New CSUN Policy on Sex Harassment Divides Faculty, Administrators

New procedures for handling sexual-harassment complaints at California State University, Northridge have sparked a campus debate about whether the policies sufficiently protect both the accused and the accusers.

Some faculty members say that the process lends a potentially damaging legitimacy to complaints before they can be evaluated. But Jeanette Mann, the school’s affirmative-action director, said the new policy’s only flaw is that its lack of confidentiality might discourage sexual-harassment victims from complaining.

The old rules allowed administrators to resolve complaints informally without committing the events to paper. Under the new rules, ushered in last fall, officials are required to keep records of allegations and report those they cannot resolve to higher-ranking university officials, even if the accuser declines to file a formal complaint.

1 Case Pending

Five formal sexual-harassment grievances have been filed under the new rules this academic year, the first such cases in the school’s history, university officials said. All but one complaint was resolved without a hearing and without disciplinary action, said Thomas Shannon, special counsel to CSUN President James W. Cleary. That case is pending.

Faculty critics of the new policy say sexual-harassment accusations can be so damaging that accused persons need more protection from complaints in which misconduct is not yet proved.

An appeal last month for contributions to a defense fund for individuals accused of sexual harassment has raised $625, history professor Ronald Davis said. Davis, chief organizer of the 11-member faculty group behind the fund, is a leading critic of the university procedures.

The group’s appeal read, in part: “The existing policy and procedures governing sexual-harassment allegations . . . are so vague and have been so carelessly applied that they threaten academic freedom and the basic right to have one’s innocence assumed until proven guilty.”

The letter suggested no specific remedies but said people accused of sexual harassment should be granted an open hearing to refute any charges.

The level of campus acrimony over the issue rose April 6 with the circulation of an unsigned memorandum on pink paper from “prominent campus personalities” to “other prominent campus personalities.”

The memo suggested the best way for male faculty to defend themselves from sexual-harassment complaints was to “keep your hands off the women on campus.” It read, in part: “Who knows if the co-ed whose anatomy you’ve been ogling all semester might take it into her silly little head to misread your intentions?”

This year’s formal sexual-harassment complaints probably were the result of heightened awareness about the issue, Mann said. But the university’s inability to guarantee confidentiality also has had a “chilling effect” on students afraid to come forward, she said.

Systemwide Order

Before last fall, students, faculty or staff could tell an administrator about sexual harassment and still keep the matter confidential, Mann said. Under the new rules, instituted as the result of a 1985 order from the CSU chancellor’s office to all 19 campuses in the system, administrators who receive complaints cannot guarantee anonymity.

Mann would not estimate how many students have declined to take their complaints beyond confidential counseling for that reason. But she said the net effect could make it harder for the university to identify and take action against harassers.

The change in the reporting process was made after a federal appeals court decision ruled that employers are liable for their employees’ sexual harassment, whether or not management knew about it, said Tim Dong, CSU affirmative-action director.

The decision, which was upheld later by the U. S. Supreme Court, forced employers, including the university, to take steps to root out sexual harassment, he said.

The new rules at Northridge have brought some criticism from nearly every quarter.

Professor Wrongly Identified

University officials would not discuss details of formal or informal complaints, but the most celebrated incident reportedly occurred last fall when anthropology professor Antonio Gilman was wrongly identified in an informal sexual-harassment complaint by a student.

Gilman, it turned out, was having lunch at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu on Oct. 8, the date the incident occurred in his campus office.

The misguided accusation against Gilman is used by campus critics to support their view that due process gets short shrift under the new procedures. The critics say the incident shows how a charge of sexual harassment could be used against faculty members by others who have opposed them in previous academic or political squabbles.

“Everyone really is quite concerned about it,” history professor Sheldon Harris said of the debate. “But of course there are two sides to the story.”

If a faculty member actually is found to be sexually harassing someone, “hang him, as far as we’re concerned,” Harris said. “But everyone under the American Constitution is entitled to due process.”

The CSU chancellor’s office has defined sexual harassment as “sexual advances, request for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature” that are used as conditions for an academic or work evaluation or that create a hostile learning or work environment.

Under the new regulations, a complainant who is willing to be identified is asked to write a letter to the accused, detailing the “unacceptable” behavior and requesting a stop to it.

According to Mann, past complaints have been resolved informally by the accused person’s compliance or, if the accuser was a student, by allowing the student to drop a class or by changing a grade transcript.

Students in such cases have believed “either that what has happened is so traumatic that they can’t perform in the class, or that they won’t be graded fairly,” Mann said.

Student Dropped Out

In one case, for example, a female student who alleged sexual harassment without signing a formal complaint dropped out of CSUN and was allowed to have her academic record for an entire semester after the incident wiped clean, Mann said.

The incident occurred “within the past three years” and resulted in a letter of reprimand being placed in the professor’s personnel file, said Mann, who would not describe details of the allegation.

Under the new rules, if the accused person thinks the behavior is or was innocent, or “is unwilling to consider modifying or stopping” it, the administrator investigating the complaint is required to return to the accuser and “discuss the appropriateness of filing a formal complaint.”

Davis expressed concern that the new rules allow faculty to become the victims of “an old girls’ network . . . that is using sexual harassment for other ends.” That network, he said, is encouraging a climate in which “conduct between a student and a professor that is boorish or sophomoric, if she’s a woman, is seen as sexual harassment.”

Faculty Divided

Such suggestions are “absolutely unfounded,” countered Mann, who added, “The men don’t see it as being that serious, and they are using it to organize. It is a good issue to raise to try to divide male and female faculty.

“The women on campus have seen the effect of sexual harassment,” Mann added. “We are not organizing and using other people’s humiliation as a means of achieving political power.”

Davis, though, points to the Gilman case as evidence of his assertion.

According to a university fact-finder’s report obtained by The Times, a female student walked into the office Gilman shares with another professor and asked to order a T-shirt. Gilman was in Malibu at the time. Two other professors thought she said she wished to order a “teacher.”

After one of the professors joked that instructors had been reduced to the status where they could be “ordered,” they both laughed loudly. The student was offended, said the report, which was prepared by chemistry professor Paul Klinedinst at the request of Social and Behavioral Sciences Dean Edward Sampson.

Copied Names on Door

The student, who did not know the professors, had written down the two names on the outside of the office door, the report said. The student complained to the department chairwoman, Liucija Baskauskas, who later wrote Gilman and the other professor a memo relating “an allegation of sexual harassment,” the report said.

The case never proceeded to a formal complaint and ended with Klinedinst’s report. Baskauskas told The Times that the student at first had said she had been sexually harassed, but Klinedinst wrote in the report that the student later “told me that she does not believe sexual harassment is an appropriate description, and that the term was first suggested by Dr. Baskauskas as a possible description.”

The student and the two professors who were present declined to be interviewed, but Gilman still fumes publicly about the incident.

Disagreed Previously

Baskauskas confirmed that it was not her first academic run-in with the three men. One had unsuccessfully opposed her elevation to full professor. She had lost an election for the chairmanship to another of the men by one vote, but later got the job after her supporters pressured the winner to quit the post.

For his part, Gilman said Baskauskas “has been the object of my criticism for years.”

In the aftermath, Gilman said his reputation was harmed by the charge of sexual harassment, which he calls “the nuclear bomb of academic disputes” because of its seriousness.

Baskauskas said that she found parts of the regulations unclear and confusing and that her reputation also suffered unjustly from the affair. She submitted her resignation from the anthropology chairmanship in February, a move she said was planned since she first took the job four years ago.

Hearings Scheduled

The university’s Personnel Planning and Review Committee, which reports to the Faculty Senate, has formed a special subcommittee to investigate the new procedures. The subcommittee has scheduled hearings for April 27 and 28.

Members of the subcommittee are discussing several ideas that might mollify the policy’s critics, said its chairman, management science professor Albert Kinderman.

The ideas include the hiring of an ombudsman, or student advocate, who would guide students through the complaint process, Kinderman said. Another suggestion is the formation of an “initial response team” of three persons who would evaluate the legitimacy of complaints before encouraging formal action, he said.

The panel’s final report to its parent committee is not expected until the fall, and the matter probably will not go before the Faculty Senate until next year, said history professor Shiva Bajpai, chairman of the parent committee.