A group of Harvard Law faculty members, including a mentor to President Obama, want the Ivy League school to change its new sexual harassment policy, claiming it lacks even “the most basic elements of fairness and due process.”
The professors, some current and some retired, wrote in a letter published by the Boston Globe that they found the policy “inconsistent” with the basic principles they teach, and even oppose the way it was adopted by the university.
Of the 28 professors who signed the letter, seven were women. Charles Ogletree, who served as a mentor to Barack and Michelle Obama when they were students at Harvard, and Alan Dershowitz, were also among the signers.
“Harvard has adopted procedures for deciding cases of alleged sexual misconduct which lack the most basic elements of fairness and due process, are overwhelmingly stacked against the accused, and are in no way required by Title IX law or regulation,” the professors wrote.
Among their concerns: The inability for the accused to present evidence and cross-examine witnesses; putting the investigation, prosecution and appellate review in the hands of one office that is aligned with Title IX compliance instead of an impartial entity; and denying the accused counsel.
The professors also denounced the way the school adopted the new policy, writing that “Harvard apparently decided simply to defer to the demands of certain federal administrative officials, rather than exercise independent judgment,” about how to alter its existing policy.
The professors wrote that Harvard “failed to engage” faculty from its different schools when crafting the new policy and imposed the policy “by fiat.”
“Harvard undermined and effectively destroyed the individual schools’ traditional authority to decide discipline for their own students,” they wrote. “The sexual harassment policy’s provision purporting to leave the schools with decision-making authority over discipline is negated by the university’s insistence that its Title IX compliance office’s report be totally binding with respect to fact findings and violation decisions.”
The professors requested that Harvard withdraw its new sexual harassment policy and start over.
“The goal must not be simply to go as far as possible in the direction of preventing anything that some might characterize as sexual harassment,” the professors wrote. “The goal must instead be to fully address sexual harassment while at the same time protecting students against unfair and inappropriate discipline, honoring individual relationship autonomy and maintaining the values of academic freedom.”
A lack of due process for the accused has been a focal point for opponents of the current culture surrounding sexual assault on college campuses, and has led to many accused students suing their universities for unfair practices.
