As we are all aware, the #MeToo movement is having a profound effect in academia. People who have been silenced are now coming forward in numbers unseen previously, and universities and relevant organizations are responding to allegations with varying effectiveness. In many disciplines and in dozens of universities, everyday forms of sexual misconduct are becoming better understood as barriers to full inclusion in the academy.
The recently released National Academies consensus study report, Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, points to professional societies as an important locus for action on this issue. Specifically, the report indicates that “[p]rofessional societies have the potential to be a powerful driver of change through their position to help educate, train, codify and reinforce cultural expectations for their respective scientific…communities.” We agree. Moreover, we are a discipline that understands the role of power differentials, the intersectional nature of this problem, and the structural conditions for sexual misconduct. We believe it is especially incumbent upon ASA and all its members to work towards cultivating a profession that promotes equality and fights harassment and exploitation of all kinds.
In our August meeting, ASA Council focused extensively on this issue, grappling with how scholarly societies can and should use our convening powers, broadly defined, to work toward achieving these goals. We discussed possible ASA responses to sexual misconduct in our discipline in three contexts: responding to reports of harassment at our own Annual Meeting; outside of our meeting with an alleged harasser who is a member but does not serve in an association-related role (e.g., committee member or award winner); and outside of our meeting with an alleged harasser who is serving in an association-related role. In this message, we summarize our current thinking with respect to each of these contexts. We also describe the broader educational efforts we have begun undertaking, as well as some multidisciplinary efforts in which ASA is participating.
Context #1: ASA Annual Meeting
In 2017, we created an ASA Working Group on Harassment which is composed of sociologists with scholarly expertise in this area. Their charge is to help educate our members on this issue and advise Council on relevant policies. The first thing the Working Group did was to develop and recommend an anti-harassment policy for our Annual Meeting, which we approved and implemented in 2017. Anyone registering for the meeting is now required to affirm that they have read and agree to follow the policy. The policy is publicized widely both before and during the meeting. When Council convened in August 2018, we voted to add a line stating that violation of the policy can result in immediate removal from the meeting. The ASA Executive Director and several senior staff members have attended formal training to prepare them to enforce this policy and respond sensitively and responsibly to reports.
Prior to 2017, we relied on the policies and procedures for formal complaints made to the Committee on Professional Ethics (COPE). These procedures were too formalized, slow and bureaucratic to allow for the necessary on-site and immediate response that people who are being harassed deserve. Having a meeting-specific policy allows for a far more responsive process. It also serves to highlight the importance of the issue for attendees.
Context #2: Outside Annual Meeting, alleged harasser is a member not serving in an association-related role
Harassment is a violation of our Code of Ethics and has traditionally fallen under the purview of the Committee on Professional Ethics and its policies and procedures for reporting and responding to complaints. But it has become clear to Council, based on extensive feedback from members, the advice of the Working Group on Harassment, and even advice from COPE itself, that while COPE procedures might be quite effective for ethical violations like plagiarism, they are not effective for harassment.
The reasons our current policies and procedures do not work well are instructive for considering alternatives. Among those reasons is that the process is formalistic, and we know people are less likely to report harassment through such channels, which require named complainants and often come with a high cost to personal and professional well-being. In addition, many of the situations that may be important to bring to the table for discussion do not meet the strict list of criteria for consideration through our current policies and procedures. The procedures are also slow and bureaucratic. Further, while members of COPE who investigate these cases are thoughtful, careful, and caring sociologists, they do not have any particular training or expertise in responding to harassment complaints. It is also problematic that we do not have access to the full range of information necessary to be able to evaluate allegations of harassment on campuses or in other external environments.
We charged our Working Group on Harassment, in consultation with COPE, to “develop a proposal for an alternative to COPE that will be more informal and address some of the key limitations of COPE for responding to harassment and related issues.” The goal is to be more supportive of people who have been subject to sexual misconduct, with a model that has the potential to provide a higher level of confidentiality and informality.
Context #3: Outside Annual Meeting, alleged harasser is serving in an association-related role
To date, we have been working on the principle that without a formal investigation and adjudication of responsibility, either through our own Code of Ethics procedures or an appropriate external body, ASA is not in a position to restrict members from participation in the association’s activities. We recognize that it is important for us to think carefully about whether we want to formalize this approach or develop something more nuanced. We have asked the Working Group on Harassment, in consultation with COPE, to develop a set of policy proposals for our consideration in the coming months.
Presumably this effort will involve considering the possible situations in which we might be facing these questions and the corresponding types and levels of evidence that would be necessary for us to take action. For example, what if someone was serving as an editor and an allegation was made? What level of evidence would be needed to remove the editor? Would the required evidence be the same for deciding not to give someone an editorship as it would be for taking one away? Should other factors, such as the nature of the charge, also be considered? Just identifying the situations that might be subject to these policies is difficult, and they may extend far beyond editorships to awards, committee membership, and more.
We are also considering the adoption of policies designed to deter those who have committed harassment from serving in association-related roles in the first place, and we have asked the Working Group on Harassment to work with all appropriate haste to develop proposals for our consideration. Last August we took a few initial steps that, although limited, we hope will begin to signal the importance of these issues for the ASA. First, starting with the current award nomination period, anyone nominating someone for an award will be asked to indicate whether they have any concerns of which ASA should be aware regarding the nominee satisfying the expectation that all ASA members meet the commonly held standards of professional ethics and scientific integrity articulated in our Code of Ethics. Second, we have amended our carryover policy for award nominations so that carryovers are not automatic. Instead, nominators will be contacted each year for a maximum of five years after the initial nomination to ask if the nomination should be renewed, if materials need to be updated, and if there is any change to their response to the ethics question.
Educational efforts
We are committed to engaging in ongoing educational efforts related to sexual misconduct, and we are pleased to share some of the things we have done over the past several months. The Working Group has been producing a series of articles for Footnotes, which will continue to appear in the next several issues. Already published pieces have included #MeToo and the ASA Working Group on Harassment; Sexual Harassment Training: Promises, Pitfalls, and Future Directions; and Can Anti-Harassment Programs Reduce Sexual Harassment? There were also several workshops offered at the 2018 Annual Meeting, including “Bystander Intervention for Combating Sexual Misconduct in Sociology: Everyone Can be Part of the Solution,” “Sexual Harassment in Professional Associations,” and “MeTooPhD: Addressing Sexual Violence in and through Sociology.” We subsequently made a video with the bystander intervention workshop leader which is accessible to everyone who couldn’t attend the meeting. In Philadelphia, members of the Working Group also facilitated discussions with several groups that can have an impact on the culture of our discipline, including department chairs and the ASA Department Resource Group, whose members regularly serve as external evaluators for departmental program reviews.
External collaboration
ASA is not alone in contemplating the ways in which scholarly societies can and should respond to sexual misconduct, and we have been active participants in a variety of coalitions seeking to learn and act collaboratively. One of these groups has been formed specifically to focus on the issue of harassment in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine fields. Organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and EducationCounsel, this initiative was launched in October with a conference of leaders from more than 70 professional societies at which Executive Director Nancy Kidd was one of the plenary speakers. Among some of the possible practical outcomes of this initiative are model frameworks and toolkits. There are also several existing groups that are now focusing considerable attention on this issue, including the American Council of Learned Societies, a group of more than 70 scholarly societies in the humanities and social sciences. Kidd recently led a discussion on this issue at a meeting of ACLS society Executive Directors, and we are actively involved in other community efforts as well. Collectively, we hope to work toward changing the conditions in academia that have long silenced those who have been subject to sexual misconduct and allowed perpetrators to act with impunity.
We are committed to building an organizational climate at ASA that is compassionate, responsive, and responsible, with sensitivity to the complexity of this issue and its intersectional nature. If you have suggestions you would like ASA to consider as we are undergoing this policy review, please contact Executive Director Nancy Kidd at [email protected] and she will share them with the Working Group. This issue is of utmost importance to the health of our discipline, and we welcome your input.
Sincerely,
ASA Council
