I wrote a postmortem of the University of Washington harassment investigation. I don’t get into details but I do explain my perspective and name the men involved, plus some lessons learned at the end. https://irenezhang.net/blog/2025/03/04/uw-harassment.html
At some point during the UW situation, I was confused by why the men kept going to various university offices and admin with complaints, and someone said to me: because the system has always worked for them, so they trust that it will work this time too. I couldn’t comprehend it myself but now that we’ve finished this, indeed, the system did work for them. So I’m trying to do a tiny part to right things.
@irene thank you for doing this, and for naming names. The whole situation is a textbook example of how *not* to handle situations like this, and I'm very sorry that you and the women involved had to go through it -- in addition to them having to deal with the harassment and academic misconduct.
@irene Good blog post--short and clear. The official UW report could be more concise, but I read through the whole thing. They surely buried the lede about Theta's physicality. I mean, you know, alcohol, right? But I eventually spotted it, because I was willing to wade through this long screed complaining about Upsilon's championing of the women. They inadvertently convinced me... to be like Upsilon. Is a lot of hard work though! Still, worthwhile.
@irene
“ Make expectations of appropriate behavior clear.” This.
I once made a phone call to UT Austin title IX office for some “consultation” which they rejected. They didn’t have a strict definition of sexual harassment on their website. So I wanted to know how they would identify some of the behaviors. The lady on the phone call had a not very nice attitude, saying they wouldn’t offer any help unless I submit a formal report with the name drop, which I didn’t feel comfortable with - I was also about to graduate with my PhD and didn’t want to get into any trouble, academic-wise and social-wise. Title IX office then told me to call the mental health hotline. I called. The consultant was also very impatient and harsh, responded whatever questions I had with “I don’t know. You can do whatever you feel comfortable with.”
@irene
All I wanted to know was, “How do you define sexual harassment? Is continuing asking someone out after rejections a harassment? Is long-time (a whole seminar) staring at a person (non speaker) a harassment? Is seemingly non-sexual but still physical contacts a harassment? Is cornering a person in an elevator a harassment or just different sensation of personal space? What if these are done by the same person?”
Internet told me these would be determined by company policies. I went through trainings in my internship companies and knew they had strict definitions. But universities usually don’t have clear definitions on sexual harassment. And the legal definition is usually… very loose.
@medea yup, the women also asked if they could report against the environment because it clearly states in Title IX that you can. But UW said they didn’t have a process and the women would have to sue to get them to put one in.
@irene
Fuck yeah that's a concise and useful report, thank you for posting it!
I just heard of your experience in graduate university.
I think that the traditional culture of authoritarian hierarchy of the professor/student relationship contributes to this kind of behavior. The grad student is effectively bound to the professor and/or school for the duration of the process and is tasked with pleasing said professor.
I contend that, without change in the system and culture, this will be an ongoing problem.
@BobCollins I totally agree. Faculty basically have unlimited power over their students’ careers with no oversight or guards against bad behavior. They also have little to no training on how to effectively manage employees. All of this adds up to a toxic work environment with no checks or balances to faculty power.
@BobCollins in fact, @Hello_KayT has dealt with this not once but twice. https://discuss.systems/@Hello_KayT/114124450372656358
@irene Thank you for speaking up again. It's unbelievable that there have been no consequences. It's unbelievable that nothing was done to protect the women and address the obvious departmental problems during the long investigation.
@irene Thank you for this. It is very useful and I will be sharing it internally to make sure we learn these lessons from others mistakes.
Mar 9, 2025, 1:47 AM@irene the unreasonable effectiveness of DARVO will never stop surprising me
@steve yeah, especially in this case where I’ve literally known some of the people for almost 20 years. I’ve lost a lot of friendship and respect from this whole situation, which is one of the saddest parts.
@irene @steve
terms like 'institutional betrayal' and 'institutional DARVO' are also relevant and useful
https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/institutionalbetrayal/
@steve so one of the conspiracy theories that the Allen School has been pushing is that I have a vendetta against them for not hiring me. And yesterday, @dan realized: they’re saying that you have a vendetta against them for not giving you a faculty position when actually they have a vendetta against you for not taking a faculty position. So yeah DARVO
@steve @dan I guess for context for those not in a crazy academic bubble: faculty are so invested in this whole venture that they get really upset when top students decide not to become faculty. Because the meritocracy myth is that the top students become faculty and those who can’t cut it do something else. A more generous way to put it: faculty think they have the greatest job in the world and can’t comprehend that one might not want to do it. But now that I say that out loud it just sounds like narcissism.
Is it possible that UW doesn't want to be perceived as coming down hard on a group of South Asians?
(I don't want to come off as saying “durr they're like that cos they're Indian” and obvs there may be an overwhelming majority of non-abusive South Asian students in the department. I have no idea of the demographics.)
@jonhendry @steve @dan it’s more likely that the faculty are protecting them because they are also South Asian. But also primarily the harassment happened within a “friend” group of South Asians.
But someone also asked me at some point about harassment between Chinese students and I made it clear to him that sexism is not a part of Chinese culture. It’s incredibly insulting to say that because it’s the equivalent to saying all Chinese are sexist. Also irregardless of all of that, we are talking about a work place in the US, where there are certain expectations of professionalism.
@jonhendry @steve @dan one of the reasons that I’m concerned is that the men have been TAs, one of them was even a TA during the investigation. If they can’t be trusted to act professional in the lab, how can we trust them around undergrads?
Thank you for your work on this: both supporting the women in the first place, and writing this report.
I'm thinking how lucky they were that you stepped up, and how many people in similar situations don't have the equivalent support.
If you and the seven of them haven't already read Sara Ahmed's book "Complaint", I recommend it.
@irene Thank you for your principled courage.