First, let me say that your comment is thoughtful and makes many good points, and it lacks so many of the strawman arguments that some others have laid out.
Thank you for that.
That said…
> Do you think that men were going around in the 80s accusing professors of sexual harassment?
Yes.
I will be sure to tell my roommate from college that you don’t think he exists.
> So who was misusing this? Basically no one. Who was benefiting from it? Women. So this is not priggish in any sense.
I’ve been involved directly or indirectly with the academic world since the 80s.
The best I can tell, you weren’t alive then. I’m not sure who you got your information from, but it seems to be selective. There have been more than a few abusers of the “expanded definition”.
These provide some well-documented examples of questionable title ix implementation. There are many more examples if you look for them.
> I have had quite literally dozens of friends tell me their experiences where professors dehumanized, belittled them
I’m a straight, white male (allegedly a privileged class in these situations), and this has happened to me more than a few times, usually from professors (usually older) who were known to have a bad attitude.
I imagine that a lot of these cases are not related to being a woman — it’s just general shithead behavior from the professor that should probably be addressed by the administration, but not under the umbrella of title ix or sexual harassment.
Of course, crossing the line of asking for sexual favors does fall under that umbrella.
As for anecdata, I know of:
- a professor who was investigated for sexual harassment and inappropriate touching for… wait for it… tapping students on the shoulder to get their attention in a silent way. I was the observer. I saw what he did. When I asked the accuser if this was the behavior she was referring to, she said yes. It was a total nothingburger, but it put a massive stress on his life unnecessarily. An appropriate complaint/suggestion would have been to ask him to speak softly from a distance, which is what he did moving forward. There was no reason to put this under the umbrella of sexual harassment.
- a k-12 teacher who was accused of sexual harassment for engaging in standard classroom safety procedures. Lost his job. Later found not guilty on the criminal side, and won a civil lawsuit for wrongful termination (and other things). In this case, it was the administration weaponizing title ix against a teacher while putting minors (the students) into the middle of it.
- a professor was accused of sexual harassment for… again… wait for it… sliding a handout across the table to a student in a small graduate seminar… after the student decided to sit as far as possible from everyone else in the seminar. This was her statement, and it was corroborated by other students, and the action was not seen as sexual or aggressive by anyone else. This student had accused every professor she had taken a class from with some sort of abuse, so the investigation was cursory. Again, why should someone like this be able to weaponize some of the powerful systems of title ix so frivolously?
Lest you believe that this is only a teacher/professor thing, similar examples exist in administration as well as the private sector. Often they aren’t spoken about publicly in order to avoid giving other bad actors ideas that they can work with.
I could go on, but I will spare you.
Let me be clear, I do believe that something needed to be done in the 80s to address callous behavior (both by educators and by the population at large), but I think that too many actions started to be categorized as sexual harassment that were probably better addressed in a different way (probably much lower key) and under a different label. Sexual harassment accusations end up being a scorched-earth approach to conflict resolution, and sometimes the best way to affect change of minor issues is with a deft touch.
Getting back to the original point, when I read pg’s essay, my experiences jibed with his interpretation of events during that time frame. It’s fine to disagree with him, but I hope that folks will at least take a charitable read of his interpretation of the zeitgeist of that time — at a minimum, it passes the sniff test for me.
Thats a good call out, I was definitely being hyperbolic re: no one was misusing the expanded title IX definitions, and I appreciate the anecdata, since you're right that I was not alive back then and so don't have a grasp of exactly what it was like. I trust you that it happened back then, and I have also seen similar situations happen now.
> I imagine that a lot of these cases are not related to being a woman — it’s just general shithead behavior
I agree, a lot of these cases are just shithead behavior, but a lot of them are not, and were overtly sexual in nature (though not direct, but maybe thats up to interpretation), or just overtly sexist. E.g. discussing sexual fantasies or their ongoing sexual escapades, commenting on bodies in a sexual manner that may not be an advance but instead negative in nature etc. But I would agree even within that, title IX may sometimes be overkill, and I've said that to friends and peers myself.
But this exchange touches upon why I still think PGs essay is not worth a charitable read, and just overall more or less harmful. We both have anecdata about correct and incorrect uses of title IX, ways that title IX could be better, etc. How society should treat this and other issues relating to class and abuses of power is an important discussion to have and should be ongoing. What PG is doing is claiming that changes to title IX (along with his other examples of wokeness/priggishness) are in conflict with "truth":
>Surely if truth should prevail anywhere, it should be in universities; that's supposed to be their specialty; but for decades starting in the late 1980s the politically correct tried to pretend this conflict didn't exist.
Which, given your anecdata, is sometimes a fair assessment, and given mine, sometimes unfair. But PG does not allow this nuance in his arguments, and completely disregards the problems any of his examples were trying to treat in the first place. In fact he claims that the thought process that leads to these changes causes disaster, and need to be stopped.
So PG is not directly arguing whether or not the 1980s title IX change was effective in its goals, but instead arguing that the type of thought that lead to that change (and others) simply needs to be stopped entirely. There is no allowance in his argument to affect change, with a deft touch or otherwise, to these societal issues. The only change he suggests are ways to stop or tune out those trying to solve these issues.
Contrast that with Adrienne maree brown's essay https://adriennemareebrown.net/2018/05/10/we-will-not-cancel... Although a different type of writing for a different crowd, it also acknowledges that cancel culture (or wokeness, priggishness, whatever) is harmful and must come to an end, but acknowledges that the problems that have spawned it are real and still need to be fixed.
> We must all do our work. Be accountable and go heal, simultaneously, continuously. It’s never too late.
All great points, and I think we more or less see eye to eye on most matters as they currently stand.
But getting back to pg’s essay and the zeitgeist of the late 80s and early 90s…
> But PG does not allow this nuance in his arguments, and completely disregards the problems any of his examples were trying to treat in the first place. In fact he claims that the thought process that leads to these changes causes disaster, and need to be stopped.
In the quote above my quote of you, pg was talking about how “political correctness” began to limit the ability to discuss heterodox ideas at universities. He was lamenting the fact that “the search for truth” had given way to “the search for ideas that generally do not offend” (my wording, not his).
He gives an example of Larry Summers discussing a theory of Darwin’s. Whether that theory is right or wrong is irrelevant — the mere discussion of it cost him his very high profile job because it made some people feel uncomfortable. Note that Larry Summers continued to have great jobs after being ousted as Harvard’s president (including remaining a professor at Harvard), so it’s not like anyone that mattered actually thought he did anything particularly heinous, it was just a forced and capricious move in the performative art of “social justice”.
This happened in many other lower profile examples, and it produced (and has continued to produce) a chilling effect on the discussion of ideas that might be offensive to certain groups (mainly the folks that pg is referring to in his essay — call them whatever you want).
So why is this important?
1. When ideas, especially controversial ones, can’t be discussed, then research areas tend to end up at local maxima. This is incredibly regressive and limiting for research fields. Note that this already exists by way of not being able to challenge the ideas of certain researchers while they are still active/alive, and limiting this by not being able to challenge ideas that certain groups might find offensive (even if backed up by data) is even more restrictive. I’m guessing this is one reason why pg regularly takes shots at the socials sciences — the discussion of ideas is often to limited to that which is fashionable/acceptable to a small group, and progress in the field languishes and is limited because of that.
2. Ideas that are important but controversial end up either being shelved or (at best) discussed behind closed doors rather than openly. As a simple example, when scientists realized that challenging certain aspects of the efficacy of covid vaccines (a completely normal and relatively banal topic in public health circles) was grounds for getting canceled, they just had to do it in secret. By limiting the pool of people who can discuss a matter, the ideas are either less finely honed or take longer to hone. In the case of Covid, this literally cost lives. There are many ideas out there that fall into this category, and what is happening is that these researchers are either researching in relative silence (loss for the world, imho) or they are just leaving academia and either going to the private sector (where research is sometimes not shared for competitive reasons) or just leave academia completely (thereby thinning the pool of talent, also a loss for the world and the search for truth, imho). As a former academic myself, I can just say… I have stories, and they sadden me.
To summarize, the chilling effect I mentioned has made a mockery of certain areas of academics and university life.
Are the benefits better than the losses. I think that’s an interesting discussion that is beyond the scope of a forum like this, but I would say that, as a whole, they are not. Many/most of the benefits that came out of the PC movement and the “woke” movement (as defined by pg) could have been accomplished without the massive amounts of collateral damage that they caused in other areas due to casting an unnecessarily wide net.
[edit: I think this is the crux of the issue. The pc/woke folks seem to take an approach of “at any cost”, while more moderate folks who support many of the same ideas of fairness and equality care deeply about potential collateral damage. IMHO, the pc/woke folks would gain much more support if they were willing to negotiate on this aspect rather than completely ignore it.]
I think that we will find an equilibrium at some point [1], but I think that the “woke” folks are going to find that some of their sacred cows get absolutely destroyed on the way there. Again, it will be an unnecessary over-correction to an unnecessarily extreme intervention. It didn’t have to be this way.
[1] Note that some of the best practitioners have pretty much already found this equilibrium, but much of their best work is (again) only discussed in limited circles. One of the most amazing people I’ve ever met was the head of dei (or some title like that) at a widely known gaming company. We discussed all of the hot-button topics in her field, and she gave answers that I think would be widely acknowledged (e.g., by both “liberals” and “conservatives”) as being actionable and incredibly reasonable. She was a prime example of knowing when to use the deft touch (e.g., someone just wasn’t socialized well) versus using the scorched earth approach (e.g., someone had deep-seated issues that made them a danger to those around them). I think that the “woke” community would win massive kudos from large swathes of the general population if they rallied behind folks like this woman, but the “behavior police” and the “ragers” (my term) would then have no cause celebre, so I doubt it will happen.
Again, thank you for your thoughtful and interesting comments. This exchange has caused me to exercise some rhetorical muscles that I haven’t had to use in a while.
Please continue your search for truth with passion and vigor — I’m certain that you will wield that knowledge and power constructively.
Thank you for that.
That said…
> Do you think that men were going around in the 80s accusing professors of sexual harassment?
Yes.
I will be sure to tell my roommate from college that you don’t think he exists.
> So who was misusing this? Basically no one. Who was benefiting from it? Women. So this is not priggish in any sense.
I’ve been involved directly or indirectly with the academic world since the 80s.
The best I can tell, you weren’t alive then. I’m not sure who you got your information from, but it seems to be selective. There have been more than a few abusers of the “expanded definition”.
First, some real articles:
https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2018/12/17/harvard-zealots-...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_lacrosse_rape_hoax
These provide some well-documented examples of questionable title ix implementation. There are many more examples if you look for them.
> I have had quite literally dozens of friends tell me their experiences where professors dehumanized, belittled them
I’m a straight, white male (allegedly a privileged class in these situations), and this has happened to me more than a few times, usually from professors (usually older) who were known to have a bad attitude.
I imagine that a lot of these cases are not related to being a woman — it’s just general shithead behavior from the professor that should probably be addressed by the administration, but not under the umbrella of title ix or sexual harassment.
Of course, crossing the line of asking for sexual favors does fall under that umbrella.
As for anecdata, I know of:
- a professor who was investigated for sexual harassment and inappropriate touching for… wait for it… tapping students on the shoulder to get their attention in a silent way. I was the observer. I saw what he did. When I asked the accuser if this was the behavior she was referring to, she said yes. It was a total nothingburger, but it put a massive stress on his life unnecessarily. An appropriate complaint/suggestion would have been to ask him to speak softly from a distance, which is what he did moving forward. There was no reason to put this under the umbrella of sexual harassment.
- a k-12 teacher who was accused of sexual harassment for engaging in standard classroom safety procedures. Lost his job. Later found not guilty on the criminal side, and won a civil lawsuit for wrongful termination (and other things). In this case, it was the administration weaponizing title ix against a teacher while putting minors (the students) into the middle of it.
- a professor was accused of sexual harassment for… again… wait for it… sliding a handout across the table to a student in a small graduate seminar… after the student decided to sit as far as possible from everyone else in the seminar. This was her statement, and it was corroborated by other students, and the action was not seen as sexual or aggressive by anyone else. This student had accused every professor she had taken a class from with some sort of abuse, so the investigation was cursory. Again, why should someone like this be able to weaponize some of the powerful systems of title ix so frivolously?
Lest you believe that this is only a teacher/professor thing, similar examples exist in administration as well as the private sector. Often they aren’t spoken about publicly in order to avoid giving other bad actors ideas that they can work with.
I could go on, but I will spare you.
Let me be clear, I do believe that something needed to be done in the 80s to address callous behavior (both by educators and by the population at large), but I think that too many actions started to be categorized as sexual harassment that were probably better addressed in a different way (probably much lower key) and under a different label. Sexual harassment accusations end up being a scorched-earth approach to conflict resolution, and sometimes the best way to affect change of minor issues is with a deft touch.
Getting back to the original point, when I read pg’s essay, my experiences jibed with his interpretation of events during that time frame. It’s fine to disagree with him, but I hope that folks will at least take a charitable read of his interpretation of the zeitgeist of that time — at a minimum, it passes the sniff test for me.