This is the campus we love, but we do not always feel safe here. As we walk through campus, past familiar buildings, along oft-walked paths, Professor Jorge Dominguez’ callous words echo through our minds – “This would be a nice place for a rape”. After hearing reports and stories of his consistent sexual harassment and assault of at least 18 women, and after Harvard administrations turned a blind eye for over 40 years, it’s hard to feel safe or valued on this campus.
When the story first broke of Dominguez’ grossly inappropriate treatment of Terry Karl, then a junior faculty member at Harvard — including physical groping and assault, referring to her as his slave, and threatening to derail her career — we were horrified. As we continued reading, our horror turned to disbelief. We learned that Harvard adjudicated in Karl’s favor and temporarily removed Dominguez from administrative responsibility, yet his behavior continued to the point that Karl left Harvard for Stanford. This was in 1983.
Nearly 40 years later, Dominguez was still teaching at Harvard. In fact, just last semester, he taught a freshman seminar, in which some of us enrolled, and attended un-chaperoned, private, closed-door office hours and group dinners at his home. We did not have a clear option to say no. While it is typical for professors to hold these types of events, designed to connect with students more closely, the fact that the university was aware of misconduct allegations against Dominguez but allowed him to host these events is appalling. The lack of oversight placed on Dominguez, and the lack of protections for students is concerning. With what we now know, it’s easy to imagine malign intentions Dominguez may have had in hosting these events. Why was Dominguez permitted continual, unfettered access to vulnerable students, when Harvard was fully aware of what he was capable of?
Since Karl’s original complaint, numerous other women reported harassment by Dominguez yet he was continuously promoted to increasingly prestigious positions. Meanwhile, the women who reported him were ignored, demonized, and even forced out. Harvard, how did this happen? How was he allowed to stay and continue, while they were the ones who suffered the consequences of his actions?
At Harvard, systemic inaction, entrenched power imbalances, and a blatant disregard for women have combined to allow Dominguez to prey on students and faculty for nearly 40 years. It is our sincere hope that these revelations represent a turning point in Harvard’s history — one towards respect and support of women at all levels, undergraduates, graduate students, post-docs, staff and faculty.
In recent days, we have heard that investigations are being launched, that Dominguez has been placed on administrative leave, and that he has ultimately chosen to retire at the end of the semester. While it is a relief that he will no longer occupy a position on this campus, and we are glad to see Harvard attempting to sanction him, this is far too little, far too late.
There is no excuse for the inaction that has allowed Dominguez, and men like him, to operate unchecked on Harvard’s campus. As students, we deserve better. We demand better. This is the moment to take decisive action — while Dominguez has been placed on administrative leave, he is still being paid, and according to emails from the government department, is still allowed entry into the government department building on weekends.
Contrast this to the response of peer institutions in similar situations: In 2013, when MIT Professor Emeritus Walter H.G. Lewin was found to have sexually harassed numerous women in his online physics class, proceeding to coerce them into sending him sexually explicit images and videos of themselves, MIT’s administration immediately severed ties with him. His courses were removed from their platforms, and his emeritus title was stripped. In 2017, at UC Berkeley, a professor of South and Southeast Asian studies was fired two years after sexual harassment complaints against him were filed.
It is conceivable that in the 1980s, before sexual harassment was widely recognized, the limited sanctions Harvard placed against Dominguez were considered appropriate; however, as new reports continued to come to light, Harvard’s inaction and reticence is inexcusable. These comparatively prompt actions of peer institutions contrast sharply, and sadly, with Harvard’s handling of the case against Dominguez. Despite recognizing him as a perpetrator of sexual harassment, Harvard allowed him to hold increasingly vaunted positions, to accumulate power and influence, and to continue sexually harassing women.
This is a crisis 40 years in the making, but it must not take 40 more years to build a Harvard free from the threat of sexual harassment and assault. It is time to be cognizant of the hierarchical nature of academia, where workplace power dynamics hold outsize influence, and careers can live and die based on recommendations and mentorship from colleagues.
The negative aspects of this environment are further exacerbated by the exclusion of women from the highest echelons of academia – at Harvard, women comprise only 21 percent of full professors in the government department, significantly worse than social sciences as a whole, where 32 percent of tenured faculty is female. This lack of female representation among the faculty is both a cause and a symptom of the culture of tolerating sexual harassment: The dearth of powerful women allows imbalanced power structures to persist unchallenged, while rampant harassment only serves to further drive women out of the academy. For true cultural change to occur, women must be meaningfully represented at all levels of academia, and their complaints of harassment must be taken seriously.
We may never truly know how many women have been driven out of academia, both by Dominguez’ overt advances, and by the general tolerance of sexual assault rampant at Harvard. But now is the time to ensure there are no more. As Lawrence Bacow prepares to ascend to Harvard’s presidency, and the government department prepares for its first semester in the post-Dominguez era, we must recognize that women are never going to have equal footing nor equal representation in academia, so long as academia continues to systemically tolerate sexual harassment. Harvard, please stop tolerating sexual harassment — your students’ lives and careers depend on it.
Akshaya Annapragada, Alisha Ukani, Cindy Jung, Erica Newman-Corre, Eve Driver, Lauren Anderson, and Savitri Fouda wrote this article along with two writers who do not wish to be named. Amir Siraj, Wyatt Hurt, and one writer who does not wish to be named also contributed to this article.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Richard923888; Wikimedia Commons/Time’s Up Group, LLC