Vital Questions

IT WAS THE FIRST case on public record in Harvard's history in which a professor with a lifetime post had resigned in the wake of sexual harassment allegations. But it was at least the University's fourth case of harassment which has come to light in six years, and the third involving senior Government Department members.

And less than a year after Harvard instituted broad guidelines for dealing with such incidents, the University's role in the February 5 resignation of 40-year-old Professor of Government Douglas A. Hibbs Jr. remains shrouded in mystery.

Harvard released only a 97-word statement, presumably cleared beforehand with all involved parties, announcing that Hibbs will resign his tenured post after an official medical leave of absence.

In addition, The Crimson reported that the complaint was filed by a student at MIT, where Hibbs taught a course, and that a former Harvard junior faculty member had announced her intention to file a complaint against Hibbs.

Apparently, the University and the Faculty handled the situation differently than they did in 1983 when Jorge I. Dominguez, accused of harassment, was stripped of a committee chairmanship but not of his tenure. While the University received praise in February for getting tough with a problem seen as grave for women on campuses nationwide and in Harvard's Government Department specifically, in fact it remains unclear what if any role the University played in Hibbs's resignation. Moreover, it is possible that Harvard was impelled by threats of further action by one of the two women or by MIT itself to release the statement.

To this date, the University has refused even to confirm or to deny that it followed procedures it set up to handle harassment in the wake of the Dominguez case. This failure to clarify the circumstances of Hibbs's resignation and its own statement, as well as simply what procedures were followed, demonstrate that it is not yet prepared to deal in good faith with current or future victims of harassment.

Privacy interest do not preclude answers to some key questions, if the Hibbs case is to serve as any indication to harassment victims that they may hopefully seek proper redress: What degree of sexual harassment must occur to result in dismissal from the Faculty? What is the range of punishments for varying degrees of harassment? Moreover, should Harvard, in the face of widespread doubt that it is serious about dealing with sexual harassment, have signed an agreement with Hibbs barring any further discussion of the case?

We urge the administration to provide answers to these vital questions. Without them, Harvard cannot forthrightly claim that it is following up on last year's promise actively to combat the harassment problem. And without them, Douglas Hibbs's resignation will serve as little more than a sad reminder that Harvard can be a miserable place for women to make their way in the world.