UC Faces Swell of Harassment Claims
Graduate students, unlike workers, are unprotected, yet they are seen as especially vulnerable
Daily Journal
October 20, 1994
By Ashley Craddock, Daily Journal Staff Writer
Donna Hunt never planned to go into geophysics.
But she did after spending five years in the slow-turning wheels of the University of California's grievance process and unsuccessfully dodging a sexually aggressive professor in her chosen field, finally deciding she had no choice but to abandon her graduate research in paleontology and sue the professor and the university.
"I'm angry at what happened and I'm angry at the way it was handled," Hunt said. "The chair of the geology department filed a formal grievance on my behalf in 1991. But by the end of 1993, they still hadn't had an evidentiary hearing. I tolerated as much as I could, but ultimately I lost everything I was fighting for."
Oakland attorney Anne Weills, co-counsel for Hunt along with Daniel Siegel, said her client's Sacramento case, Hunt v. Signor, CV-S93-2000, was "just the tip of the iceberg" as far as graduate students' claims of harassment are concerned.
"The risk is extraordinary for students who, unlike regular employees, are not protected from sexual discrimination by anything but Title VI and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act," Weills said. "It's on odd strata in terms of fighting for someone's rights. You're inciting danger in terms of the student being able to graduate and go forward. The atmosphere in their field can be so poisoned by the professor that getting jobs may be extraordinarily difficult."
According to Melvin Beal, the UC general counsel who handles sexual harassment cases within the university system, Hunt's case against the University of California, Davis, may indeed be the first swell of an emerging tide of suits by students who say universities have insufficiently protected them from harassment. Given the U.S. Supreme Court's 1992 holding in Franklin v. Gwinnett County Schools, 112 S.Ct. 1028, which allows private individuals to seek monetary compensation under Title IX, Beal said he did not "see any reason to believe more cases like this won't be filed."
Moreover, Beal said, an increasing number of students have been coming forward with internal complaints ever since the 1991 Clarence Thomas hearings. At some UC campuses, he said, those numbers have doubled and tripled.
"A number of factors are involved," he said. "First, the university has set up more apparent forums for dealing with student complaints. Then there's more education about sexual harassment on campuses, and I think students are also aware that the university is trying to deal with the problem aggressively and is not necessarily on the professor's side."
By throwing the weight of its reputation and about $5,000 behind Hunt's claims, the prestigious Washington, D.C.-based American Association of University Women has echoed Beal's evaluation of their significance.
In 1981, the AAUW established its Legal Advocacy Fund — the largest U.S. fund set up exclusively for university women seeking judicial remedies to sex discrimination, harassment, retaliation and tenure issues.
One of the AAUW's main criteria for choosing to support cases has historically been the case's precedent-setting potential, said Anita Allen, a Washington, D.C., attorney who was until early this month a member of the fund's advisory board. Hunt, whose case against the university settled out of court shortly after it was filed and whose case against Dr. Philip Signor is ongoing, is only the second graduate student the Legal Advocacy Fund has backed.
Signor's attorney, William Poe of Sacramento, could not be reached for comment.
Given the particular vulnerability of un-established graduate students to retaliation by renowned professors who could fail them, charge them with academic dishonesty and brand them as troublemakers in insular but international arenas, the AAUW's support takes on added significance.
"It's extremely important to support graduate students," Allen said. "It gives the plaintiffs credibility and a right to say the AAUW is supporting their claims. Students have as much or more to gain from this kind of support as more established women who are trying to redress something like denial of tenure.
In 13 years of existence, the AAUW's Legal Advocacy Fund has supported about 31 cases with an average of $6,000.
The Palo Alto Branch of the AAUW will sponsor a panel discussion on the "Culture of Inequity in Graduate Schools" tonight at 7 at the First Baptist Church. Scheduled speakers include Weills; Hunt; Dr. Katherine Arbanasin, a chemist at Stanford University; and Dr. Cassandra Brothers-Barton, a San Francisco-based psychologist specializing in the effects of sex discrimination and harassment.
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