Abuse in academia: Are universities protecting predatory professors?
This week, Media Storm investigates how universities handle sexual misconduct cases - when their prestigious professors are at the centre of the scandal.
It all started when our intern, a student at LSE, told us about student activism stirring at her university, after a dozen sexual misconduct allegations against one male professor resulted in no disciplinary action for him - and several female staff resigning in protest.
It’s not a secret that women drop out of academia at disproportionate rates to men. The female-male ratio slips from over 50/50 at postgraduate studies to 30/70 at the highest rank of professor – giving the sector the reputation of a “leaky pipeline”.
But staff sexual misconduct (and universities’ failures to address it), is rarely, if ever, explored as a reason.
We investigated. And to borrow the resigning words of one female professor, what we found, at times, “reads like a textbook on how to turn a complaints process into a gauntlet, into a warning to women not to challenge the behaviour of men and the institutions that protect them”.
The episode was co-produced by Mathilda Mallinson and Camilla Tiana, and hosted by Mathilda Mallinson and Helena Wadia. The music is by Samfire.
Academic resources:
· Eradicating Sexual Violence in Tertiary Education (UCU, 2021)
· Power in the academy: staff sexual misconduct in UK higher education (NUS, 2021)
· Misconduct Disclosure Scheme proposal (1752, 2024)
· ‘How Do Institutional Gender Regimes Affect Formal Reporting Processes for Sexual Harassment? A Qualitative Study of UK Higher Education,’ by Anna Bull, and Erin Shannon (Law & Policy, 2024)
Response from The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) spokesperson:
“LSE is committed to a working and learning environment where people can achieve their full potential free of all types of harassment and violence. We take reports of sexual harassment extremely seriously and encourage any member of the LSE community who has experienced or witnessed this to get in touch via one of our many channels. Further, if a complaint of misconduct is received against any member of our faculty, staff or student body we will always investigate fairly and fully, following our policies and procedures.
“LSE has developed, and continues to develop, a number of measures to ensure any allegation of misconduct receives a trauma-informed, robust and compassionate response.
“These measures include the new Report + Support system- an online tool where staff and students can report issues of concern and which provides information about support, policies and procedures and campaigns. This enables us to address issues more quickly and consistently across the School and vastly improve our approach to case management and communication with all involved. In line with sector best practice, we also plan to make greater use of external investigators in the future.
"We have commissioned Rape Crisis South London and Survivors UK to run an Independent Sexual Violence Advisory service for the School. This provides practical and emotional support for any student or staff member who needs it and supports them through a reporting process and/or the criminal justice process if they wish. This service is available to access online without a waiting list. This represents a step-change in the level of specialist support we're offering our students.
“We have also implemented a tailored all-staff online training course on addressing harassment and sexual misconduct affecting students, developed with Advance HE. This is being rolled out as required training across the School."
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