The Site Visit Report
The Administration is Bullying the Philosophy
Department at the University of Colorado-Boulder
OpEdNews February 19, 2014
The administration is bullying the philosophy department at the University of Colorado-Boulder
By Thomas Farrell
The administration is bullying the philosophy department at the
University of Colorado-Boulder -- by unexpectedly making a report about
the department public on Jan. 31, 2014. Six women teachers in the
department have recently issued a public statement that has been
reported in the local newspaper. They claim that only a small number of
men in the department were involved in the behaviors mentioned in the
report.
::::::::
Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) February 19, 2014: In recent days the
Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, Colorado, has published two new
pieces concerning the report about the Department of Philosophy that
the administration of the University of Colorado-Boulder unexpectedly
made public on Jan. 31, 2014:
Let's back up a bit and review. In the spring of 2013, the department
understood that it was in hot water with the administration. At that
time, the department came up with the idea of inviting the outside
review. The dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the provost
accepted this idea. The American Philosophical Association's Committee
on the Status of Women was invited to send a three-member
visitation committee to the campus. The site visit took place in Sept.
2014. The report was submitted in Nov. 2013. The department head, the
dean, and the provost received copies of the report as email
attachments. Then on Jan. 31, 2014, the administration
unexpectedly made the report public (online).
SARAH KUTA'S NEWS STORY
In a news story by Sarah Kuta, "Female CU-Boulder philosophy colleagues
speak out on report," dated Feb. 18, 2014, she reports that six
women with ties to the department have issued a joint statement about
the report. According to Kuta, "The six women write that they believe a
small number of men in the department are responsible for the sexual
harassment or unprofessional sexualized behavior described in the
report."
""We are all distressed that the report may damage the reputations of
male colleagues who are completely innocent of sexual misconduct,' the
statement's authors wrote. "It could also harm the prospects of our
male graduate students currently on the market.'"
""We faculty women strongly believe that none of our currently
untenured male colleagues or current male graduate students has engaged
in sexual misconduct,' the women write. "W e believe that many have
heard about the problems, if at all, only through the rumor mill.'"
Evidently, a certain number of women have been the alleged victims of
sexual harassment by a supposedly "small number of men in the
department."
According to the report made public by the administration, "at least"
15 complaints have been filed against individual members of the
department with the Office of Discrimination and Harassment (ODH)
-- evidently, since 2007. But the report contains no further
information about those complaints or the outcomes of those complaints.
So if only a small number of men in the department are responsible for
the department's problems that got it into hot water with the
administration, then it would appear that at least some of them had
more than one complaint filed against them with the ODH.
According to another published source, four out of the 24 tenure-track
faculty in the department are women; 10 out of 53 graduate students are
women; and four out of 13 non-tenure-track faculty are women. The four
tenure-track women joined two other non-tenure-track women (one of whom
is retired) to issue the statement reported by Kuta.
STEVEN F. HAYWARD'S OP-ED PIECE
In a strong op-ed piece titled "CU Philosophy: True accountability
deserves greater transparency" in the Daily Camera, dated Feb. 19,
2014, Steven F. Hayward, the inaugural visiting scholar in conservative
thought and policy at CU, examines the report's vagueness not only
regarding the complaints filed with the ODH but also regarding alleged
bullying.
Hayward says, "The experience of a small number of faculty whose
intellectual contempt for colleagues generates a toxic departmental
climate is hardly unique to CU. But a report that avoids disclosing
facts and details but rests instead on survey responses -- an
exceedingly weak form of evidence for charges so serious -- falls short
of any reasonable standard of proof. Barring more transparency, I think
the presumption should be reversed: the Philosophy Department is the
victim of the increasingly Star-Chamber atmosphere of campus political
correctness."
Let us note that Hayward assumes that only "a small number of faculty" is the problem regarding the charges.
In a similar way, the six women in philosophy assume that only "a small
number of men in the department are responsible" for the department's
problems mentioned in the report.
But clearly the department is in hot water with the administration -- not just "a small number of men in the department."
WHO'S IN CHARGE?
But let's review further.
QUESTION: Who's in charge of administering the Office of Discrimination
and Harassment -- the administration, or the faculty in the Department
of Philosophy?
ANSWER: The administration is in charge of administering the ODH.
QUESTION: Who has the authority to write new rules for ODH and submit the new rules to the Board of Trustees for approval?
ANSWER: The administration.
QUESTION: Who knows the basic details of the 15 (or possibly more)
complaints against faculty members in philosophy filed with the ODH and
the outcomes of each of those complaints -- the administration, or the
24 tenure-track faculty members in philosophy?
ANSWER: The administration.
QUESTION: If it is the case that only "a small number of men in the
department are responsible" for the behavior criticized in the report
that the administration unexpectedly made public, as the six women in
the department claim, then exactly how are the 24 tenure- track faculty
in the department supposed to proceed to deal with the culprits within
the department -- whose identities they do not know for sure?
ANSWER: Beats me.
CONCLUSION
So the mighty administrators at the University of Colorado-Boulder
showed everybody who's boss by making the report public on Jan. 31,
2014.
No doubt the administration can do more to hurt the department than the
faculty members in the department can do to hurt the administration.
But the administration should not have made the report public.
Making the report public was not an intelligent, reasonable, responsible act.
On the contrary, it was an unintelligent, unreasonable, irresponsible act.
In plain English, the administration at the University of
Colorado-Boulder bullied the philosophy department by making the report
public.
Submitters Website: www.d.umn.edu/~tfarrell
Submitters Bio: Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD).
Original Internet Location:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-administration-is-bull-by-Thomas-Farrell-Bullying_College_Men_Philosophy-140219-120.html