Title IX in Crisis Times

Earlier this month, 38 Harvard faculty signed an open letter defending John L. Comaroff, a colleague accused of serial sexual harassment. Their letter, they say, was motivated by procedural concerns: questions about the norms of faculty behavior and the institutional process that led to sanctions against Comaroff.

The folly of publishing that letter has become obvious, but a deeper question remains: What should they have done instead? If faculty have concerns about the Title IX process, how can they possibly engage productively when the details of any given Title IX proceeding are confidential?

The 38 signers ran headlong into this problem. There were firm limits on how full a view of the situation they could have gained. This lack of factual grounding doesn’t just help form misguided opinions. It means that the bulk of public dialogue on Title IX issues at Harvard is constrained by fighting over the particulars of individual cases.

Debate centers on dates, places, and names, the offenses alleged and the appropriate punishment for the accused party. These are all important details to get right, but a public forum will never be up to that task so long as it is constrained by confidentiality.

The solution is for the University community to talk about sexual harassment regularly, not just in moments of crisis. By debating the form of proceedings in the abstract, we can make progress unconstrained by uncertainty on the details of a particular case. Just as important, we can make that progress without running roughshod over the real people involved in any particular case.

The open letter signatories seem belatedly to have recognized the harm their letter caused to Comaroff’s accusers and to future victims who may think twice before coming forward. Thirty-five of the 38 retracted their signatures after the filing of a lawsuit detailing the complainants’ allegations, suggesting two possibilities. Perhaps each of these extraordinarily prominent Harvard professors, crafting a statement with self-evidently high stakes, was exceedingly careless in assessing the limitations of the information available to them from which to draw conclusions. Or perhaps some haven’t truly changed their minds but have merely backed down in fear of public backlash.

Either cause — carelessness or cowardice — erodes students’ confidence in their professors. Rebuilding that trust will not be easy, and it reinforces the need for a better way of discussing the issue of sexual harassment on campus.

Luckily, there is one. All we have to do is break out of the crisis-reaction framing that has dominated campus discourse for too long.

We must debate the details of just and equitable arbitration before the next allegations, not only in the throes of a particular incident. We must discuss the boundaries of permissible faculty behavior before norms are violated, not only in the depths of Title IX-imposed confidentiality.

We must be proactive, not reactive.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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