6

Changing the Culture and Climate in Higher Education

This report reflects decades of legal and policy engagement with sexual harassment that has not resulted in a significant solution to the problem. Recent media coverage has featured reports of individuals who have been accused of sexually harassing women, particularly egregious cases involving assault and sexual coercion, and of follow-up reports on how organizations are firing these individuals. However, sexual harassment is not simply a problem of individual behavior. Rather, organizational climate plays a primary role in facilitating and enabling harassment. Organizational climate is defined as the shared perceptions within an organization of the policies, practices, and procedures in place (i.e., why they are in place; how people experience them; how they are implemented; what behaviors in the organization are rewarded, supported, and expected) (Schneider, Ehrhart, and Macey 2013).

Organizational climate is the single most important factor in determining whether sexual harassment is likely to occur in a work setting (see Chapter 2 for a discussion of factors that can predict sexual harassment is likely to occur). The degree to which a particular organization’s climate is seen by those in the organization as permissive of sexual harassment has the strongest relationship with how much sexual harassment occurs in the organization (Willness, Steel, and Lee 2007). According to Hulin, Fitzgerald, and Drasgow (1996), the characteristics of organizations with a permissive climate toward sexual harassment include the following:

• Perceived risk to victims for reporting harassment,
• Lack of sanctions against offenders, and
• The perception that one’s complaints will not be taken seriously.

Permissive environments can make men with a proclivity toward harassment more likely to engage in those behaviors (Pryor, LaVie, and Stoller 1993). Additionally, perceptions that an organization is permissive of sexual harassment can lead to women’s reluctance to report harassment because they believe their complaints will not be taken seriously or they will be subject to retaliation (Hulin, Fitzgerald, and Drasgow 1996; Offerman and Malamut 2002).

Workers’ perceptions of an organizational climate permissive of sexual harassment are also associated with lower overall work satisfaction among employees and decreased satisfaction with coworkers and supervisors (Fitzgerald, Drasgow, and Magley 1999; Hesson-McInnis and Fitzgerald 1997; Settles et al. 2006). On the other hand, a positive climate decreases sexual harassment rates, reduces retaliation against those who confront and report harassment, and results in better psychological health and workplace experiences (Buchanan et al. 2014; Fitzgerald, Drasgow, et al. 1997; Glomb et al. 1997, 1999; Wasti et al. 2000).

An organizational climate that permits gender harassment (one of three types of sexual harassment) can be as damaging to women’s success and professional advancement as the more egregious forms of sexual harassment.¹ A meta-analysis of 88 studies of sexual harassment based on 93 independent samples that contained responses from 73,877 working women showed that “more intense yet less frequent harmful experiences (e.g., sexual coercion and unwanted sexual attention) and less intense but more frequent harmful experiences (which in this analysis included gender harassment and the sexist organizational climate it can create) had similar negative effects on women’s well-being” within the workplace (Sojo, Wood, and Genet 2016, 13;² see also Settles et al. 2006).

Gender harassment is far more common than other types of sexual harassment, yet to date, most institutions have focused on investigating and preventing the more dramatic, sexualized types (sexual coercion and unwanted sexual attention), with less attention paid to the more common gender harassment (consisting of sexist hostility and crude behavior). Fully taking stock of sexual harassment in an organization requires attention to all the types of sexual harassment and to the organizational climate that facilitates and enables the behavior.

The most common mechanisms for addressing sexual harassment revolve around identifying perpetrators through formal reports of their misdeeds. However the research reviewed in Chapter 4 finds that victims rarely report sexual harassment; this is especially true for gender harassment (e.g., Lonsway, Paynich, and Hall 2013), which many people do not realize is a form of sexual harassment (Holland and Cortina 2013). If reactive complaint mechanisms are the only

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¹ There are three types of sexual harassment: gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion. See Chapter 2 for further descriptions.

²Sojo, Wood, and Genet (2016, 13) use the term “sexist organizational climate” to refer to “the experience of generalized negative attitudes towards women within the organization (e.g., frequent and unchallenged sexist jokes, judgments of women as less competent, pressure on women to change their behavior to match the work context).”

route to intervention in an institution, then it most likely misses a majority of the sexual harassment that takes place. These mechanisms are absolutely necessary, but far from sufficient. They should be supplemented with proactive efforts to fix the organizational climate that is tolerating and facilitating sexual harassment, particularly gender harassment, of faculty, staff, and trainees in higher education.

To prevent and effectively address sexual harassment, systemwide changes are needed to the organizational climate and culture in higher education. While organizational climate is focused on the shared perceptions within an organization, organizational culture is defined as “the collectively held beliefs, assumptions, and values held by organizational members” (Stamarski and Hing 2015, 7; see also Trice and Beyer 1993, Settles et al. 2006, and Schein 2010). Ideally the climate reflects and supports the culture of the organization, and ideally the culture guides and sets the tone for the climate that members of an organization experience. The key is that climate and culture must be addressed together, because efforts to build a good climate will flounder if they conflict with the beliefs, assumptions, and values of an organization; conversely, only having the “right” culture will not result in the desired result if the processes and procedures are not organized around the collective and shared goals and beliefs (Schneider, Ehrhart, and Macey 2013).

To address the culture in an organization, it is crucial to recognize that organizational cultures are not neutral; rather, they reflect the norms and values of those who are and have been in leadership roles in the organizations, and these norms influence the formal and informal structures, organizational strategy, human resource systems, and organizational climates (Gelfand, Erez, and Aycan 2007). As a result, organizational culture cannot be addressed in isolation. Further, organizational leadership, and the signals that leaders send about civility, respect, and tolerance for sexual harassment, are powerful cues that individuals in the organization take seriously—and they adapt their own behaviors (if not their attitudes) accordingly.

Given the significance that organizational climate plays in preventing sexual harassment, this chapter focuses on six approaches that can improve the organizational climate and thereby prevent sexual harassment. Listed here from most to least novel, these approaches are what an organization committed to significantly reducing or eliminating sexual harassment in academia should work on implementing:

• Create a diverse, inclusive, and respectful environment;
• Diffuse the power structure and reduce isolation;
• Develop supportive structures and systems for those who experience sexual harassment;
• Improve transparency and accountability;
• Ensure there is diverse, effective, and accountable leadership that is un

• ambiguous about its commitment to reducing and eliminating harassment; and

• Develop and use effective sexual harassment training.

In many ways these approaches reflect the three priorities identified for ending gender-based violence by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development (2012). The priorities are (1) prevention of gender-based violence from occurring in the first place, and from recurring, by working with local grassroots organizations, civil society, and key stakeholders in the community, including men and boys; (2) protection from gender-based violence by identifying and providing services to survivors once the violence occurs; and (3) accountability to ensure that perpetrators are prosecuted and to end impunity by strengthening legal and judicial systems. These concepts, prevention, protection, and accountability, also serve as a useful shorthand for how institutions should address sexual harassment.

The following sections of this chapter elaborate on the six approaches identified by our committee, describing why they can improve the climate and discussing promising practices and models for achieving them. This chapter also discusses the importance of measuring progress and incentivizing institutions to make changes and implement these approaches. It concludes with a section on the important role played by professional societies and other organizations that facilitate research and training in altering the climate and culture in academic science, engineering, and medicine.

It should be noted that while the evidence related to many of the approaches in this chapter have demonstrated improved outcomes for women, there is much less evidence that they will improve outcomes for ethnic and racial minorities and sexual- and gender-minority women. It is possible that these actions will only improve the environment for straight white women, or that there are greater limits on how well these efforts will work for women of color and sexual- and gender-minority women.

CREATING A DIVERSE, INCLUSIVE, AND RESPECTFUL ENVIRONMENT

Diverse, inclusive, and respectful academic environments are environments where careers flourish, but sexual harassment does not. Such environments have a culture that values diversity, inclusion, and respect, but they also need to have a climate that demonstrates that these values are put into action. Diverse and inclusive environments are ones where cultural values around gender and racial equity align with a climate where policies and practices do not disadvantage groups of people, and thereby making them incompatible with sexually harassing behavior. Similarly, a respectful environment is one where civility and respectful work behavior are not just valued but also evaluated and rewarded, and this is

reflected in policies and procedures. Respectful behavior is particularly important in preventing sexual harassment because sexual harassment often takes place against a backdrop of incivility,³ or in other words, in an environment of generalized disrespect. This is especially true for gender harassment, because when it occurs, it is virtually always in environments with high rates of uncivil conduct (Cortina et al. 2002; Lim and Cortina 2005). Thus, promoting and establishing a culture of respect is a key component to preventing sexual harassment.

This section discusses how cultural values of diversity, inclusion, and respect can be integrated into policies, procedures, formal and informal structures, organizational strategies, and human resource systems, many of which already have problematic norms and values built into them. Specifically, this section will examine faculty hiring, evaluation, and reward structures, as well as interventions to create and promote an environment that demonstrates that it actualizes the values of diversity, inclusion, and respect.

We recognize that most of this section deals with the culture of the workplace environment in which faculty and staff are the key actors. In fact, students comprise the largest population on a college or university campus, and strategies to address cultural change and creating a climate in which sexual harassment is not tolerated must also include a focus on students. As such, we do urge that institutions apply and evaluate many of the same principles and similar interventions outlined below to the student population. We do not go into detail on specific steps campuses can take to address civility and respect on a student-to-student level because the research is limited in this area and because the changes at the faculty and staff level are likely to have significant impacts on student behavior in classroom, training, and research settings that are supervised by faculty and staff.

Diversity Initiatives

We note, that on their face, diversity initiatives may appear irrelevant to sexual harassment. However, they hold great promise for creating academic environments where women are not disadvantaged and where they are not seen as less valuable or less capable because of their gender. Diversity initiatives aim to address the challenges that nonmajority groups deal with when working and learning in a majority environment. Substantial evidence suggests that individuals from nonmajority groups, such as women of color, men of color, white women, and sexual and gender minorities, cannot bring their “whole selves” to their work. Instead, they must “code switch” while at work—that is, adopt the behavior patterns, speech, dress, and values of the majority group. This can be especially tricky for female-identified individuals, as trying to adopt behavior patterns of men can lead to labels of “bossy” or “bitchy” and thus lead to gender harassment

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³ Incivility refers to “low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect. Uncivil behaviors are characteristically rude and discourteous, displaying a lack of regard for others” (Andersson and Pearson 1999, 457).

(Berdahl 2007b). At the same time, avoiding these behavior patterns can lead to less professional advancement.

Conformity to majority standards is harmful to the workplace as well as to the individual. Code switching and conformity behaviors lead to individuals from nonmajority groups having to constantly police themselves, which has been described as having a constant background process running, which is distracting and limiting when trying to do complex work (Hewlin 2009; Jones and Shorter-Gooden 2003; Johnson et al. 2016). Additionally, conformity means that people are unable to leverage those diverse experiences into novel problem-solving capabilities, which is the type of synergy that has been documented in successfully diverse workplaces. Thus, even when women are present in the workplace, if they face challenges in navigating a male-dominated culture, they still might choose to withhold their points of view in order not to challenge the existing culture—meaning that their diverse perspectives may still not be brought to bear in the workplace discourse (Van Kippenberg, Haslam, and Platow 2007; Van Kippenberg and van Ginkel 2010; Van Kippenberg, van Ginkel, and Homan 2013).

Diversity initiatives usually have two goals: increasing the number of underrepresented workers and creating synergy between people from varying backgrounds (Dwertmann, Nishii, and Knippenberg 2016). Because majority members expect to enjoy a sense of belonging to their organization, diversity initiatives may feel like a threat to their sense of self and their place in the workplace. Thus, organizations should expect some resistance to diversity initiatives and develop plans to cultivate support for such initiatives from the campus community. Resistance to diversity initiatives, and diverse workplaces more generally, can range from subtle acts of incivility to more extreme forms of undermining an institution (Hebl, Madera, and King 2008). Several interventions exist aimed at increasing pro-diversity beliefs and attitudes among majority members of an organization (van Veelen, Otten, and Hansen 2014; Courtois et al. 2014), particularly on shifting attitudes toward egalitarianism. This work highlights the importance of a bottom-up approach that relies on support from the campus community rather than from individuals at the top to change the culture of an institution. It also reveals how creating top-down policy mandates that ignore the important steps of building consensus and appreciation of the importance of a respectful workplace can lead to resentment and/or misinterpretation. The following section discusses some specific approaches for improving diversity by making changes to faculty hiring practices.

Faculty Hiring, Evaluation, and Reward Practices

Faculty hiring and promotion decisions are key points in the academic system where changes in policies and practices can have a significant effect on improving diversity and respect. Since one of the key predictors of sexual harass-

ment is a male-dominated organizational context (see Chapter 2; USMSPB 1995; Fitzgerald et al. 1997; Berdahl 2007b; Willness, Steel, and Lee 2007; Schneider, Pryor, and Fitzgerald 2011; Kabat-Farr and Cortina 2014), it is important to address the issue of gender diversity in academia. Male-dominated organizational contexts are those settings that are numerically male dominated, have mostly men in authority roles, and/or have women working in traditionally male fields, and it is these settings that tend to have higher rates of sexual harassment. Two important steps in correcting this problem are achieving critical masses of women at every level⁴ and changing policies and practices that are impeding the ability for women to enter and advance in academia. In other words, science and engineering departments and academic medical centers that hire more women, promote more women, and integrate more women into every level of the academic power structure may see a decline in harassment—among other benefits. In pursuing initiatives that seek to diversify the workplace, the goal should be “well-integrated, structurally egalitarian” places of work in which women and men equally share power and authority (Schultz 2003). To do so organizations need to align policies and processes so that they reflect the organization’s cultural values that women and men are equals and that people should be treated respectfully. Approaches for this include reducing bias in hiring and promotion processes, considering applicants views and actions on improving diversity and inclusion, and evaluating faculty for cooperation, respectful work behavior, and professionalism.

Gender parity, specifically among faculty, is especially important, given that faculty lead and set the tone in labs, medical teams, classrooms, departments, and schools. A large body of social science research points to practices that can enhance gender diversity and excellence in faculty hiring. Evidence-based practices⁵ supported by this research include the following:⁶

• Train faculty hiring committees, with particular attention to how to protect against bias from influencing decision making.⁷
• Take active and continuous steps to diversify the applicant pool.
• Cast a wide net by defining faculty searches as broadly as possible (a strategy known to increase the numbers of women applicants and applicants of color).

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⁴ Critical mass is often defined as women making up 30 percent of the population in a setting (Stewart, La Vaque-Manty, and Malley 2004, 2007; Valian 1999; Newton-Small 2017).

⁵ These evidence-based hiring practices are summarized in a handbook created by the ADVANCE Program at the University of Michigan for the purpose of increasing both diversity and excellence among faculty. Available at http://advance.umich.edu/resources/handbook.pdf.

⁶ Additional practices that reflect this evidence-based research from academic settings are also available for industry and corporate environments; see http://projectinclude.org/hiring#.

⁷ See, for example, the STRIDE Faculty Recruitment Workshop pioneered at the University of Michigan at http://advance.umich.edu/.

• Develop job-relevant hiring criteria, and keep those criteria central to hiring discussions (reducing the chance that gender, race, and ethnicity biases will shape those discussions).
• Use a standardized tool to evaluate candidates according to the hiring criteria.

When institutions are hiring new faculty and staff, it may help to be clear about the norms and standards of behavior related to professionalism, respectful work behavior, equity, and inclusion that are expected and that the organization is looking for. Additionally, hiring committees could include consideration of how well the candidate would be at upholding the behavior expectations of the organization—based on the candidate’s prior experiences, letters of support, reference checks, and responses to interview questions. Hiring practices that hold promise for assessing a job candidate’s values and behaviors on diversity, inclusion, professionalism, and respect include the following:

• Require diversity and inclusion statements from faculty and leadership applicants, requesting that they explicitly address not only their own beliefs about diversity but also their track records in supporting diversity⁸ (e.g., their own actions have focused on broadening participation of women and people of color); applicants can also be asked to address the nature and impact of diversity within their academic disciplines, which can then be discussed directly in interviews.
• Require letters of recommendation to address applicants’ leadership abilities in terms of their professionalism and respectful work behavior.
• Ask candidates direct questions about the role of respectful work behavior among all members of the academic unit and how they, as a leader, would respond if they witnessed harassing behavior among students, trainees, faculty, or staff. Similar questions could be asked of others (e.g., former staff or students) who have worked closely with the job candidate.

In circumstances where a candidate has a history of behavior that is inconsistent with values and behavior expectations of the institution, it is good practice for the institution to consider whether making the hire will contradict the values and goals of the organization. If it decides to hire someone with such a history, the institution could consider the use of probation or precautionary measures to prevent future behavior from occurring, and at a minimum should be very clear about what the standards of behavior are at the organization. Institutions may also want to consider how the candidate’s history could influence the climate and

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⁸ During the course of the study the committee became aware of a number of departments in various academic institutions that request such statements. The committee is unaware of any research that documents how widespread this practice is.

culture in a department, program, or the whole institution and consider the effect it may have on those who have previously been targets of sexual harassment.

Hiring practices such as those reviewed in this section could help to recruit and retain more women in fields dominated by men, which could help in the reduction of sexual harassment. However, it is critical to do more than “add women and stir” (Martin and Meyerson 1988); additional work is needed to align the culture or the values of the institution with its policies and practices. With this goal in mind, we now turn to issues of evaluating faculty for cooperation, respectful work behavior, and professionalism.

Faculty Evaluation and Reward Structures

Focusing evaluation and reward structures on cooperation, respectful work behavior, and professionalism rather than solely on individual-level teaching and research performance metrics could have a significant impact on improving the environment in academia. According to Jayne and Dipboye (2004, 415):

This orientation toward collaboration and cooperation challenges the way many academic institutions organize their faculty hiring, merit, and promotion processes. However, where faculty members act as leaders and engage in their research or teaching with teams (including trainees), labs, medical trainee groups, and so on, there may be opportunities for evaluating and rewarding collaborative, respectful, and professional behavior (e.g., including some cooperative metrics, soliciting feedback from subordinates and trainees within regular review processes). Steps that colleges and universities could take to foster greater cooperation, respectful behavior, and professionalism at the faculty and staff level include the following:

• Evaluate faculty regularly (not just at key transition moments, such as tenure) for cooperation, respectful work behavior, and professionalism.
• Evaluate candidates for honor positions (e.g., chaired positions, Distinguished Faculty positions) for cooperation, respectful work behavior, and professionalism.

• Collect feedback from all members of units (i.e., including students, staff), with attention to cooperation, respect, and professionalism, when evaluating candidates for positions at all levels.

In some institutions, a move toward greater cooperation and professionalism requires changes in the academic “star culture” that protects “bad actors.” Academic star culture refers to the beliefs or assumptions that well-known academics on campus who command significant resources can operate without ordinary rules being applied to them.⁹ Recent sexual harassment scandals in academia revealed the problems of star culture when luminaries in male-dominated fields allegedly engaged in years of sexual harassment with relative impunity (e.g., Geoffrey Marcy, Brian Richmond, David Marchant, and John Searle). For real change to happen in the academy, norms and rules (and consequences for violating them) would need to apply to all members of the campus community, no matter how famous or well funded.

Cultivating Respect and Civility

Timmerman and Bajema (2000, 190) define a positive social climate as employee oriented, one that “displays a concern for people, respects the workers, and is interested in the personal problems of the employees.” In studying such positive social climates, they found that respondents who reported that their company had a more positive social climate, as well as placed a strong emphasis on advancing gender equity in the workplace and supported family-friendly policies, reported fewer instances of unwanted sexual behavior in the workplace. Thus, a key approach to preventing sexual harassment should be to cultivate a positive, respectful social climate at every level in academia. Such a goal is consistent with the educational missions of academic institutions. It is also consistent with recommendations of the co-chairs of the 2016 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace; they recommended workplace training focused on respect and civility.

Incivility is defined by those who study workplace harassment as “rude, condescending, and ostracizing acts that violate workplace norms of respect, but otherwise appear mundane” (Cortina et al., 2017, 55). When used by these scholars it describes acts that are used by those in more powerful positions as a form of oppression against women, people of color, and other minorities (Cortina 2008). Some scholars worry that “civility” interventions erode free and critical speech (e.g., Calabrese 2015; Scott 2015). They urge critical analysis of incivility, with particular attention to power and who is claiming incivility is occurring. Indeed, when calls for civility come from the powerful, for the purpose of silenc-

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⁹ National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, A Workshop on Strategies for Addressing Sexual Harassment in Academic Science, Engineering, and Medicine (2017) (testimony of Jan Sepler). Available at http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/cwsem/shstudy/PGA_177869.

ing voices below them, this is deeply problematic. In academia recently, debates about civility versus free speech have been particular heated when academic leaders expressed views that seem to make civility a prerequisite for the free and open exchange of ideas (Cortina et al. 2017). However, calls for civility do not only originate from the top of the organization nor do they need to aim for censorship. For example, “occupational health psychologists promote calls for civility issued by stakeholders at all levels (including but not limited to leadership) for the purpose of protecting workforce health and wellbeing; the objective is to create dignified working conditions for all persons, especially those in the minority” (Cortina et al. 2017, 308). The academic community would benefit from continued discussion of how to evaluate civility and take into consideration how power influences the meaning of the term.

Harassment scholars have long recommended that organizations combine anti-harassment efforts with civility-promotion programs (Cortina et al. 2002; Lim and Cortina 2005). As Cortina and colleagues (2002, 307) explain, such an integrated strategy “would more adequately reflect the multidimensional nature of interpersonal mistreatment, which comes in general, gendered, and sexualized varieties. Such programs would also attract broader audiences, being relevant to both women and men and avoiding resistance met by interventions that exclusively target . . . sexual harassment.” The goal would be to eliminate all elements of a hostile work environment, be they generic; based on gender, race, or ethnicity; or other factors. While there are numerous examples of successful workplace respect and civility programs, more research is needed to determine whether it is a best practice for reducing and preventing sexual harassment.

Successful workplace respect and civility interventions spin the focus of training from punitive to positive by highlighting behaviors in which employees should engage, rather than those they should avoid (such as sexual harassment). Some of these interventions, moreover, have evidence of their effectiveness. Specifically, the Civility, Respect, and Engagement at Work (CREW) program (Leiter et al. 2011) originated as an intensive 6-month intervention in veterans hospital administration settings and is geared to enhance employees’ interpersonal awareness and communication skills.

CREW is both rigorous and structured, but also adaptive to the distinct needs of each work group or team. This intervention involves weekly or biweekly team meetings—supported by a trained facilitator—to establish shared unit norms. The group brainstorms specific behaviors that indicate respect and disrespect, resulting in a list of strengths and areas of concern. They engage in structured exercises (drawn from the “CREW Toolkit”) to practice positive, respectful ways of interacting. The group then collectively generates a plan of action, and this plan is implemented, evaluated, and modified as needed. They continue to meet regularly to complete structured exercises, set goals, and evaluate progress. These meetings aim to promote teamwork and strengthen respect and trust among members as well as reduced absenteeism and overall incidence of workplace incivility (e.g.,

Laschinger et al. 2012; Leiter et al. 2011; Osatuke et al. 2009). Whether shorter interventions can produce similar change remains unknown.

Field studies of the CREW intervention in health care settings find it to be effective in raising respect levels (Laschinger et al. 2012; Leiter et al. 2011; Osatuke et al. 2009). For example, Leiter and colleagues (2011) documented meaningful effects of CREW as implemented within hospital work units. Following 6 months of intervention, benefits included not only fewer uncivil interactions and more civil ones, but also lower burnout, fewer absences, and greater organizational trust, commitment, and satisfaction among employees. An outstanding question is whether interventions like CREW, in concert with other anti-harassment efforts, can be effective tools against sexual harassment in academic work settings.

Reducing Bias and Responding to Harassment—Including Bystander Intervention

An organization that is committed to improving organizational climate must address issues of bias in academia. Biases are deeply ingrained in our society and differential responses toward women and men are a result of long-term habitual behavior (Devine 1989). Individuals are often unaware of these implicit responses, which may be in contradiction to their conscious beliefs. Examples of these biases in organizational practices include the practice of aggressively interrupting seminar speakers during departmental talks or requiring work availability in the early mornings, evenings, or over weekends without consideration of family circumstances. Research strongly suggests that these patterns have a gendered effect that will be much harder on women presenting their research or talking in meetings and on working mothers’ overall workplace success (Bernard and Correll 2010; Karpowitz and Mendelberg 2014; Stamarski and Hing 2015).

Research has shown that the evaluation of expertise for male and female scientists and engineers is highly dependent on the gender and gender identification of the individuals making the evaluation (Joshi 2014). Highly educated female candidates are seen as more qualified by female evaluators than by male evaluators in science and engineering fields. Further, males that identify strongly with their gender are more likely to rate a highly educated female more negatively than less-educated females.

In a review of research on bias and discrimination of women in science and engineering, the American Association for the Advancement of Science noted that establishing a “bias literacy” is an important precursor to effective intervention actions (Sevo and Chubin 2008). Literature also suggests that in addition to being aware of problematic behavior, individuals must learn to deliberately practice new behaviors until they become habitual (Bandura 1991).

The approach of habit breaking to reduce bias has been successful in academic training to reduce race bias (Devine et al. 2012). Using this previous work as a model, researchers at the University of Wisconsin designed a workshop for

selected faculty in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) to increase bias literacy¹⁰ and encourage intentional change in gender bias (Carnes et al. 2012). Faculty who attended workshops on gender bias habit-reducing interventions demonstrated positive behavioral changes, including increased personal awareness, internal motivation, perception of benefits, and success in engaging in gender equity–promoting behavior (Carnes et al. 2015). Further, when a critical mass attended the workshops (at least 25 percent of a department’s faculty), self-reported actions taken to promote gender equity significantly increased. This study indicates that when training is provided to reduce personal bias, larger-scale departmental behaviors can change in an academic setting.

Ideally, culture change would prevent bias and acting on those biases against women altogether, reducing sexual harassment rates. It would be unrealistic to expect those biases to be totally eradicated, however. It is therefore important for leaders and members in higher education institutions to think also about how to respond when biases turn into harassment. Appropriate and effective response requires certain skills, which can be learned via training.

Bystander intervention training, for example, is an important tool in teaching people how to respond when they see problematic behavior. It has been increasingly promoted as a tool for reducing sexual misconduct, especially in contexts known to have high rates of misconduct (e.g., college campuses). Bystanders are individuals who witness an incident and have the opportunity to intercept it. As Holland, Rabelo, and Cortina (2016) explain, there are five critical steps to bystander intervention in problematic social or sexual situations: (1) notice the event, (2) interpret it as problematic, (3) assume personal responsibility for intervening in some way, (4) decide how to intervene, and (5) act on that decision. These steps apply to a wide range of problematic situations, including sexual ones.

Research has identified many ways that bystanders can intervene. Interventions can be direct or indirect; involve perpetrators, targets, or other bystanders; and occur before, during, or after problematic incidents (Holland, Rabelo, and Cortina 2016). For example, bystanders could take it upon themselves to directly confront a harasser, directly remove a target of harassment, or indirectly help by finding someone else to intervene (e.g., a friend of the target, someone in authority). Bystander education equips people with the skills necessary to take such actions. Implementation and evaluation of such education models have found it to be effective in improving knowledge about sexual violence, reducing endorsement of rape myths, and increasing the likelihood of bystander intervention behavior—at least among college students, both female and male (see, e.g., Banyard, Plante, and Moynihan 2004; Banyard, Moynihan, and Plante 2007). It is

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¹⁰ The term “bias literacy” was a construct coined by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, noting that literacy in a given topic area is a prerequisite to action (Sevo and Chubin 2008).

unclear whether training programs such as this would be as effective in changing attitudes and behaviors surrounding sexual harassment among academic leaders, faculty, and staff, but this bystander education model holds promise (Feldblum and Lipnic 2016).

Another version of bystander education applies to expression of bias more broadly (i.e., not limited to sexual harassment). Designed to show participants how to recognize and report problematic behavior, this training revolves around two models: Confronting Prejudiced Responses (CPR) and Behavior Modeling Training (BMT).

CPR provides a way to help training participants understand the factors that promote and inhibit confronting discrimination or other offensive behavior. The CPR model acknowledges the many challenges a person may face when confronting discrimination by training a bystander to go through a series of steps before deciding whether and how to intervene. First, an individual must decide whether the action is discriminatory and then evaluate whether the situation is an emergency, decide whether he or she wants to take responsibility for intervening, identify a proper response, and, finally, decide whether to take action or not before confronting the discrimination (Ashburn-Nardo, Morris, and Goodwin 2008).

BMT is more concrete in describing specific skills that participants need to learn, and has been a part of training methodology in organizational settings since the 1970s (Goldstein and Sorcher 1974). In BMT training, participants view behavior models of those skills, practice or rehearse observed behaviors in a safe setting, and then transfer these skills to their work environments (Decker and Nathan 1985; Goldstein and Sorcher 1974; Taylor, Russ-Eft, and Chan 2005).

CPR and BMT are just two examples of skills-based trainings that center on bystander intervention. There are more, and different programs encourage intervention in different kinds of social, sexual, or criminal situations. The underlying message behind bystander training is that it promotes a culture of support, not one of silence. By calling out negative behaviors on the spot, all members of an academic community are helping to create a culture where abusive behavior is seen as an aberration, not as the norm (Banyard 2015).

DIFFUSING THE POWER STRUCTURE AND REDUCING ISOLATION

As described in Chapters 2 and 3, environments where people are isolated because of significant differences in power are more likely to foster and sustain sexual harassment. This power isolation occurs when there is a significant power imbalance—one party holds enough power and authority over the other that the former isolates the latter from being able to go to others for help without risking potentially serious retaliation. Regarding sexual harassment in science, engineering, and medicine, this occurs when power is highly concentrated in a single person, perhaps because of that person’s success in attracting funding for research (i.e., academic star power) or because that person can influence the career options

of those he supervises, and students or employees feel as if revealing the harassing behavior will have a negative impact on their own lives and careers (Nelson et al. 2017). If an organization aims to reduce the risk of sexual harassment and create a climate that does not tolerate sexual harassment, attention must be paid to diffusing the power that perpetrators take advantage of. Without addressing this imbalance, targets of sexual harassment will remain vulnerable to coercion and retaliation and will believe that perpetrators in positions of power will be taken more seriously then they will when they report—two characteristics of organizations with permissive climates toward sexual harassment.

Mechanisms for diffusing power more broadly among faculty and trainees (i.e., graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and medical residents) can have the salutary effect of opening up the intellectual culture as it also reduces the risk of sexual harassment. One approach for diffusing power is to make use of egalitarian leadership styles that contrast with the authoritarian style most people are familiar with (i.e., where a person dictates policies, procedures, goals, and activities without any meaningful participation by the others lower in the hierarchy). Transformational style, one of the three egalitarian leadership styles,¹¹ is described as inspiring workers to do more than they originally expected, and research has found it is significantly and positively associated with team effectiveness (Flood et al. 2000). Using and encouraging this more egalitarian form of leadership could reduce the risk of sexual harassment because subordinates would be treated more as equals with experience and expertise to contribute to the work. Additionally, Nelson and colleagues (2017) reveal examples of what egalitarian leadership styles look like in research field sites that are associated with positive environments in which sexual harassment was prevented or addressed in a responsive and responsible manner. Characteristics of these sites included valuing all perspectives, even the views of the lowest-ranking graduate student (i.e., asked for input and not put down); those in power being approachable; tasks being shared equally; having an explicit culture of looking out for each other; and making accommodations to allow everyone to participate. Such egalitarian approaches maintain the respect for experience and expertise while enabling more scientists to contribute to a project and its leadership. This type of open intellectual culture can be fostered by improving supervision and training of leaders, especially at locations separated from the primary teaching and research facilities of the institution.

Colleges and universities can also consider power-diffusion mechanisms between advisors/mentors and mentees. Simplistic, dyadic mentoring arrangements not only place undue expectations that a single relationship can support and enhance a range of research skills developments and anticipated career development outcomes, but also risk concentrating power over those outcomes in a single individual. As an alternative to the traditional single-mentoring model,

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¹¹ The three styles are transactional, transformational, and laissez faire (Flood et al. 2000).

mentoring networks or committee-based advising allows for a diversity of potential pathways for advice, sponsorship, support, and informal reporting of harassment. Departments can take collective responsibility for trainees by conducting annual reviews of the trainees’ progress at faculty meetings and discussing how to help trainees network and find positions well suited for them. These mentoring models can also be extended to postdoctoral scholars who are usually very isolated because they work with just one advisor and do not usually arrive with a cohort like graduate students do. Additionally, departmental and institutional ombuds offices could help facilitate alternative supports, thereby further diffusing any concentration of power.

For relationships with research advisors, mechanisms related to funding of both research projects and student stipends should be considered. For example, funding could be diffused by pooling funds in the department for attending conferences and hiring undergraduate research associates. Departments and institutions could also explore developing ways the research funding can be provided to the trainee rather than just the principal investigator. Institutions and departments could also take on the responsibility for preserving the potential work of the research team, by redistributing the funding if a principal investigator cannot continue the work because he/she has created a climate that fosters sexual harassment. Likewise, institutions could take organizational responsibility for the trainees by guaranteeing funding to the students even if the institution pulls funding from the principal investigator.

Isolation also results from confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements that limit sexual harassment targets’ ability to speak with others about their experiences and can serve to shield perpetrators who have harassed people repeatedly. Legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon argues that changes should be made to institutional rules and statutory laws to prohibit or limit secrecy and nontransparency, including the use of forced arbitration, nondisclosure agreements, and confidential settlements.¹² Such statutory changes are already under consideration in California, where State Senator Connie Leyva plans to introduce legislation to ban confidentiality provisions in monetary settlements involving sexual harassment.¹³ At the same time, lawyers in some states who represent targets of sexual harassment are considering challenging confidentiality agreements in courts based on the premise that most states have laws that prohibit any agreement that conceals a public hazard—and sexual harassment could be considered a public hazard in the workplace.¹⁴

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¹² See https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/04/opinion/metoo-law-legal-system.html.

¹³ See http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-california-lawmaker-wants-to-ban-secret-1508428198-htmlstory.html.

¹⁴ See https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2017/1219/US-lawyers-reconsider-confidentiality-agreements-in-sexual-harassment-claims and https://www.forbes.com/sites/michellefabio/2017/10/26/the-harvey-weinstein-effect-the-end-of-nondisclosure-agreements-in-sexual-assault-cases/#459002982c11.

SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENTS FOR TARGETS

Chapter 4 discussed at length how women who experience sexually harassing behavior fear reprisal and suffer both short-term and long-term psychological consequences of reporting the behavior. If targets fear reprisals, and feel that the institutional process will not serve them, then this will create a climate that is permissive of sexual harassment. Additionally, such conditions will make targets unlikely to report, which can limit the institutions’ options for stopping the sexual harassment on campus and demonstrating that they take the issues seriously and sanction offenders—another important piece of creating a climate that is not permissive of sexual harassment.

Students are often reluctant to start the formal grievance process with their campus Title IX officer because of fear of reprisal, expectation of a bad outcome, not knowing how to proceed, and because confidentiality cannot be guaranteed (Pappas 2016a; Harrison 2007). The general perception that institutions are unable or fail to prevent or respond supportively to wrongdoings by individuals (institutional betrayal) leads to a climate of distrust. Smith and Freyd (2014) suggest organizations can instead demonstrate “institutional courage” by shifting their priorities from damage control to honest recognition of the target.

To demonstrate commitment to supporting the target, institutions should convey that reporting sexual harassment is an honorable and courageous action. This type of commitment should be extended not only to targets who come forward but also to bystanders who report their own experience or others’ and to students, faculty, and staff when they enter the institution. Smith and Freyd (2014) point out that leadership must set a good example in order for this commitment to be replicated throughout all ranks of the organization.

Orienting Students, Trainees, Faculty, and Staff

Orienting students, trainees, faculty, and staff, at all levels, to the academic institution’s culture and its policies and procedures for handling sexual harassment can be an important piece of establishing a climate that demonstrates sexual harassment is not tolerated and targets will be supported. Such orientation can be useful as people enter or join the campus community for the first time and annually to reinforce the information. This orientation would include information about policies; available resources and support; student, faculty, and staff code of conduct; roles and responsibilities; institutional-specific information about the Title IX office; and reporting locations. Such an orientation could also make clear how to initiate a report or advance a concern, what would happen during the process, and what they could expect to happen at the conclusion of an investigation. Easily accessible flyers or other handouts highlighting civility and the need to eliminate harassment can help convey the message quickly and efficiently, while also providing information that can be referred back to. Because of differences within all of the populations on campus, these orientations may need to be cus-

tomized. For instance, developmental and behavioral achievements, milestones, and the known increased risks of sexual harassment for undergraduate students, especially minorities (Cantor et al. 2015; University of Michigan 2015), suggests that programs for these students should differ from those for graduate students and faculty and staff.

Target-led Institutional Response

As Chapter 5 discussed, studies have revealed conflicting evidence on the value of mandatory reporting, including evidence that it may be harmful to targets. Mandatory reporting mechanisms can be harmful because they take control away from targets and put it in the hands of a third party who may not have the target’s health and safety in its best interest. Rather than instituting reporting procedures that can revictimize targets of harassment, institutions could build systems of response that empower those women by providing alternative and less formal means of accessing support services, recording information, and reporting. Institutional responses to sexual harassment could place the target’s needs first, similar to the best practices now in use in response to sexual assault.¹⁵ And to show true commitment to targets, institutions could provide multiple empowering mechanisms of reporting incidents that would give them the agency to bring their complaints forward and without fear of retaliation.

A target-centric institutional response enables people who experience sexual harassment to access support services, including counseling and professional assistance, without requiring them to make a formal report. Such systems integrate services to help targets navigate the multiple systems (social services, health care, legal, career/professional) they might need for support, similar to the victim-advocacy models for sexual assault that provide a single point of contact for interdisciplinary response and support.¹⁶

A response system can also empower targets by providing a way to document what happened, whether or not the incident is immediately (or ever) reported to authorities. If a target opts to initiate a report, the reporting process can remain target centric by keeping the target informed of the status of any investigation and disciplinary action that follows, as well as what to expect throughout the process; offering confidential legal and professional consultation; and continuing to promote access to support services.

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¹⁵ See, for example, the approaches of the University of Texas at Austin police and social work researchers at https://socialwork.utexas.edu/featured/a-ground-breaking-blueprint-for-sexual-assaultresponse/, or the U.S. armed forces at http://www.sapr.mil/index.php/victim-assistance.

¹⁶ See, for example, the integrated model of child advocacy at http://dawsonplace.org/.

Confidential Online Reporting Systems: CALLISTO

Callisto is one example of a technology that improves on the standard model for reporting sexually harassing behavior and enables targets to document the harassment without formally reporting. This online system allows targets to control the disclosure of information, access supportive services, and share information about alleged perpetrators who may commit serial offenses. Using the online system, targets have options to report an incident in any of three ways:

• Building time-stamped records of an incident;
• Formally reporting the incident electronically to campus authorities, often using the previously created time-stamped records; and
• Taking advantage of a matching system, where targets can opt to formally file the complaint if another report matches the same perpetrator.

Callisto was piloted at the University of California, San Francisco, and Pomona College in 2015 and was rolled out in 2016. It is currently available in 13 institutions and has a goal to be in 20 schools during the 2018–2019 school year.¹⁷ The advantages of this approach are that it is safe, secure, and confidential, and gives targets a say in when the information is passed on to their institution.¹⁸ An additional advantage for institutions is the Callisto system can provide general data on how many reports are being created even if they are not being formally filed. According to Callisto’s website, sexual assault targets who visited their school’s Callisto Campus website were 5 times more likely to report their experience than targets who did not. Callisto’s matching system has also proven to have some impact, with 15 percent of sexual assault targets revealing that they have been assaulted by the same perpetrator as another target in the system. Furthermore, targets using Callisto Campus website tend to report 3 times faster than the national average (4 months versus 11 months). In 2017, Callisto redesigned its website to improve its user experience. Its approach was informed by user studies with students and experts who specialize in the institutional betrayal and forensic experiential trauma interview approach.

Anonymous Reporting

Anonymous reporting, in which targets report harassment without naming the person or persons responsible and without disclosing their own identity, is another means of respecting the needs of those who experience sexual harassment. The ability to record information about the harassment in a manner that targets can access, update, and disclose later if a formal complaint is filed gives

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¹⁷ See https://www.projectcallisto.org/Callisto_Year_2_highres.pdf.

¹⁸ This system is referred to in the legal scholarship as an information escrow. The idea of using information escrows for sexual harassment is discussed in Ayres and Unkovic 2012.

them control over a process that can otherwise seem at odds with their interest in moving forward with their work and studies.

Ombuds Office

Reporting channels outside of the usual workplace hierarchy, such as an ombudsperson, who can receive reports of harassment but are not officially part of the human resources or management response to reports of harassment, can provide critical independent support to persons experiencing harassment. In such informal reporting, the target is not going through formal channels but is sharing the information with a trusted staff member or ombudsperson. The advantage of this approach is that it is confidential and collaborative and can resolve the conflict without formal reporting, sanctions, or punishments if desired by the target (Buchanan et al. 2014).

Academic ombuds offices are one of the few places on campus that students can go to confidentially report an incident of sexual assault. Ombuds offices are meant to manage conflict constructively and informally, providing neutral and impartial information to the campus community, including students, staff, faculty, and/or administrators (Houk et al. 2016). The ombudsperson does not advocate for any individual or for the organization, but advocates for fair processes. These offices are unique in that they are independent of normal organizational structure and are completely confidential. Because of this, academic ombuds offices can serve as a valuable informal reporting mechanism for people who are seeking to report sexual harassment confidentially. Brian Pappas’s (2016a, 112) research interviews with both Title IX coordinators and ombudspersons led him to conclude that a strict compliance-based regime that cannot guarantee confidentiality (run by a Title IX coordinator) will not be seen by campus targets as legitimate (i.e., able to handle these issues), but “ombuds are an ideal mechanism for encouraging reporting of sexual misconduct.”

In April 2014 the Office of the President of the United States released Not Alone – The First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault, in which the White House Task Force emphasized the need to have a confidential reporting office.¹⁹ The report states that “having a confidential place to go can mean the difference between getting help and staying silent” (2) and cites the now repealed 2011 recommendations from the Department of Education that colleges and universities should have “on-campus counselors and advocates—like those who work or volunteer in sexual assault centers, victim-advocacy offices, women’s and health centers, as well as licensed and pastoral counselors—who can talk to a survivor in confidence” (3).

Under Title IX, an individual is obligated to report incidents of alleged sex-

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¹⁹ Available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/Documents/1.4.17.VAW%20Event.TF%20Report.PDF.

ual violence if the individual is a responsible employee of the school.²⁰ Whether or not an individual is considered a responsible employee is determined by the academic institution. Therefore, it is possible that ombuds offices at some colleges and universities are required to report sexual harassment under Title IX, forcing ombudspersons to break best practices and eliminating the option of an informal reporting office. However, some institutions have initiated policies to ensure not everyone is a mandatory reporter, to provide targets with additional informal options for reporting, and to give them more control over what happens with the information they have revealed. For example, the University of Oregon’s policy has created three categories of employees: student-directed employees, confidential employees, and mandatory employees. According to these definitions, most faculty, graduate employees, and staff are student-directed employees. This means that instead of immediately reporting an incident of sexual harassment, the student-directed employee is required to provide the target with information about resources and reporting options. Importantly, the employee must also honor the target’s wishes about whether to report the incident to the Title IX office.²¹ Increasing informal, confidential options within the complaint-response system is important for academic institutions to create more supportive environments for those who have experienced sexual harassment. Most academic institutions have an ombuds office that serves the entire campus community, but expanding the ombuds office, perhaps to include an ombudsperson in each department or college, could provide more resources for individuals experiencing sexual harassment.

Restorative Justice Processes

Another type of informal reporting some institutions are exploring is the use of restorative justice processes. Unlike mediation, in which two parties are treated neutrally, “all models of [restorative justice] are premised on a responsible person or persons who either voluntarily accept responsibility for the wrongdoing or who have been found responsible through an appropriate fact-finding process” (Koss, Wilgus, and Williamsen 2014, 246; Koss 2014; McGlynn, Westmarland, and Godden 2012). This approach avoids a disciplinary hearing and punitive consequences. Rather, the target meets with an advisor or facilitator and considers what kind of action she would like to see take place. For example, she could request an apology or an open forum to discuss what happened. David Karp, a sociology professor at Skidmore College, developed such a program called the Campus PRISM (Promoting Restorative Initiatives for Sexual Misconduct) Project. It calls for accountability through collaboration and prevention through education.²² This approach is new and does not yet have a strong research base. Furthermore,

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²⁰ See https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/shguide.html.

²¹ See http://around.uoregon.edu/content/uo-reaffirms-commitment-title-ix-and-support-students.

²² See http://www.skidmore.edu/campusrj/documents/Campus_PRISM__Report_2016.pdf.

some targets feel that it should not be used in all cases. For example, serial perpetrators probably should be addressed through formal channels. Also, there are concerns about training the facilitators to work appropriately with both targets and perpetrators. More research is needed to determine whether this approach is viable on a large scale.²³

Reintegration of Targets

Once someone has taken steps to report a sexual harassment experience, institutions need to consider the kind of support individual targets might need immediately after the incident(s) and how to help them continue to manage their education and work over the long term. For example, if a student is harassed by a fellow student in the same class during a particular term, they may have to remain in class with that student for the remainder of that term, even after reporting an incident. If the target and the perpetrator have the same major, they may be in class together again during their time on campus, or at a minimum, while the investigation is under way.

Since student-on-student sexual harassment occurs in science, engineering, and medicine, institutions will need to consider how to support targets that may see their perpetrator repeatedly as they finish their training. To accommodate the target in these situations, universities may issue a mutual no contact order between the accused and the accuser, change class schedules, change the locks at the target’s housing facility, and rescind building access of the accused (Winn 2017). If a harassment claim is made against a faculty or staff member, institutions must be prepared to take action to ensure the student is able to continue his or her work. These actions include considering whether a student requires a new faculty advisor, a new graduate supervisory committee, new thesis topics, and new funding, and how to handle restrictions the student may have on publication due to intellectual property issues. Institutions also need to consider the privacy and confidentiality of the target and how interdepartmental disruptions to reintegrate the target may put their confidentiality in jeopardy.

The Commander, Navy Installations Command (CNIC), in its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program, provides guidance on how supervisors should be considerate of the target after a report is filed. CNIC specifically states that supervisors must assist targets with administrative and logistical arrangements so that they can receive care. The policy is clear that supervisors should only inform those with a legitimate need to know why the target is absent or requires assistance and to always respect the target’s privacy. CNIC also addresses issues

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²³ See https://www.npr.org/2017/07/25/539334346/restorative-justice-an-alternative-to-the-process-campuses-use-for-sexual-assaul.

of safety for the target by keeping the perpetrator away from the target and considering the target’s input on moving to another unit.²⁴

Considerations about reintegration of targets often do not receive enough attention when institutions set up their sexual harassment policies. The limited work done on this subject is not enough to identify promising practices for assisting targets, and therefore, more research is needed on how institutions can best serve targets after they have reported.

IMPROVING TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY

One central, and perhaps more obvious, way to prevent sexual harassment is for academic institutions to clearly demonstrate that they do not tolerate it (i.e., that they promote an organizational climate that seeks to prohibit sexual harassment). Doing so requires making the community aware that perpetrators of harassment are being held accountable and that the institution takes the matter seriously.

Clear Anti-Harassment Policies

Developing and disseminating clear anti-harassment policies is crucial to ensuring the community knows what kinds of behavior are unacceptable. Regular, perhaps annual, dissemination of the policy in a manner in which it will be legitimately digested quickly and easily (i.e., using one-page flyers or infographics and not in legally dense language) can improve awareness and could demonstrate the importance the institution places on abiding by this policy. To ensure clarity, it is also important that the message across formats (print, e-mail, and presentations) and departments is consistent (Buchanan et al. 2014). A key component of clear anti-harassment policies is that they make clear that people will be held accountable for violating the policy. This can be done by stating in the policy the range of disciplinary consequences (depending on the policy violation) for individuals who violate these policies, as well as clearly laying out the processes and timeframes for each stage of the process (i.e., reporting, investigation, and adjudication).²⁵

Progressive Disciplinary Actions

It may be tempting to infer that greater punitiveness is an important solution to harassment (sometimes termed zero tolerance). Such approaches suggest that

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²⁴ Available at https://www.cnic.navy.mil/ffr/family_readiness/fleet_and_family_support_program/sexual_assault_prevention_and_response/supervising_an_assault_victim.html.

²⁵ Further detail on processes and guidance for how to fairly and appropriately investigate and adjudicate these issues are not provided because they are complex issues that were beyond the scope of this study.

sexual harassment is finally being taken seriously. But insofar as the evidence gathered in this report suggests that a wide range of behaviors can have deleterious effects on women’s careers in science, engineering, and medicine, we urge academic institutions to consider that a similarly wide range of responses may be appropriate. In short, punishments of harassers should be progressive, should “fit the crime,” and should be disclosed to the community.

Progressive discipline (such as counseling, changes in work responsibilities, reductions in pay/benefits, and suspension or dismissal) that corresponds to the severity and frequency of the misconduct has the potential of correcting behavior before it escalates (Euben and Lee 2006) and without significantly disrupting an academic program. The use of a range of disciplinary actions may also increase the likelihood that targets report the behavior, since some targets choose not to report because they do not want to be seen as causing disruption to the status quo and just want the behavior to stop. Determining the appropriate disciplinary sanctions may be best determined based upon a review of the circumstances on a case-by-case basis; however, examples of what behavior would warrant different disciplinary actions could help improve transparency. Where appropriate, the responses could be both educational and focused toward potential rehabilitation. Furthermore, to demonstrate that the institution is not tolerating the sexually harassing behavior, the range of potential sanctions ought to be disclosed and the disciplinary decision should be made in a fair and timely way following an investigative process that is fair to all sides.²⁶

Importantly, the disciplinary action should not be something that is often considered a benefit for faculty, such as a reduction in teaching load or time away from campus service responsibilities. In other words, perpetrators should not be “rewarded” for their behavior. Instead, consequences should take the form of actual punishment, such as cuts in pay or even termination. The following list of potential sanctions, in ascending order of severity, is meant to be illustrative, rather than exhaustive, of punitive actions, and is offered as an example:

• A sanction letter or warning
• Agreement for educational training or behavioral modification (e.g., substance abuse training)
• Restrictions on conditions of teaching and/or mentoring
• A formal entry into the performance review file and evaluation
• Temporary salary reduction
• Monetary restitution to targets
• Denial of tenure or emeritus status
• Forced administrative leave
• Separation from the college or university

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²⁶ Further detail on processes and guidance for how to fairly and appropriately investigate and adjudicate these issues are not provided because they are complex issues that were beyond the scope of this study.

• Public disclosure of actions taken
• Reporting to current funding agency about the violation of sexual harassment policy

In an effort to change behavior and improve the climate, it may also be appropriate for institutions to undertake some rehabilitation-focused measures,²⁷ even though these may not be sanctions per se. Such responses might include opportunities to learn, empathize, and recognize and value differences, and they might involve focus groups with professional facilitators, participation in restorative justice circles, and empathy training. Any training required to rehabilitate those who harass others should at a minimum follow the standards for effective training generally (e.g., face to face, longer duration, repeated/follow-up, etc.).

Improving Transparency and Accountability When Handling Formal Reports

Equally important for improving the climate is for academic institutions to be transparent about what happens when reports are formally filed and when people are found to have violated the policy. For the people in an institution to understand that the institution does not tolerate sexual harassment, it must show that it does investigate and then hold perpetrators accountable in a reasonable timeframe. This goes beyond having a policy that says so and requires showing that the institution is following through. There are obvious confidentiality concerns with being transparent about ongoing investigations—both for the target and for the accused perpetrator—however, there are ways that transparency can be achieved. Institutions can anonymize the basic information and provide regular reports that convey how many reports are being investigated and generally what the outcomes are from the investigation.

For example, Yale University publishes a semiannual Report of Complaints of Sexual Misconduct and an annual campus safety report (which includes sexual harassment) to inform the campus community about complaints brought to the university’s attention and how they were resolved. These reports are written to protect anonymity while also providing minimal descriptions and statistical summaries that reveal (1) the complainant’s and respondent’s role in the university (i.e., undergraduate student, graduate and professional student, postdoctoral trainee, faculty, staff) and (2) the status of the complaint (whether the complainant decided to pursue a formal complaint, whether investigation is pending, any disciplinary action taken by the university after investigation, etc.).²⁸ This model provides information to keep the campus community informed, demonstrate that the institution is actively handling sexual harassment reports, and show that

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²⁷ The committee found little research on this topic; however, there is a growing body of literature on restorative justice procedures, as discussed earlier in the chapter.

²⁸ See https://provost.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/August-2016-Report.pdf.

those who violate the policy are disciplined. Such a model likely improves the climate on campus around sexual harassment and also serves to hold the institution accountable.

Engaging the Academic Community in Policy and Practice Reviews

Another approach to demonstrating that the institution takes all three forms of sexual harassment seriously is to encourage internal review of its policies, procedures, and interventions for addressing sexual harassment, and to have interactive dialogues with members of its campus community (especially expert researchers on these topics) around ways to improve the culture and climate and change behavior.

Policy changes in an organization will likely change its culture and climate, and there are significant implications for various approaches for learning about and responding to complaints, as all institutions are legally required to do. As they comply with their best interpretations of what is legally required, institutional leaders have choices to make. Those choices include how transparent and open to stakeholders and information sharing the process will be; how generously an effort is funded; what entities on campus will control it and report on it; what array of formal versus informal and punitive versus rehabilitative options will be offered for processing and acting on complaints; what reporting mechanisms will be available and how they will work; and what liability risks—and liability for what, exactly—will be tolerated, anticipated, and planned for. Placing responsibility and control for sexual harassment planning and response at the highest administrative level guided by attorneys from the general counsel’s office would likely produce a different organizational culture and climate than one guided by a more transparent group of faculty, students, and service providers for targets, for example.

Sexual harassment scandals are highly salient at present, and institutional leaders may feel considerable pressure to react quickly, making it more difficult to take a careful approach to the problem. Over-reactive policies can infringe the rights of the accused or go awry in historically predictable ways. Researchers have documented patterns of accusations of those considered to be “sexually deviant” (typically gay and lesbian people, but also people in other unconventional relationships, youth, black men, and people living with HIV) in episodes called “sex panics,” which occur when society becomes focused on policing sex and sexuality, often during times of widespread anxiety about societal upheaval or scandal (Rubin 1984; Jenkins 1992; Halperin and Hoppe 2017). Even though the harms that trigger attention on policing sex and sexuality may be real, such as in sexual harassment and sexual assault, responses can be disproportionate or misdirected.

To prevent over-reactive policies, it is good practice for institutions to take careful steps to assess the problems they have, and then bring in a wide range of

stakeholders who have different perspectives, status, and roles. It is also valuable for leaders to recognize that having an inclusive environment is a work in progress rather than a static item that is maintained. The environment must be continually assessed and revised as new students, faculty, staff, patients, problems, and identities enter academia. Taking a formal legal and liability-focused approach has not been effective in preventing sexual harassment incidents, and leaders would benefit from drawing on the expertise of those in the science, engineering, and medical fields on campus as well as the faculty experts who study climate, culture, organizations, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and harassment.

In an effort to engage stakeholders and give a voice to traditionally disempowered groups, some institutions have created forums for students to share their perspectives on sexual harassment policies and initiatives to prevent sexual harassment. For example, Yale University has established two advisory boards, one for undergraduates and a second one for graduate and professional students. Both boards meet periodically with the Title IX Steering Committee and present student perspectives on sexual harassment policies, procedures, and programs.²⁹ The advisory board members commit to serving for a year and must undergo introductory training. Members attend regular meetings and collaborate with department/school leadership teams and with Title IX coordinators about education and prevention efforts, as well as local initiatives. In these ways, advisory board members have an opportunity to participate in the development and implementation of initiatives to promote a positive climate and culture at the university.

STRONG, DIVERSE, AND ACCOUNTABLE LEADERSHIP

Organizational scholarship makes clear the critical role that leaders play in creating and sustaining cultural change (Jayne and Dipboye 2004; Gelfand, Erez, and Aycan 2007; Taylor et al. 2011; Stamarski and Hing 2015; Kozlowski and Doherty 1989; Ostroff, Kinicki, and Muhammad 2012). Leaders in the academy, like corporate executives and government officials, set the tone within and without their institutions. Their public statements, institutional strategies, personnel policies, and demeanor create expectations and define professional norms, not to mention they affect the extent to which employees view change efforts cynically or trustingly (Wanous, Reichers, and Austin 2000). For these reasons and because it can be argued that sexual harassment is inconsistent with the values of the academy, academic leaders must do more than ensure they do not personally engage in sexual harassment. In fact, they have an obligation to speak and act boldly, unambiguously, and consistently in support of aggressive measures to raise awareness of the issue and to bring to bear all resources at their disposal to combat it. At a minimum, they must make clear to all that sexual harassment is unacceptable and that systems are in place to stop those who harass from con-

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²⁹ See https://smr.yale.edu/get-involved/apply-join-student-advisory-board.

tinuing their misconduct—an important piece of establishing a climate that is not permissive of sexual harassment.

It is crucial to emphasize that sexual harassment is defined broadly and includes sexist conduct (e.g., contemptuous comments about women; belittlement of female trainees; insults of men who are gay, petite, or in some other way “not man enough”) and sexually crude conduct (references to women as “bitches” or “whores”). In other words, leaders should prohibit and seek to prevent not only sexually advancing forms of harassment but also the gender harassment form of sexual harassment. Compliance with legal requirements is not enough; aggressive, highly visible managerial implementation of anti-harassment policies and procedures in a concerted way not only raises awareness that policies and procedures are in place but also signals organizational commitment to reducing harassment (Gruber 1998). In other words, leaders’ behaviors instruct members of the community about what to expect around sexual harassment, and any formal policies will be interpreted through the organizational climate they create and maintain.

Leaders should also take action to address the problematic cultural practices described earlier that limit the advancement of women at every level of academia and to work to create a culture that is supportive of diversity. Gelfand and colleagues (2007) argue that “leaders hold stereotypes with regard to which types of employees are best and they tend to reward employees who behave most consistently with their stereotypes.” Furthermore, research reveals that the presence of leaders whose own identities overlap with those persons most likely to be targets of sexual harassment helps to reduce the likelihood of sexual harassment (Offermann and Malamnut 2002). Given the critical role that leaders play in setting the tone of organizational culture and the significance of their identity, it is plausible to suggest that more women of color and persons with minority ethnic, gender, and sexual identities in leadership positions will reduce the likelihood of sexual harassment in academic institutions.

While leaders at the top of an organization are influential and important to addressing culture change, lower-level leadership—for example, at the lab or center director, dean, and department chair levels—has a strong impact on the culture, climate, and everyday behaviors. Therefore, it is crucial that all levels of leadership are held responsible for creating this culture and climate change. Settles and colleagues (2006, 55) found that department chairs were able to improve the workplace environment for academic women in the sciences by fostering collegiality among faculty members. These department chairs did so by identifying areas of overlapping intellectual interest, ensuring gender equity in departmental assignments, and discouraging sexist behavior among faculty. In other words, an effective department leader can make a significant difference in the day-to-day experiences women scientists have within the academic workplace. Thus, a focus on the role of campus leadership in changing organization

climate and culture must include all levels—from department chairs to deans to high-level campus administrators.

An example of how organizations can hold leaders accountable can be seen in the policies and procedures used by NASA. Within NASA, managers and supervisors are considered not only as receivers and decision makers on allegations of harassment, but also as leaders who take action to prevent harassment in the workplace and are accountable under the agency’s annual performance review system. Additionally NASA produces an annual report on the functioning of its anti-harassment processes, which includes information on the number of cases addressed, the basis for each case (including sexual or nonsexual), the time required to process the case, and the remedial actions taken. This reporting process provides a mechanism for the leadership to monitor how the anti-harassment processes are functioning and whether changes or corrections need to be made.

Leaders without effective tools cannot implement the kind of institutional change required to address a problem as widespread and longstanding as sexual harassment in the academy. Like leaders in other professions such as law, health care, and technology, academic leaders often assume leadership positions with limited experience in management and very little training in supervision, organizational culture, or human relations. Academic leaders also face the additional challenge of supervising faculty, whose ranks include renowned intellectuals with formidable records of professional accomplishment. Faculty prize their independence and autonomy, are protected to varying degrees by the employment guarantees of the tenure system, and play a crucial leadership role in colleges and university governance. The unique employment context of the academy thus complicates the authority of academic leaders to change workplace cultures and climates and to impose discipline for violations of professional norms, both of which are necessary to preventing and reducing sexual harassment.

Leadership education, training, and support can enhance the ability of all academic leaders to address sexual harassment. Effective leadership training improves self-awareness and empathy, develops the skills and habits leaders need to persist and succeed, and broadens the perspectives of leaders through exposure to a wide range of constituencies, goals, and strategies. There are leadership training programs specific to academia that teach these skills,³⁰ and these programs should be working to include how to recognize and handle sexual harassment issues as a leader and in a manner that improves the culture and climate rather than just protects liability.

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³⁰ American Council on Education Fellows Program, http://www.acenet.edu/leadership/programs/Pages/ACE-Fellows-Program.aspx; Berkeley Leadership for Educational Equity Program (LEEP), https://leep.berkeley.edu/leadership-educational-equity-program/leep; Council of Independent Colleges—Senior Leadership Academy, https://www.cic.edu/programs/senior-leadership-academy; Harvard Institute for Management and Leadership in Education, https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ppe/program/institute-management-and-leadership-education-mle; and Stanford Leadership Academy, https://cardinalatwork.stanford.edu/manage-lead/build-leadership-skills/stanford-leadership-academy.

To incentivize leadership training, academic institutions could require academic leaders to have substantial management/leadership training specific to higher education before taking on leadership roles. This includes leadership positions at all levels of leadership, such as being the principal investigator of a laboratory, the director of an observatory, or the director of a field site, station, or school. Developing skills in conflict resolution, mediation, negotiation, and de-escalation would be valuable for leaders. Further, continuing to engage in professional development opportunities, in and outside of the academy, to include reviews of best practices for sustaining inclusive workplaces throughout their tenure as institutional leaders, would also benefit academic institutions. Reviews and critiques of sexual harassment incidents and workplace climate assessments should be a part of routine professional development for leadership teams inside institutions and across professions.

EFFECTIVE SEXUAL HARASSMENT TRAINING

While sexual harassment training is the most traditional approach to preventing sexual harassment, it has not been shown to do so. The scholarship on effective sexual harassment training is sparse, but it clearly indicates that, as noted in the 2016 EEOC report, “Much of the training done over the last 30 years has not worked as a prevention tool—it’s been too focused on simply avoiding legal liability” (see Chapter 5 discussion).

When, in rare instances, institutional sexual harassment trainings are evaluated for their effectiveness, they have shown mixed results depending on what purpose they are being evaluated for. For example, several reports in the public domain, including the 2016 EEOC Task Force report, have suggested that there is no evidence that training helps prevent harassment (Folz 2016). However, another goal of most sexual harassment training programs is to alter employees’ knowledge about the nature of, and organizations’ policies about, sexual harassment. There are a few research studies that suggest that this does occur for students (Moyer and Nath 1998; Perry, Schmidke, and Kulik 1998; York, Barclay, and Zajack 1997). While for working adults, this knowledge only improved for men in one sample or for white employees in another diverse sample (Magley et al. 2013). In a sample of managers, sexual harassment training was associated with over-sensitization of identifying scenarios as sexual harassment, although there was no effect on accurate identification of how to respond to the scenarios (Buckner et al. 2014). A critical review of published studies on sexual harassment training effectiveness by Roehling and Huang (2018) found that sexual harassment training is relatively consistent in increasing the knowledge of sexual harassment and internal reporting of perceived sexual harassment. However, it finds that it is unclear to what extent knowledge acquired in training is retained and applied.

While improving knowledge about sexual harassment and policies and pro-

cedures for reporting it are useful for helping people to use those systems, the research does not show that this sort of training is reducing or preventing sexual harassment. This is in part because knowledge and attitudinal change do not predict behavior change very well (Alliger and Janak 1989; Alliger et al. 1997; Blume et al. 2010) and reducing sexual harassment requires changes in behaviors.

What is worse is that very few trainings are even evaluated for their effect on behavior change. A 2013 meta-analysis (Kalinoski et al. 2013) revealed how uncommon it is to evaluate trainings for their ability to change behaviors—only six of the studies in the meta-analysis of diversity and sexual harassment trainings looked at actual behavioral change. And in what could be considered the gold standard outcome for training—reduction in sexual harassment—one study found that training did not reduce sexual harassment (Magley et al. 2013).

Researchers that have evaluated trainings for their effect on students’ and working adults’ personal attitudes or perceptions of organizational tolerance for sexual harassment have found little effect. They found that training did not affect attitudes in either the student samples (Antecol and Cobb-Clark 2003; Perry, Schmidtke, and Kulik 1998) or the working adult samples (Magley et al. 2013). This is not surprising given that Bingham and Scherer note “attitudes are highly resistant to change.” What is worse is that there was actually a backlash effect of a brief training intervention for one sample of men such that, after the training, they were more likely to blame a target of sexual harassment than those who did not receive the training (Bingham and Scherer 2001). Work by Tinkler, Gremillion, and Arthurs (2015) also suggests that policy training on harassment has the potential to activate gender stereotypes and backlash against women, especially in the administration of mandatory non-customized training.

Taken together, the surprisingly sparse—yet robust—set of studies on sexual harassment trainings shows that trainings can improve knowledge of policies and awareness of what is sexual harassment; however, trainings have either no effect or a negative effect on preventing sexual harassment. Given that changing behavior has more of a direct link to reducing sexual harassment, that actions can be taken to inhibit sexually harassing behavior (even among those that hold sexist attitudes or beliefs that rationalize or justify harassment, see Chapter 2), and that changing attitudes is difficult, effort seems better spent on developing and using sexual harassment trainings aimed at changing people’s behaviors rather than on their attitudes and beliefs. Ultimately, it is individuals’ actions and behaviors that both harm targets and are illegal, not their thoughts.

To consider how to conduct training so that it increases the likelihood that it will improve knowledge and change behavior, the research on diversity trainings can provide some insights. A meta-analysis of diversity and sexual harassment trainings (Kalinoski et al. 2013) suggests that whether such training improves knowledge, beliefs, or behaviors depends on several factors, including how the training was delivered, who delivered the training, where it was delivered, for whom it was delivered, why it was delivered, and the desired outcome of the

training. In other words, the context of the training is of importance. This research concludes that positive effects are most likely when training

• lasted more than 4 hours,
• was conducted face to face,
• included active participation with other trainees on interdependent tasks,
• was customized for the audience, and
• was conducted by a supervisor or external expert.

In addition to how training is conducted, the organizational context around the training can also influence effectiveness. Three recent studies on sexual harassment trainings have found that the organizational context affects the efficacy of the training. First, knowledge and personal attitudes were changed for employees who perceived that their work unit was ethical, regardless of their personal sense of cynicism about whether the training might be successful (Cheung et al. 2017). Second, in a sample of untrained employees, perceptions that their organization tolerated sexual harassment influenced employees’ cynicism about the success of possible training, even more so than their own personal beliefs about sexual harassment, which then affected their motivation to learn from the possible training (Walsh, Bauerle, and Magley 2013). Third, in a meta-analysis of sexual harassment trainings, Roehling and Huang (2018, 13) conclude that training can contribute to the prevention or reduction of sexual harassment if “(a) it is conducted in accordance with science-based training principles and (b) the organizational context is supportive of the SH [sexual harassment] training efforts.” Based on their examination of the theory and empirical findings of sexual harassment literature, Roehling and Huang provide a conceptual framework for organizing and understanding sexual harassment training effectiveness and the primary factors that interact to influence it. The primary factors include the following:³¹

• Training objectives
• Training design and delivery
• Trainee characteristics
• Organizational context (aligned policies and practices, leadership support, climate and culture)
• Proximal outcomes (reactions, knowledge, skills, attitudes, perceived organizational tolerance of sexual harassment)
• Intermediate outcomes (incidence of sexual harassment, responses to sexual harassment)
• Distal outcomes (litigation, productivity, turnover)

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³¹ See the full chart at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/job.2257/full.

The context of the training, the organization, and the individuals’ motivations are, clearly, all important to understanding the effectiveness of sexual harassment training. Given both the ubiquity of sexual harassment training and the broader organizational training literature that has repeatedly found such factors to be crucial, the paucity of scholarship in this area is surprising (Goldstein and Ford 2002). To the extent that the general training literature provides broad guidelines for creating impactful training that can change organizational climate and behavior, they include the following:

• Cater training to specific populations; in academia this would include students, postdoctoral fellows, staff, faculty, and those in leadership.
• Attend to the institutional motivation for training, which can impact the effectiveness of the training; for instance, compliance-based approaches have limited positive impact.
• Conduct training using live qualified trainers and offer trainees specific examples of inappropriate conduct. We note that a great deal of sexual harassment training today is offered via an online mini-course or the viewing of a short video.
• Describe standards of behavior clearly and accessibly (e.g., avoiding legal and technical terms).
• Establish standards of behavior rather than solely seek to influence attitudes and beliefs. Clear communication of behavioral expectations, and teaching of behavioral skills, is essential.
• Conduct training in adherence to best standards, including appropriate pre-training needs assessment and evaluation of its effectiveness.

Further, to ensure the success of training in general, it is paramount that it be based on the organization’s identified needs—that is, based on the goals and objectives of the organization and the extent to which the elimination of harassment advances those goals and objectives—and, in fact, is itself one of those goals. This is almost never discussed in conjunction with sexual harassment training, but it needs to be. Conducting a needs assessment, developing training centered on those needs, and then appropriately evaluating its success have long been considered to be the three cornerstones of successful training (Goldstein and Ford 2002).

Based on the research reviewed in Chapter 2 regarding the prevalence and antecedents of sexual harassment, the needs analysis should be based on collecting data from all employees and include, minimally, an understanding of the prevalence of sexual harassment within the organization, the extent to which supervisors are perceived to tolerate sexual harassment, and knowledge about reporting procedures.

Another minimal pre-training criterion to include in the needs assessment is employees’ motivation to learn, given that the general training literature high-

lights its importance as driving the success of intervention efforts (Colquitt, LePine, and Noe 2000; Noe and Schmitt 1986). Numerous studies have shown that motivation to learn is a driver of short-term outcomes, including reactions, knowledge and skill acquisition, and transfer (e.g., Baldwin and Ford 1988; Bell and Ford 2007; Colquitt, LePine, and Noe 2000; Sitzmann et al. 2008). In brief, when trainees are more motivated to learn, better training outcomes are generally observed. Given the goals of the training, it could also include employees’ general attitudes about sexual harassment and indicators of employees’ professional and emotional well-being, to link with their experiences of harassment. Importantly, a needs analysis should be based on data from employees, not on assumptions from human resource personnel or senior management.

From this needs analysis, the training should be developed to address goal-specified gaps (Goldstein and Ford 2002). One-size-fits-all approaches to training cannot address specific organizational needs, nor will they work to reduce employees’ cynicism about the potential gain from the training. Finally, the needs analysis ought to directly tie to the evaluation plan associated with the training. Evaluation should be routinely expected as one of the components of the intervention, not as an additional burden; such evaluation would replicate the earlier needs assessment to demonstrate change in sexual harassment, climate perceptions, and knowledge about harassment policies/procedures.

Our committee believes effective sexual harassment training can positively affect organizational climate, change behavior, and reduce workplace harassment; however, it recognizes that even effective training cannot occur in a vacuum—“it must be part of a holistic culture of non-harassment that starts at the top” (Feldblum and Lipnic 2016, v). Similarly, training that specifically addresses sexual harassment is only one piece of the puzzle (it is important to have adequate focus elsewhere), but it is a vital component.

MEASURING PROGRESS AND INCENTIVIZING CHANGE

Increased public attention to the problem of sexual harassment has heightened the reputational harm to colleges and universities that acknowledge sexual harassment exists within their academic programs and workplaces. As a result, collecting data about sexual harassment puts academic institutions at risk of not only losing in court but also of creating a public appearance of hostility to women and gender equity. Additionally, the legal system around sexual harassment promotes the creation of policies and training on sexual harassment that focus on compliance and avoiding liability, and not on preventing sexual harassment. To counter this, colleges and universities need to be incentivized to publicly identify and measure the problems and work to address them.

Evaluation and Assessment of Organizations

Creating a climate that prevents sexual harassment requires first having a clear understanding of the existing climate and tracking it over time. Given the discussion earlier in this chapter, that means measuring the climate in relation to sexual harassment, diversity, and respect. Measuring and assessing the climate often, through surveys and other tools, can enable prevention and response strategies to be adapted and implemented to reduce sexual harassment and other forms of incivility that arise. Information from such regular surveys can help organizations better understand the frequency and nature of sexual harassment that is occurring, as well as the likelihood that it will be reported promptly. The data that emerge from these assessments can also reveal long-term trends about the nature and incidence of harassment and the effectiveness of training initiatives (Buchanan et al. 2014). Conducting regular assessments and releasing the results publicly can also have the positive effect of demonstrating the organization’s commitment to monitoring and addressing the problem of sexual harassment—a factor in creating a climate that does not tolerate sexual harassment.

For measuring the experiences of students, the recent creation of the Administrator-Researcher Campus Climate Collaborative (ARC3) survey has already met with great participation on the part of colleges and universities in understanding many aspects of campus climate, including modules on sexual harassment perpetrated by either faculty/staff or other students. From the ARC3 website:³²

The survey was developed by expert researchers in the area of violence against women (rape, sexual harassment), is freely available for institutional use, and has been implemented at hundreds of institutions of higher education. College and university groups can request additional information about the survey,³³ as well as additional guidance on administering such surveys³⁴ from the ARC3 website.

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³² See http://campusclimate.gsu.edu/.

³³ See http://campusclimate.gsu.edu/arc3-campus-climate-survey/request-arc3-survey-technical-documents/.

³⁴ See https://www.justice.gov/ovw/protecting-students-sexual-assault#campusclimate.

Although the ARC3 survey can be of great utility to institutions in understanding and tracking campus climate for students, there is no similar tool for understanding similar climate constructs for faculty, staff, interns, residents, or postdoctoral fellows. Faculty, staff, and postdocs do have differing experiences on campuses and, as such, the ARC3 survey for students would not be directly relevant. However, developing a similar, population-appropriate tool could be of great value for academic institutions for the anonymous snapshot of their existing climate.

According to Smith and Freyd (2014), one of the best first steps an institution can take toward remedying the harms targets experience from reporting sexual harassment (what they call institutional betrayal) is by regularly engaging in self-study (also see Freyd and Birrell 2013). Self-study includes asking questions—Are you making it easy or difficult for people to report the experience? Are you rewarding or punishing targets for reporting this experience (e.g., with loss of privileges or status)? Are you creating an environment in which this experience seems likely or unlikely to occur?—that can better prepare institutions to respond to future problems. Engaging in self-study will also allow institutions to make previously unnoticed problematic institutional structures visible and lead to important discussions of power.

For measuring diversity efforts, Jayne and Dipboye emphasize the importance of conducting a needs assessment for each organization. To be effective, a diversity initiative must be “tailored to the situation, including the culture and unique business and people issues facing the organization” (2004, 416). Once the needs are established, organizations would develop a plan, establish concrete metrics to evaluate its effectiveness, and use surveys, focus groups, and exit interviews of all members of the institution to monitor progress over time. In general, “organizations need to critically analyze how organizational structures, processes, and practices separately and collectively serve to perpetuate discrimination in organizations, and need to understand how the contexts in which organizations are embedded serve as critical inputs that affect levels of discrimination” (Gelfand, Erez, and Aycan 2007, 29).

Some researchers have developed promising tools to measure specific aspects of workplace climate. Lisa Nishii (2013) from Cornell University, for example, developed a three-dimensional “climate for inclusion” scale. The three dimensions include (1) a foundation of fairly implemented employment practices and diversity-specific practices that help eliminate bias, (2) interpersonal integration of diverse employees, and (3) inclusion in decision making or the extent to which diverse perspectives are actively sought and integrated. In addition, Walsh and colleagues (2012) developed the Civility Norms Questionnaire – Brief, which assesses coworker civility climate. All of the tools and approaches in this section can be useful in evaluating an institution’s climate and the progress it is making to prevent sexual harassment.

Incentivizing Change

Sometimes institutions and the people within an institution need to be incentivized to make changes. This can be true when the changes do not appear to be necessary for the institution to still achieve its goals or when individuals do not appreciate the significance of the problem. Incentive systems can be voluntary or can make use of requirements, and they can also be based on positive or negative incentives. Regardless of how they are set up, they may not be successful in creating the desired organizational change if they do not reach beyond those at the top of the institution—they need to incentivize change down the hierarchy of the organization.

Award systems, such as the Athena SWAN (Scientific Women’s Academic Network) program,³⁵ are examples of tools that created positive incentives to bring about change. Begun in the United Kingdom, the Athena SWAN program has built-in incentives for departments and institutions as a whole to meet high standards in promoting gender equity and diversity. A key incentive is obtaining bronze-, silver-, and gold-level awards for both achievement and improvement.

Bronze-level applications must present a solid foundation for eliminating gender bias and creating an inclusive culture. This includes both a quantitative and a qualitative assessment of gender equality in the institution or department, a 4-year plan that addresses activities that are already in place and how to learn from them, and an organizational structure to carry out the proposed actions. Silver-level recognition is awarded to institutions or departments that display a significant improvement in promoting gender equality and addressing challenges since the Bronze award application. Additionally, institutions must address what they are doing to help individual departments apply for Athena SWAN awards. To achieve Gold recognition, an institution or department must show a significant and sustained record of promoting gender equality both within and beyond the institution or department. These institutions must provide data demonstrating how Athena SWAN principles are embedded within the institution or department and that they have taken an intersectional approach to analyzing data and creating solutions to identified challenges. Additionally for institutional awards, at least one department in the institution must have a gold award and the majority of the institution’s departments must hold silver awards. Through these requirements the program promotes healthy competition by encouraging departments within institutions to work together collaboratively to achieve shared goals (Malcom et al. 2017).

In 2013 the Equality Challenge Unit commissioned a research team from Loughborough University to study the impact of Athena SWAN in higher education institutions in the United Kingdom (Equality Challenge Unit 2014). One key finding from this study was the effectiveness of the charter in advancing women’s careers in STEMM. Academic/research staff who were categorized in the Silver

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³⁵ See https://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan/.

award departments indicated higher satisfaction with their career performance and opportunities for training and staff development compared with staff from departments with no awards. Academic/research staff in the Silver award departments also rated fairness of workload allocation higher than their peers in non-award departments and indicated that they believed Athena SWAN improved their visibility, self-confidence, and leadership skills.

Beyond individuals, the 2013 study by the Equality Challenge Unit also examined ways in which Athena SWAN could improve institutional practices. The study noted that the implementation of Athena SWAN at higher education institutions in the United Kingdom provided “credibility, focus, and impetus for gender work already taking place in [higher education institution]s and also had positive impacts beyond STEM departments” (5). Evidence from this study showed that there were visible cultural changes within participating institutions, though it varied from institution to institution. In some institutions the study noted a visible increase of women representation in senior positions. Some institutions also reported positive changes in staff recruitment as a result of their participation in Athena SWAN. While the study noted persistent barriers in changing institutional culture, it also found that with departmental and senior leadership engagement in the process of putting the award system in place, the changes that resulted from implementation of Athena SWAN were sustainable.

Through face-to-face interviews and a survey of 59 women and men at the University of Oxford (which had achieved Athena SWAN awards in multiple departments) Ovseiko and colleagues (2017) studied perceptions of the impact of the Athena SWAN program. They found that respondents believed the program resulted in positive structural and cultural changes, such as increased support for women’s careers, greater appreciation of caring responsibilities, and efforts to challenge discrimination and bias. Respondents reported some limitations of the program: they believed it had a limited ability to address power and pay imbalances and that it was not able to move beyond the limitations of the culture in the university and wider society.

One of the major reasons Athena SWAN was adopted by so many institutions in the United Kingdom was a requirement in 2011 by the National Institute for Health Research that a program or department had to have a silver-level award to be considered for Biomedical Research Centre funding.³⁶ The research by Ovseiko and colleagues (2017) reveals that many respondents believed the positive changes from Athena SWAN may not have happened without the link to research funding. Respondents said the funding link provided a powerful motivation for institutional leaders to achieve the silver-level award and then to maintain the changes and attention to the diversity issues. Some noted that this linkage to research funding did create perverse incentives to achieve the award and not to necessarily achieve the structural and cultural changes to improve diversity, and

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³⁶ See https://www.nature.com/news/uk-gender-equality-scheme-spreads-across-the-world-1.22599.

may have raised the importance of achieving the award to the level that problems were “swept under the carpet to avoid jeopardizing the award application process” (7). Other research funding organizations in the United Kingdom are considering similar requirements for institutions to be eligible for research funding^{37, 38} or are recommending Athena SWAN could serve as the evidence needed to demonstrate an institution is taking action to address equality and diversity.³⁹

The United States is currently adapting Athena SWAN by building a program called STEM Equity Achievement (SEA Change). Through collaboration and sharing best practices, multiple institutions are developing a program to reward institutions by reaching bronze, silver, and ultimately, gold levels.⁴⁰ The SEA Change program is being overseen by the American Association of the Advancement of Sciences and is being designed to encourage involvement at the faculty and departmental level in identifying local challenges and actions.⁴¹ Furthermore, institutions will not be able to move to the next level unless a certain number of departments also achieve that level. Conversely, departments cannot achieve a given level unless their institution has achieved at least a bronze-level award. In this way, SEA Change sets up what the white paper calls “a virtuous cycle of collaboration” (Malcom et al. 2017). For SEA Change to see the same level of adoption as Athena SWAN has, it may require funding agencies to make similar recommendations or requirements as was done in the United Kingdom. One option for spurring adoption would be for funding agencies to require the bronze-level award before being eligible for research grants that focus on improving diversity, such as the National Science Foundation’s INCLUDES awards.⁴²

Another way to incentivize change would be to require public disclosure of campus climate survey data and/or the number of sexual harassment reports made to campuses. The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (known as the Clery Act)⁴³ is a model of this type of incentive system. It requires all institutions receiving federal funds to report crimes near or on campus, including sexual assaults. A similar requirement could be instituted by federal funding agencies or Congress.

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³⁷ See http://www.sfi.ie/research-news/news/irish-funding-bodies-to-require-athena-swan-gender-equality-accreditation-for-higher-education-institutions/.

³⁸ See https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/wellcome-trust-explores-diversity-rules-funding-applications#survey-answer.

³⁹ See http://www1.uwe.ac.uk/aboutus/visionandmission/equalityanddiversity/accessforall/athenaswan/planningandsubmission/reasonstoapply.aspx.

⁴⁰ The requirements for these awards are currently in development and are likely to reflect the model established by Athena SWAN.

⁴¹ See https://www.aaas.org/news/sea-change-program-aims-transform-diversity-efforts-stem.

⁴² INCLUDES: Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science. See https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=505289.

⁴³ See https://clerycenter.org/policy-resources/the-clery-act/.

THE ROLE OF PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES AND ORGANIZATIONS THAT FACILITATE RESEARCH AND TRAINING

Professional societies exist to advance and support their specific disciplines and communities. They often have mission statements and principles that encompass goals for their science, engineering, or medicine, and the ethics of their profession, created by their members. Through journals, media, conferences, workshops, student programs, and professional training, they are a powerful influence and important part of the career and advancement of those in science, engineering, and medicine. Because professional societies have this influence, they have a responsibility to join academic institutions in addressing sexual harassment in academic science, engineering, and medicine. Other organizations that facilitate the research and training of those in science, engineering, and medicine, such as collaborative field sites (i.e., national labs and observatories) also share this responsibility. Sexual harassment in academic science, engineering, and medicine cannot be addressed in higher education if the standards of behavior are not also upheld in these off-campus environments.

Professional societies have more freedom to develop independent policies and practices for dealing with sexual harassment than federal agencies have, so they are in an ideal position to take action in preventing sexual harassment and affecting cultural change. Several societies have come forward in the past few years to take a strong stand on the issue of sexual harassment among its membership. As such, professional 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, engineering, and medical communities.

Although each society has taken a slightly different approach to addressing sexual harassment, there are some shared approaches, including the following:

• Enacting new rules related to conference attendance and codes of conduct.
• Including sexual harassment in codes of ethics and investigating reports of sexual harassment. (This is a new responsibility for professional societies, and these organizations are considering how to take into consideration the law, home institutions, due process, and careful reporting when dealing with reports of sexual harassment.)
• Requiring members to acknowledge, in writing, the professional society’s rules and codes of conduct relating to sexual harassment during conference registration and annual membership sign-up and renewal.
• Supporting and designing programs that prevent harassment and provide skills to intervene when someone is being harassed (e.g., Astronomy Allies and the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Safe program).
• Strengthening statements on sexual harassment, bullying, and discrimination in professional societies’ codes of conduct, with a few defining it as research misconduct.

• Factoring in harassment-related professional misconduct into scientific award decisions.

Two associations have taken action to strengthen their policies in response to issues of sexual harassment in their fields, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU). These organizations share two common features: their fields have relatively low numbers of women and the nature of their work involves attending numerous meetings and conducting research in the field. Studies have shown that these activities are prime settings for sexual harassment (Clancy et al. 2017).

What sets AGU’s policy⁴⁴ apart from other professional societies is that it now places sexual harassment under the umbrella of research misconduct. Although there is not universal agreement that sexual harassment belongs in this category, AGU issued a statement explaining why it believes their decision is appropriate: “Scientific misconduct also includes unethical and biased treatment of people. . . . These actions violate AGU’s commitment to a safe and professional environmental required to learn, conduct, and communicate science.”⁴⁵ Under the new guidelines, anyone can file a complaint. After doing so, the AGU member can ask for protections against harassment, which include “barring the respondent from a complainant’s talk, barring a respondent from an AGU activity, or providing the complainant with an escort during AGU activities. If the complaint goes to a full investigation at AGU or at the home institutions, AGU may consider further actions” (AGU Ethics Policy 2017). For example, the code of conduct section of the AGU Ethics Policy states:

AAS’s policy does not include sexual harassment with research misconduct, but it has issued a strong statement on this issue:

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⁴⁴ AGU Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics Policy, available at https://harassment.agu.org/files/2017/03/ScientificIntegrityandProfessionalEthics_Member-Review-Draft_March2017.pdf.

⁴⁵ See http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/geophysics-society-hopes-define-sexual-harassment-scientific-misconduct.

AAS provides clear direction on how to report an incident and what the investigation will involve. The statement also makes a point of saying that retaliation will not be tolerated.⁴⁶ Members of AAS have also developed grass roots efforts to prevent and respond to sexual harassment at meetings. For example, the Astronomy Allies is a self-organized group that serves as a visible resource at conferences to discourage harassing behavior, for example, by offering conference attendees a safe escort back to hotel rooms at night, and offers support and counsel to targets of sexual harassment.

The Entomological Society of America developed a code of conduct⁴⁷ in 2013 in response to the preliminary results of the SAFE study (Clancy et al. 2014), and which was launched in time to be effective for its annual conference that year. Other professional societies, such as the Society for Neuroscience, have issued a statement of values, but the Society for Neuroscience does not list behaviors associated with sexual harassment. It also has developed a guide for behavior at meetings.⁴⁸

It appears that many additional professional societies are now taking concrete actions, similar to AAS and AGU, to address the issue of harassment in science. Based on these actions and the role of professional societies in the fields of science, engineering, and medicine, professional societies should be viewed as organizations that are helping to create culture and climate changes that reduce or prevent the occurrence of sexual harassment. They should provide support and guidance for members who have been targets of sexual harassment. Further, they should use their influence to address sexual harassment in the scientific, medical, and engineering communities they represent and promote a professional culture of civility and respect.

Collaborative field sites, where researchers from a wide range of institutions frequently gather for use of specific facilities, should establish standards of behavior and set policies, procedures, and practices similar to those recommended for academic institutions and following the examples of professional societies. These sites, such as Oak Ridge National Laboratories, the Green Bank

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⁴⁶ See https://aas.org/policies/anti-harassment-policy.

⁴⁷ See https://www.entsoc.org/conduct.

⁴⁸ See https://www.nature.com/news/scientific-groups-revisit-sexual-harassment-policies-1.18790.

Observatory, and the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratories, to name just a few, host visiting scientists year-round to use their facilities. Brookhaven National Laboratories itself hosts more than 2,200 users from 41 states and 30 countries every year.⁴⁹

Chapter 3 discussed how field sites present increased risks for sexual harassment and unique challenges for addressing these reports. Field sites present heightened risks for women trainees (Clancy et al. 2014), and sites where rules and standards for appropriate behavior lacked clarity often had higher incidents of reported sexual harassment than those with clear rules (Nelson et al. 2017). Additionally, jurisdiction over reports of sexual harassment from visiting scholars is often vague, since individuals are outside the bounds of their respective campuses. Therefore, a comprehensive discussion about addressing sexual harassment in higher education would be incomplete without taking these field sites into consideration.

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

1. A systemwide change to the culture and climate in higher education is required to prevent and effectively address all three forms of sexual harassment. Despite significant attention in recent years, there is no evidence to suggest that current policies, procedures, and approaches have resulted in a significant reduction in sexual harassment. It is time to consider approaches that address the systems, cultures, and climates that enable sexual harassment to perpetuate.
2. Strong and effective leaders at all levels in the organization are required to make the systemwide changes to climate and culture in higher education. The leadership of the organization—at every level—plays a significant role in establishing and maintaining an organization’s culture and norms. However, leaders in academic institutions rarely have leadership training to thoughtfully address culture and climate issues, and the leadership training that exists is often of poor quality.
3. Environments with organizational systems and structures that value and support diversity, inclusion, and respect are environments where sexual harassment behaviors are less likely to occur. Sexual harassment often takes place against a backdrop of incivility, or in other words, in an environment of generalized disrespect. A culture that values respect and civility is one that can support policies and procedures to prevent and punish sexual harassment, while a culture that does not will counteract efforts to address sexual harassment.
   1. Evidence-based, effective intervention strategies are available for enhancing gender diversity in hiring practices.

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⁴⁹ See https://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/fact_sheet/pdf/FS_UserFacilities.pdf.

4. 2. Focusing evaluation and reward structures on cooperation and collegiality rather than solely on individual-level teaching and research performance metrics could have a significant impact on improving the environment in academia.
   3. Evidence-based, effective intervention strategies are available for raising levels of interpersonal civility and respect in workgroups and teams.
   4. An organization that is committed to improving organizational climate must address issues of bias in academia. Training to reduce personal bias can cause larger-scale changes in departmental behaviors in an academic setting.
   5. Skills-based training that centers on bystander intervention promotes a culture of support, not one of silence. By calling out negative behaviors on the spot, all members of an academic community are helping to create a culture where abusive behavior is seen as an aberration, not as the norm.
   1. Make use of egalitarian leadership styles that recognize that people at all levels of experience and expertise have important insights to offer.
   2. Adopt mentoring networks or committee-based advising that allows for a diversity of potential pathways for advice, funding, support, and informal reporting of harassment.
   3. Develop ways the research funding can be provided to the trainee rather than just the principal investigator.
   4. Take on the responsibility for preserving the potential work of the research team and trainees by redistributing the funding if a principal investigator cannot continue the work because he/she has created a climate that fosters sexual harassment and guaranteeing funding to trainees if the institution or a funder pulls funding from the principal investigator because of sexual harassment.
5. Reducing hierarchical power structures and diffusing power more broadly among faculty and trainees can reduce the risk of sexual harassment. Departments and institutions could take the following approaches for diffusing power:
   1. Orienting students, trainees, faculty, and staff, at all levels, to the academic institution’s culture and its policies and procedures for handling sexual harassment can be an important piece of establishing a climate that demonstrates sexual harassment is not tolerated and targets will be supported.
   2. Institutions could build systems of response that empower targets by providing alternative and less formal means of accessing support ser
6. Systems and policies that support targets of sexual harassment and provide options for informal and formal reporting can reduce the reluctance to report harassment as well as reduce the harm sexual harassment can cause the target.

6. 3. vices, recording information, and reporting incidents without fear of retaliation.

   4. Supporting student targets also includes helping them to manage their education and training over the long term.
7. Confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements isolate sexual harassment targets by limiting their ability to speak with others about their experiences and can serve to shield perpetrators who have harassed people repeatedly.
   1. Key components of clear anti-harassment policies are that they are quickly and easily digested (i.e., using one-page flyers or infographics and not in legally dense language) and that they clearly state that people will be held accountable for violating the policy.
   2. A range of progressive/escalating disciplinary consequences (such as counseling, changes in work responsibilities, reductions in pay/benefits, and suspension or dismissal) that corresponds to the severity and frequency of the misconduct has the potential of correcting behavior before it escalates and without significantly disrupting an academic program.
   3. In an effort to change behavior and improve the climate, it may also be appropriate for institutions to undertake some rehabilitation-focused measures, even though these may not be sanctions per se.
   4. For the people in an institution to understand that the institution does not tolerate sexual harassment, it must show that it does investigate and then hold perpetrators accountable in a reasonable timeframe. Institutions can anonymize the basic information and provide regular reports that convey how many reports are being investigated and what the outcomes are from the investigation.
   5. An approach for improving transparency and demonstrating that the institution takes sexual harassment seriously is to encourage internal review of its policies, procedures, and interventions for addressing sexual harassment, and to have interactive dialogues with members of their campus community (especially expert researchers on these topics) around ways to improve the culture and climate and change behavior.
8. Transparency and accountability are crucial elements of effective sexual harassment policies. Systems in which prohibitions against unacceptable behaviors are clear and which hold members of the community accountable for meeting the behavioral and cultural expectations established by leadership have lower rates of sexual harassment.
9. While sexual harassment training can be useful in improving knowledge of policies and of behaviors that constitute sexual harassment, it has not been demonstrated to prevent sexual harassment or change people’s behaviors or beliefs, and some training shows a negative effect (or impact). Sexual harassment training efforts need to be evaluated and studied

9. to determine their efficacy and indicate where they need to be changed or improved, particularly the types of training that show negative effects.

10. To the extent that the training literature provides broad guidelines for creating impactful training that can change climate and behavior, they include the following:
    1. Cater training to specific populations; in academia this would include students, postdoctoral fellows, staff, faculty, and those in leadership.
    2. Attend to the institutional motivation for training, which can impact the effectiveness of the training; for instance, compliance-based approaches have limited positive impact.
    3. Conduct training using live qualified trainers and offer trainees specific examples of inappropriate conduct. We note that a great deal of sexual harassment training today is offered via an online mini-course or the viewing of a short video.
    4. Describe standards of behavior clearly and accessibly (e.g., avoiding legal and technical terms).
    5. Establish standards of behavior rather than solely seek to influence attitudes and beliefs. Clear communication of behavioral expectations, and teaching of behavioral skills, is essential.
    6. Conduct training in adherence to best standards, including appropriate pre-training needs assessment and evaluation of its effectiveness.
11. Creating a climate that prevents sexual harassment requires measuring the climate in relation to sexual harassment, diversity, and respect, and assessing progress in reducing sexual harassment.
12. Efforts to incentivize systemwide changes, such as Athena SWAN,⁵⁰ are crucial to motivating organizations and departments within organizations to make the necessary changes.
13. Sexual harassment in academic science, engineering, and medicine will be more effectively addressed in higher education if the standards of behavior are also upheld in off-campus environments such as professional society meetings and collaborative research and field sites.
14. Professional societies have the potential to be powerful drivers of change through their capacity to help educate, train, codify, and reinforce cultural expectations for their respective scientific, engineering, and medical communities. Some professional societies have taken action to prevent and respond to sexual harassment among their membership. Although each professional society has taken a slightly different approach to addressing sexual harassment, there are some shared approaches, including the following:
    1. Enacting new codes of conduct and new rules related specifically to conference attendance.

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⁵⁰ Athena SWAN (Scientific Women’s Academic Network). See https://www.ecu.ac.uk/equalitycharters/athena-swan/.

14. 2. Including sexual harassment in codes of ethics and investigating reports of sexual harassment. (This is a new responsibility for professional societies, and these organizations are considering how to take into consideration the law, home institutions, due process, and careful reporting when dealing with reports of sexual harassment.)
    3. Requiring members to acknowledge, in writing, the professional society’s rules and codes of conduct relating to sexual harassment during conference registration and during membership sign-up and renewal.
    4. Supporting and designing programs that prevent harassment and provide skills to intervene when someone is being harassed.
    5. Strengthening statements on sexual harassment, bullying, and discrimination in professional societies’ codes of conduct, with a few defining it as research misconduct.
    6. Factoring in harassment-related professional misconduct into scientific award decisions.
    1. Policies, procedures, trainings, and interventions, specifically how they prevent and stop sexually harassing behavior, alter perception of organizational tolerance for sexually harassing behavior, and reduce the negative consequences from reporting the incidents. This includes informal and formal reporting mechanisms, bystander intervention training, academic leadership training, sexual harassment training, interventions to improve civility, mandatory reporting requirements, and approaches to supporting and improving communication with the target.
    2. Mechanisms for target-led resolution options and mechanisms by which the target has a role in deciding what happens to the perpetrator, including restorative justice practices.
    3. Mechanisms for protecting targets from retaliation.
    4. Rehabilitation-focused measures for disciplining perpetrators.
    5. Incentive systems for encouraging leaders in higher education to address the issues of sexual harassment on campus.
15. There are many promising approaches to changing the culture and climate in academia; however, further research assessing the effects and values of the following approaches is needed to identify best practices:

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