Sexual Harassment and Higher Education: Reflections and New Perspectives

In 1984, Billie Dziech co-wroteThe Lecherous Professor,one of the first books to articulate the problem of sexual harassment on college campuses. Since that time a number of books exploring the issues, cases, and laws have moved the topic into the public eye. This work, the brainchild of a lawyer and an academic, reflects on some of the more controversial and overlooked aspects of sexual harassment and its litigation and law. Chapters cover the legal and regulatory evolution of the issue and its context in higher education at the end of the 20th century; the importance of having colleges approach policy making and harassment by analyzing their own environment; an examination of the treatment of women experiencing harassment, with special focus on women who appear unscathed by it; the situation of the male on campus and the problem of non-meritorious cases; the most familiar myths of consensual relationships and the role of bans in dealing with them; and the contention that the sexual harassmentissue has exposed higher education's excesses and contradictions.