
The Week
Even after years of enacting policies to tackle sexual harassment, the STEM world doesn’t have much progress to show, a study from National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released Tuesday reveals. Sure, more women may be entering science than ever before, but that just means more women are dealing with harassment.

National Academies: Academic institutions’ response to sexual harassment in STEM is lacking
Fierce Healthcare
That’s in part because the organizations’ policies have been more focused on symbolic compliance with the law and reducing liabilities instead of getting at the meat of the problem, according to the report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine.

WNBC-TV News (New York) 
The report for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine says the impact takes a toll on well-being and careers.

WCPO-TV ABC News (Cincinnati)
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicinerecommends more women be hired, especially in leadership positions to include diversity.

KCBS News (Radio)
The report by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicinesays scientists should treat sexual harassment as seriously as research misconduct.

Sexual harassment pervasive in science, National Academies study says
Chemical & Engineering News
A widespread culture of sexual harassment drives women away from science careers and perpetuates a gender gap, according to a new report from theNational Academies of Science, Engineering, & Medicine.

Urgent reform needed to tackle sexual misconduct in science
Physics World
Current efforts to tackle sexual harassment in the sciences at US universities are failing and need urgent reform. That is the stark conclusion of a new report from the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, released yesterday.

A new study found that sexual harassment is often used to purposefully create hostile work environments
Hello Giggles
After two years of research, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has released its study on sexual harassment in the science community, shedding light on what it has dubbed “gender harassment.”

An Elite Science Group Is Giving Advice On Preventing Sexual Harassment — But Hasn’t Gotten Rid Of Its Own Harassers
Buzzfeed
Academia needs to overhaul a culture of sexual harassment to stop driving talented women out, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.