At 11:13 AM 3/2/01 -0500, Michael Sylvester wrote:
>A colleague has been accused of sexual harassment.He is accused of looking
>down into the dress of a female student. His defense is that he wears
>bifocal lenses which occasionate that he tilts his head and eyes
>in order to get a proper perspective of materials presented to him.
> Comments invited.
I am not sure how welcome my comments will be by some, but here they are.
This is the most ridiculous accusation I have ever heard of. Have we
become a society that no longer allows men to look at women? Now, if the
guy was really ogling I could see how that may be inappropriate, but given
the stigma of a "sexual harassment" charge brings, this is absolutely
ridiculous. I can't imagine being officially reprimanded (i assume the guy
could lose his job) for looking at a woman by anyone but my wife.
It seems to me that we really need more information... i am not nearly
concerned w/ the defense as I am w/ the accusation. Has this person shown
a pattern of this behavior in the past? Did the student ever mention that
she was uncomfortable, or did she just run to the Chair/Dean.
I am quite sure that there are several cases of sexual harassment that
really do warrant our attention. When events like this occur, it makes it
very easy to say that sexual harassment policies need to be changed in some
way, which in turn could affect the VALID complaints.
I welcome the wrath of the group...
Steve
****************************************************************
Stephen W. Tuholski Ph.D.
Asst. Professor
Dept. of Psychology
Southern Illinois U. at Edwardsville
Edwardsville IL 62026
Phone: 618 650 5391
Fax: 618 650 5087
http://www.siue.edu/~stuhols
"Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so."
- Bertrand Russell
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