The motto of the University of Rochester (UR), my alma mater, is “Meliora,” Latin for “ever better.” Like so many academic institutions around the country, Rochester needs to do “ever better” when it comes to handling cases of sexual assault and harassment.
In the past few weeks, the university has not been doing so well. It has been the subject of atrocious headlines for retaining a Brain & Cognitive Sciences (BCS) professor who was accused of egregious sexual harassment of female students for more than a decade. The alleged harassment in question, detailed in a 111-page EEOC report that includes testimony from 11 different women, would be impossible to confuse with innocent conversation. Rather, the report paints the picture of a professor using his prestige to intimidate and control students, with his own gratification as his aim.
He allegedly used his position to cross all imaginable boundaries with female students. This involves not just unwanted sexual advances, inappropriate sexual conversations and the like, but even the hosting of “lab retreats” that allegedly involved hot tubs, drugs, and once, an accidental overdose. He is said to have disposed of one female student’s food, warning that she was “destroying her physique” by eating. He once described his personal sexual escapades, to a student’s discomfort. He was also known to show up uninvited to private student social functions.
This described behavior was not only boorish and gross, but it also allegedly caused students to miss out on valuable academic and research experiences.
The university conducted a preliminary investigation that cleared him of all allegations. Before that investigation was even completed, the university granted him tenure. In the end, that investigation cleared him of all harassment accusations. Now, eight current and former members of the BCS Department have also filed EEOC complaints about the professor, the university, and several administrators.
The ensuing uproar has backed the school’s leadership into a corner to deal with its own lack of moral competence. Stunned administrators have fallen back on their original statement that no harassment occurred. University President Joel Seligman even likened the matter to the infamous Rolling Stone hoax article about a rape at the University of Virginia — a distasteful comparison for which he subsequently had to apologize under pressure. In fact, Seligman has had to retract and edit his stance on the issue multiple times in the past several days. As a result, the Board of Trustees has now taken over the situation and retained Mary Jo White, former SEC Chair, to lead an independent investigation into the matter.
In leadership in academia, politics, and business, we are seeing a moral regression. The rush by leaders in these institutions to cover their own backsides results in a failure to protect the most vulnerable.
This is one reason for trepidation over Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s announcement Friday that she is rescinding Obama’s Title IX’s sexual assault guidelines and rolling back federal regulation, replacing them with interim guidelines until final policy is introduced. This is not to say that colleges have been handling these issues well, or that the Obama-era policy is necessarily best. But what happens when a hands-on federal policy is retracted, and victims of sexual assault must depend on the decisions of university administrators whose moral leadership is oftentimes absent and tone deaf to the realities that occur on college campuses?
I am a staunch advocate of deregulation and believe innovation and improvement occurs when private institutions are free of government intervention. With the federal government leaning less on local institutions with respect to sexual assault and harassment, however, there will be numerous challenges ahead to ensure private institutions are prepared for the immense responsibility. It’s up to the leaders of those institutions to step up and meet the challenge, and that starts with reevaluating their ability to put values-based leadership into action.
With deregulation of sexual assault policies, colleges may be the only protection victims have. As an alumna, I fear that the University of Rochester is especially ill-equipped. But surely it is not alone. How universities across the country respond to sexual harassment in this new era of policy realm will be an indication of how seriously they take their own values. Once DeVos has eased federal pressure to side with accusers, private institutions will have an opportunity and an obligation to set stronger standards that truly protect victims.
I still believe, based on the robust reaction among students and alumni to the current outrage, that Rochester holds these values in high regard. Now its trustees and administrators must dedicate tremendous effort to prove they can be “ever better” and earn back trust of the community.
Alina M. Czekai, M.P.H., is an alumna of the University of Rochester class of 2013. She now lives in Washington, D.C. and works in health policy.
If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions.
