The job wasn't exactly in his gift, but he certainly had a great deal of influence over who was chosen. She turned him down as politely and diplomatically as she could. And she wasn't even interviewed.
And, sure, that might not have been the reason. But I have heard two or three more stories recently from female adjunct friends and acquaintances, from different universities, all of more or less blatant sexual harassment of adjuncts by faculty in positions of power. It's not that I never heard such stories before, but I seem to be hearing more of them lately.
The stories we used to hear were all about faculty who treated graduate and, indeed, undergraduate programs as their private harems. But I'm wondering if, with the rise in the numbers and vulnerability of adjuncts (as permanent jobs become scarcer), and perhaps as universities treat sexual relationships between faculty and students more seriously, sexual predators in positions of power are targeting adjuncts more often than before.
Has anyone else been hearing more of these stories lately? Is it just me?
Oh. My. God. That scum-sucking, skeevy, self-satisfied silverback. I hope your friend kept a journal of his "offer" and presented it to the campus EEOC rep.
ReplyDeleteNo, I haven't heard of this, ever, but as EMH might testify, my experience with the subjugation of adjuncts has been blessedly nil. I was, however, a grad student in a department full of predatory males. So a phrase keeps coming to mind for some reason: "Weenie roast."
By the way, Merely, your narrative style (ahem) nailed it.
I am a bit out of the loop at my institutions because of particular circumstances. But back in grad school in the 1990s there was a prof in another department who had a reputation. It was said that if you, as a female, did your MA thesis under him, you would be "under him" in other ways as well. Just a rumor, right? Well, a bit later one of his doctoral candidates had his baby. These are all adults and it might all be consensual and everything, a real relationship. But in the context of those rumors before, it seemed very fishy.
ReplyDeleteI'll be honest and say I have thought about the dangers in the opposite scenario: a student proposes to improve her grade by offering a special kind of extra credit (which happened to an acquaintance) and then turning the tables when rejected, claiming I made the offer and bringing a world of shit down on me. I have had a student make rather outrageous claims about me (not involving sex, however). In the online environment of that particular class everything was documented and I could disprove those particular claims handily. But in a "live" environment when it is just word against word, and with allegations of sexual harassment thrown into the mess, I am not sure how it would go. I suspect everyone in a position of authority would be fair and reasonable, but it could get really ugly precisely because sexual harassment does happen and they can't just assume the student/subordinate is making shit up.
"I am a bit out of the loop.... I suspect everyone in a position of authority would be fair and reasonable."
ReplyDelete@AdjunctSlave: It was wise for you to preface your comments with those initial few words. The second thing (about everyone in a position of authority) just is. not. true. (to use Eskarina's style)
And it's not just about sexual behavior. "Power corrupts.... yada yada yada...."
What Merely describes happens everywhere. People abuse power.
@AS--are you kidding? Holy crap. Nearly every female on this planet who has worked in everything from academia to fast food has a story like this. Sometimes not as overt ("We have to let someone go. Adam has a family to support, and you're really cute. Figured you'd be able to find a new job easier than he can."), but still sending the message that one's worth to the job, society, whatever, is based on one's physical attributes rather than one's brains.
ReplyDeleteThat shit happens way more often than the National Lampoon scenario of the busty Co Ed offering favors for grades.
Bubba, pass me that bottle of bourbon, please.
Ugh. I haven't seen this, but Merely's hypothesis sounds all too plausible to me. Yet another reason to never, never believe the "foot in the door" argument for adjuncting at a particular place (or, for that matter, anywhere). As we've noted here recently, departments rarely interview their own adjuncts, for any number of reasons (which would take a whole team of psychologists and sociologists to parse, but I'd guess that they include some combination of the grass being greener, and a notion of being fair to other adjuncts, either by not having to decide between several equally-qualified people or by not inviting those not hired to form unrealistic hopes/expectations for the future). But that makes the TT professor's behavior all the more slimy.
ReplyDeleteFiguring out how to file an effective complaint in this sort of situation strikes me as incredibly difficult, since it would be hard to tell how much influence the perpetrator really did have in the department, or how his (or her) colleagues would react. I think I'd be inclined to go to some independent entity who was either mandated or inclined, by function and publicly-declared interests, to take the situation seriously: an ombudsperson, EEOC officer, staff at a women's center on campus, or even, if it's a state school, somebody outside the school altogether. I'd want an ally outside the department who could guide me through the process (and I still wouldn't count on keeping my adjunct job, or getting a recommendation from anyone in that department). If I had a friend with a law degree who was willing to do a little pro bono work, I might be inclined to rope him/her into the process, too (one of the few advantages adjuncts have over similarly powerless people who find themselves in parallel situations is that, thanks to hanging out with educated people for some years, they're much more likely to have a friend, family member, etc. who happens to be a lawyer. But really, that's not much consolation, or, ultimately, help).
I've seen it take over a year for a department to remove a tenured faculty member who raped a brand-new graduate student. That leaves me pretty cynical about the chances that something like this would be taken seriously.
And AdjunctSlave, I fear that your fears about the possible consequences of a student making an unfounded accusation are well-grounded. Really, it's much easier to get rid of an adjunct than to investigate thoroughly in a he said/she said situation. And unlike a TT faculty member (or even a graduate TA), the department just doesn't have an investment in keeping the adjunct. It shouldn't be so, but, in many places, I suspect it would be.
and I still wouldn't count on keeping my adjunct job, or getting a recommendation from anyone in that department - precisely. Making any kind of complaint, if you're the adjunct, is unlikely to work out as a long-term employment strategy at that institution; or any other, if word got out.
ReplyDeletere: unfounded accusations - I always, always leave my door open when there's a student in my office, and recommend the same to anyone. I am sure that unfounded accusations happen, but I've never actually heard of a case. I do have certain knowledge of several faculty/student abuses of power, though, including a particularly horrific one involving a serial predator who was so well known to hit on emotionally vulnerable first-year undergraduate students that every student from second year on up would size up the first year class and take educated bets on who his target would be this year. He would dump the student at the end of the year and make a point of misremembering their names the following year, so that no one would suspect. When a group of his former victims finally blew the whistle, the department took the allegations Very Seriously Indeed. They put a letter in his file! That had to stay there for three whole years! During which time they continued to hire him every year anyway (he was an adjunct). By the second year, he was back teaching first year students. He was a friend of the chair.
So even if the accused is an adjunct, the power is not in the hands of the victim. Leave your door open, and don't worry. The onus in these cases is always on the victim, in academe and out of it.
I'm not so sure that would be true if the alleged perp were female, mind you.
I'm not going to go into this here, but my boss did this to me three years back. I had it all on his school email account, the dumbass perv, so I told him straight up that a) he's not going to complicate my job b) he's going to continue seeing me once a week as friends because that's what we had been doing before he revealed his alternative pervy intentions and c) he's going to help me stay here, funded, or I'll forward-bomb his colleagues.
ReplyDeleteWe've become quite fast friends.
Hold your friends close and your enemies closer.
ReplyDelete@Southern Bubba and Annie Oakley, My "reasonable" remark is about how they would handle any allegations of sexual harassment involving those below them in the hierarchy, not whether they engage in it themselves with subordinates. I suspect that they would take the woman seriously, but in a way that would not immediately assume she was 100% right and immediately ruin my life. But I don't really know. If I'm naive, so be it. I hope I never find out.
ReplyDelete@Annie - about the "cute" remark and worth being based on physical appearance. Oh yes. I know people who cannot mention a woman - regardless of age of the woman or the context of the remark - without adding a remark about how attractive she is. There is no way that that does not reflect their thinking and, when they are in charge, issues of hiring/firing/promotion etc.
Come to think of it, I've just remembered I heard another such story, nearly identical, about a decade ago, from another friend; only in her case she had been hired to a job on the understanding that it would go permanent in a couple of years and she would be first in line for it. And she got excellent teaching evaluations and served on committees and published more than her untenured chair (oops ...) -
ReplyDeleteAnd then her chair started skeeving around her, tried to talk her into a threesome with him and his partner if I recall, and she was as diplomatically off-putting as she could be. And now he had a problem, because she was obviously doing so extremely well at her job, better than he was, that there was no damn reason not to hire her.
So he invented one and claimed to the Dean that "some students" (no evidence given, of course; they were named or documented, unsurprisingly, since they didn't exist) were complaining about her and making accusations of sexual harassment against HER, and it would be better all round to just "let her go quietly" than risk potential lawsuits ...
So she didn't get an interview either, and the job went to someone else, and last I heard, the vicious lying bastard that screwed her over when it turned out that he couldn't screw her is still there, tenured, doing God knows what to God knows whom.