Ending Faculty Sexual Misconduct in Academia: An Open Letter From Women of Public Affairs Education1

• Author: Kimberly Wiley,Sarah Young
• Date: 01 April 2021
• Published date: 01 April 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/00953997211001493
• Subject Matter: Guest Editorial

https://doi.org/10.1177/00953997211001493

Administration & Society

2021, Vol. 53(4) 491 –495

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/00953997211001493

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Guest Editorial

Ending Faculty Sexual

Misconduct in Academia:

An Open Letter From

Women of Public Affairs

Education1

The #MeToo movement is descending upon the walls of the ivory tower. The

day of reckoning has come for academia to end faculty sexual misconduct. As

women of public affairs and nonprofit education, we demand to be heard.

Faculty sexual misconduct is often present within academia and more spe-

cifically in graduate public affairs and nonprofit education programs. At the

undergraduate level, 24.2% of women and 15.6% of men report being sexu-

ally victimized on a college campus in just the last 2 months (Jouriles et al.,

2020). One out of every 10 female graduate students report being sexually

harassed by a faculty member (Cantor et al., 2020), second to only the mili-

tary in prevalence (National Academies of the Sciences, Engineering, and

Medicine, 2018). According to the grassroots efforts of Academic Sexual

Misconduct Database, public affairs education programs had 20 publicly

documented, substantiated cases of faculty sexual misconduct since 2016

(Libarkin, 2020). While that’s only about 2% of all cases across all disci-

plines, that number is shocking given our field differentiates itself on the

qualities of “publicness” (Bozeman, 1987) and our programs are relatively

smaller and newer than most.

Both the American Society of Public Administration and the Association for

Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action’s respective codes of

ethics have explicit statements requiring the highest personal and professional

integrity. Yet, our programs are plagued by the same pass-the-harasser mentality

as other disciplines. There are many examples. Just ask your female colleagues.

Public affairs and nonprofit programs need to be even more concerned

than most higher education programs about erasing faculty sexual miscon-

duct; 63% of the students in graduate public affairs programs are female,

more than almost any other educational field (NASPAA, 2019). Graduate

students face a high “administrative burden” (Moynihan et al., 2015) in that

they are learners seeking access to knowledge and thus enter into unbalanced

power dynamic relationships with advising professors (Young & Wiley,

2021). In many cases, they must bear these costs to achieve their goal to

graduate. Given that sexual assaults often go unreported (Jouriles et al.,

1001493AASXXX10.1177/00953997211001493Administration & SocietyYoung and Wiley

editorial2021