Last week we reported that the University of Southern Illinois is engaged in a faculty debate over the University’s sexual harassment policy. The Illinois Association of scholars took out a full-page advertisement in the September 3 issue of the Daily Egyptian, the SIU student newspaper, reprinting NAS’s January 1993 statement, Sexual Harassment and Academic Freedom.
This gives us mixed feelings. We’re pleased that our statement has stood the test of time, but we’re alarmed that sexual harassment codes—codes that often infringe on faculty rights and that poison collegiality on campus—are making a comeback.
How widespread is this resurgence of an illiberal ideology that had seemed to fade out in the 1990s? It has appeared at the University of Iowa, for example. Has it appeared at your college or university? If so, let us know.
