The Red and Black

Issue date: 3/5/08 Section: News

Media Credit: GRAPHIC BY KRISTEN SHAW [Click to enlarge]

HOFFER

LEE

Within LeConte Hall, wars are fought like clockwork, hundreds of years after the fact.

Chancellorsville today, Gettysburg tomorrow, Chickamauga by week's end.

Armed with chalk, dry erase markers or Vis-A-Vis pens, professors conduct pitched battles, surprise attacks and elaborate sieges all from the sidelines via crude diagrams and the occasional primary source.

At the moment, however, history faculty are on the front lines of a battle raging in the here and now, and for once there's an end in sight.

An April 2007 complaint to history department head Robert Pratt sparked an Office of Legal Affairs investigation into a professor's comments and actions both in and out of the classroom.

Documents obtained by The Red & Black through an open records request detail the professor requesting a graduate student remove pornography from the professor's computer, asking "I used to date a girl from England who bit when she kissed. Do all English girls bite when they kiss?" and saying "I watch you around. You don't walk. You float."

In a letter dated Sept. 24, 2007, former Associate Director for Legal Affairs Kimberly Ballard-Washington informed the professor he had been found not in violation of the University's Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy.

Ballard-Washington encouraged the professor to choose his words carefully in the future and asked him to watch a video about harassment and move his office to another floor of LeConte, both requests with which he complied.

Case closed.


A response, a rebuttal

No sooner had the professor been exonerated than Peter Charles Hoffer, distinguished research professor and longtime colleague of the accused, issued a response.

In a letter also dated Sept. 24, 2007, a copy of which Hoffer slipped into the mailbox of every history faculty member along with a copy of Ballard-Washington's letter, he criticized the University's harassment policy for its lack of "due process and basic fairness" as well as his colleagues for their "anonymous and unproven character assassination" in the preceding months.

"The problem with our policy in terms of sexual harassment is that we assume that whoever is accused is guilty, and they have to prove that they're innocent," Hoffer said during an interview with The Red & Black. "The standard of guilt varies tremendously, so that what to some people would just be friendly banter to someone else, for whatever personal reason they may have, might be highly threatening and charged words."

Chana Kai Lee, associate professor in the history department and the Institute for African American Studies, said she felt otherwise.

"I got the sense that most people were very annoyed with that because that was a kind of interference with the process itself, that to interject what he added to the environment could possibly make it more difficult for others to come forward and want to talk about it at all," she said.

Hoffer said he is well aware of the response his letter received.

"They're very angry with me because I have, in a way, accused them of being unfair, and they don't feel unfair at all. They feel perfectly righteous," he said. "They're not happy with me, and they've expressed their unhappiness with me."

Debate open.


All in a day's work

Just as the revelation that College of Education professor William Bender had sexually harassed his students for two decades ignited campus-wide discussion about the University's harassment policy and its enforcement, so too did it give the ongoing debate within LeConte Hall a second wind.

On the morning of Feb. 4, Garnett Stokes, dean of Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, e-mailed a letter to Franklin College faculty encouraging them to review the harassment policy and reminding all supervisors, directors and department heads they are required to report incidents of harassment to Legal Affairs.

Hours later, Michael Kwass, associate professor of history, sent an e-mail on his department's faculty listserv circulating a petition entitled "UGA Community Condemns Sexual Harassment," listing links to The Red & Black's coverage of the Bender case and inviting his colleagues to an open discussion at his home scheduled for Feb. 6.

"Given the latest incident in the Education school," Kwass wrote in the e-mail, "I would like to encourage members of the History Department to discuss the issue of sexual harassment at UGA and consider how to promote a civil working environment for all."

Less than a half-hour later, Hoffer responded regarding the petition.

"Given our own recent departmental experience with an accusation of sexual harassment deemed entirely unfounded, and the rush to judgment thereon by those who, as historians and scholars, should have known better," he wrote, "I urge everyone to think about the due process question. The petition states quite clearly that due process must be observed, then dumps due process in favor of protecting the secret identity of the accuser."

Hoffer then likened the University's approach in investigating sexual harassment complaints to the current U.S. presidential administration's lack of respect for due process rights.

"Secret accusations pursued in secret by administrative authorities are exactly what we who abhor the Bush program of violating our due process rights have protested these many years.

"Now," he wrote, "we see the righteous indignity which motivated Bush and Cheney, only this time displayed for our own cause."

According to Hoffer, the petition in question, available at www.ipetitions.com/petition/UGA_Harassment and signed by more than half of the history department's full-time faculty, would be well-served by "a stronger and clearer statement of due process" as well as "the specifics of due process."


At the house of Kwass

Two nights later, the discussion took place as scheduled.

"I hosted an open meeting to discuss ways to promote a civil, educational environment for everyone at UGA," Kwass said. "I was really impressed by how committed faculty are to improving conditions on campus."

Susan Mattern, associate professor of history, attended the meeting and said she was joined by about 10 of her colleagues, most of whom were junior faculty.

She said they discussed what can be done at the departmental level to create a safer educational environment and agreed a more formal introductory education regarding sexual harassment would be a strong first step.

"Just by creating that institution in the department," she said, "that sort of sends the message that we're serious about it."

Mattern said she had never encountered a sexual harassment orientation at any college she'd taught at but that she thought it'd be a good fit for the University.

"It's an especially good idea here and especially in our department, which is mostly male with not very many female faculty and not very many female graduate students," she said.


Talking points

Lee was unable to attend the discussion but said she also was bothered by the University's lack of a concrete orientation policy with regards to sexual harassment.

"I've worked at two other very large public universities - the University of Florida and Indiana University - and one of the things that has bothered me about the University of Georgia is that we're always in sort of this reactive mode," she said. "Even after there's all this gossip and this chatter and this concern, it's almost like we respond when these experiences get publicity. It's almost like embarrassment becomes the overwhelming consideration as opposed to prevention."

Kwass also said he liked the idea of an ombudsperson to deal with complaints.

"To craft a policy that protects the rights of all parties involved in disputes, UGA is right to look into the procedures in place in ombudsperson offices at other top universities," he said. "There are good working models out there from which we can learn a great deal."

Pratt said in a Feb. 27 interview he could see the argument for an ombudsperson but the University, at least during his tenure, has been dedicated to providing a safe educational atmosphere.

"Some have expressed concern that perhaps sexual harassment issues should not be handled through the University's Office of Legal Affairs because Legal Affairs, of course, is ultimately set up to protect the University," he explained. "Whether it's done by Legal Affairs or whether it's done by some other agency, since I've been here, I've always felt that the University is certainly committed to working to create a learning environment that is free of any kinds of harassment."

However, Mattern said, the University's commitment is only halfway there.

"My understanding is that our policy is quite good," she said. "If there is a problem, it would be more with enforcement."

"Sexual harassment is something we need to address as part of a broader culture change toward supporting female faculty and students here at UGA," she said. "I think this is a broader cultural problem and not just a specific instance or even a specific issue."


Recess

Pratt said he had not read Hoffer's letter and he only reads the e-mails on the faculty listserv when he has time, but that such back-and-forth by his colleagues is not crossing any lines.

"As historians and scholars, we don't always agree on various policy matters," he said, "but as long as faculty members are respectful of each other's rights and they don't engage in any profanity and they respect the bounds of decency, then certainly as department head, I don't have any problem with faculty members expressing their views."

Hoffer went a step further and said such debate is the mark of an academically thriving department.

"Any department that is intellectually alive of any size whatsoever where people feel free to express opinions is going to be like the history department," he said. "You're going to have disagreements about who to hire, about who to retain, about who teaches what courses, about who said what. You're going to have factions and alliances. Hopefully, it's always on a respectable intellectual plane. Sometimes it's like a schoolyard in recess.

"Maybe we are sort of a schoolyard in recess at the moment," he said with a laugh, "but we'll survive."

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