Word: mansfield
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield '53 must have recently seen Demi Moore's latest movie, "Disclosure," in which a female employer sexually harasses her male employee. Mansfield's recent contention at a Faculty meeting that Harvard's sexual harassment guidelines ignore the issue of female seduction is a whimsical twist on that bit of fiction...
...open question period of the Faculty meeting, Mansfield charged that the University's guidelines concentrate on the use of power to gain sexual favors and overlook the use of sexual favors to gain power. He claimed that Harvard's guidelines are unfair to men, and that female seduction, when used to advance one's career, should be classified as harassment. Although we agree with the letter of Mansfield's sentiment, the spirit is some-what lacking. Classifying female seduction as sexual harassment would be impractical and almost meaningless...
...female employee is dismissed because of seduction and continues to harass her former employer, she may be charged with harassment properly--but this situation lies outside the sphere of Mansfield's very specific concern with sexual favors used expressly to advance one's career...
...Mansfield also criticized Harvard's guidelines for not considering the issue of false accusations, and the "Tell Someone" sexual harassment leaflet for making "no mention of an accuser of inferior status bringing down a person of superior status." This is a very real concern and something which should be incorporated into Harvard's guidelines. Accusations of harassment which hold the potential to be publicly and personally damaging to the accused should be subject to a threshold of evidence or just cause before being allowed to issue. On this aspect of the guidelines, we urge the University to take measures...
...brochure is not only stupid; it's dangerous. Of course we need mechanisms for dealing with sexual harassment charges. But the leaflet, in its excessive fear of intimidating "victims" into silence, doesn't discourage frivolous or irrational complaints. As Mansfield pointed out, the booklet as currently written constitutes "a veritable incitement to make a mountain out of a mole-hill." While only the most desperate or evil students would take advantage of this fact (along with students who have watched Oleanna too much), the brochure offers those who feel they've been treated unfairly a way of getting back...