UKH

Really?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-50089170

If he'd made those remarks to my daughter I rather hope that she would be able to deal with it as part of the usual to and fro of conversation, maybe replying with a dismissive/light hearted 'Do you mind?' if she felt the conversation overstepped the mark.   (Of course I don't know, I will ask her when I next see her.)

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

The sort of remarks like this?

She said Dr Hutchinson had offered to give her a "big kiss" on her birthday, made comments about her clothing and asked a group of four students if they would "sleep [their] way to the top" during a film night at his house.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Ffs.  Have you no idea how difficult it can be to stand up to someone who is going to be marking your exams?

If someone in his position made remarks to my daughter I'd tell her to report it.  It's not the job of a teenage girl to police the behaviour of a man getting paid to do a job.  

Just because she can handle it doesn't mean she should have to.  

This wasn't a one off.  I imagine the approach you suggest would just lead to him picking ever more vulnerable victims.  

Still, it's their fault for not being able to tolerate it?  Leering at young women from a position of power isn't normal conversation.  

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I'm happy for them to complain. #MeToo showed us that many are manipulative serial offenders.

However, he's had sharp punishment, and no longer works with young people. It should be done and over with. 

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

He was cleared of harassment 10 years ago for groping a 24 year old former student when he was 61, apparently on the grounds that he had previously patted her bottom and that had been fine.  

He is a dirty old perv who shouldn't be near students.  12 complaints in 1 academic year, who knows how many didn't complain.  

In reply to Dan Arkle:

The victims were told he wouldn't be back and now he is.  I can see why they are annoyed.  He is the one who brought it up again by threatening to sue the college if they kept him away from his fancy dining.  

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

If it was someone of equal status I’d tend to agree, but as Marsbar says it’s a bit harder when he’s got so much power over you. I think he’s a creep and while I expect my daughter would be able to handle the situation, I don’t think she should have to. A bit dim on his part too, to try it on in this day and age with searingly intelligent girls. What did he think the outcome would be?

In reply to Dan Arkle:

It's worth noting he wasn't punished, he made an agreement  (which he breached) after an informal investigation.  Given that he is well past retirement age, he hasn't really lost anything by agreeing not to teach.  

In reply to marsbar:

Ok,  I think you've convinced me. 

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

Women of my generation and older will have known the only choice was to avoid being alone with him if at all possible.  He obviously hadn't realised that times have thankfully changed.  I expect there are hundreds of women who experienced his behaviour over the years.   I'm glad attitudes are generally changing.  

In reply to marsbar:

I agree. I think this topic in general can be very nuanced, difficult, context-dependent etc., but this seems pretty clear-cut to me. 

In reply to wintertree:

I suppose I feel that lowering the bar to what is construed as sexual harassment is not a no-cost strategy. Light hearted banter between the sexes is surely one of the milder   but pretty  universal pleasures of life; the ability to calibrate that banter, and deal with it if it goes beyond what you are comfortable with, a  that social skill that maybe can be acquired.

I'm not convinced that young women are or should be so intimidated by an elderly classics lecturer; they certainly didn't seem to be 40 years ago.

I may be wrong on both counts, and apologies to anyone who has been victim of serious harassment, which I fully recognise is a reality.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Sh*tty behaviour. The pretty/ugly male/female compliant/noncompliant graduates have their degrees devalued. They might be questioning their own academic merits and those  of their classmates never really being confident on who deserved what.

In reply to wintertree:

"...made comments about her clothing......"

Been guilty of that myself, lots of times.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

The possibility that some comments could be harmless doesn’t negate the giant red warning flags raised by other comments.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

From time served in the university system I’m afraid I disagree.  Example after example.  The big change is that nobody used to hear about it because various means will be used to keep The big change is that nobody used to hear about it because various means will be used to keep complainants quiet and the whole thing would “go away”.  That is now changing...

In reply to wintertree:

Pretty much what I was going to say. Coming from a lecturer I would say that equates with sexual harrasment

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

There's nothing wrong with banter, but the examples in the article are well into ‘creepy old pervert' territory.

In reply to wintertree:

I would have thought that allegations made about him as early as 2006 were a bit of a red flag (possibly unfair of me since he was cleared of criminal charges) so why young women felt it was OK to go round to his house nearly ten years later  for a film night, bearing in mind his fairly chequered history, is a bit of a puzzle to me. Blah blah victim blaming~ or just common sense?

In reply to Tom Valentine:

I’ve yet to find a university that advertises decade old allegations to new students.  Sometimes word gets around but sometimes students are bought off or driven out, gagging clauses are used etc,  Even without those it’s unlikely anyone in the student body will hear about allegations.  There’s very little continuity to the student body and that is one of the aspects that makes the environment unusually well suited to abusive types, along with the strong imbalance of power and institutional fear of reputational damage.

Sorry to disappoint you by coming back with something more measured than your “blah blah”

In reply to Tom Valentine:

I think it's more  difficult to turn down an invitatation from someone like a lecturer.  

His position of authority is a massive reason why this is very much a problem. 

In reply to wintertree:

A good reply to Tom V’s staggeringly idiotic, thoughtless and infantile post. Come on Tom, you are smarter than that 

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

It's funny to me that what you see as lighthearted banter between the sexes I see as creepy perving by an old man.  But then it's not been you on the receiving end of unwanted attention from an old man you can't get away from.  

The age gap and the position of power he was in, able to control to some extent people's future via their degree results makes it creepy.  

What did your daughter say BTW? 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

And you are usually much more polite. 

You recently claimed to have an aversion to the "superior, confrontational and patronising" tone employed by some UKC users. Were you serious?

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

That might be so, although I'm not so sure, but there is no evidence that this is what this was. An older man in a position of power and authority over younger women, making sexually suggestive remarks to those women, is not "Light hearted banter between the sexes", not even close.

I don't mean this as an attack, more just a thought experiment, but how would you feel if it had been one of your daughter's teachers when she was in sixth form making such comments? Or indeed to your son? I don't think a year or two makes that much difference really. Many of my students are 18, in their last year of school, but there's no 'blurred lines', rather it's a great big shining clear line for me, as a middle-aged man, as to what is appropriate and not to say to students. I'd report a colleague in a heart beat if I witnessed them saying something like this chap did to a student. I think the legal situation is different between school teachers and university teachers, but I don't really see why what is obviously inappropriate to say to an 18 year old at school is any less inappropriate to say to an 18 or 19 year old uni student.

In reply to marsbar:

Agree with Marsbar here.

It's really really not repeat not fine from an man in a position of power in the teaching profession towards his students.

In reply to Tom Valentine:

The attitudes and opinions expressed in your post absolutely warranted my post, which was in no way impolite, superior, confrontational or patronising. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Humour me and point out which bit was "thoughtless", then do the same for "idiotic".

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Humour us all and stop squirming and digging. The entire post, is the answer. 

I wont entertain this discussion with you any longer. 

In reply to Blue Straggler:

Much as I think it rather unfair to consider the 2006 allegations to be a red flag, I'm afraid that they are. I don't see this as being idiotic. 

In reply to Tom Valentine:

Are you expecting girls who go to University to Google all their lecturers?  They would have been around 8 years old at the time of the earlier allegations so I don't suppose they would have been reading news reports about such things.   I can't imagine the university publicised the issues.  

In reply to marsbar:

First, I agree with you that these remarks are completely inappropriate from an older male lecturer to young students. 

Though on this:

Nowadays it's fairly hard for a lecturer to penalise a student that way.  Exams will be marked anonymously, without the lecturer knowing whose script it is (though one could memorise handwriting or ID numbers; but that's not easy if you have 70 or so in a cohort).  Also, any script worth a large chunk of a module should be looked at for consistency by a second marker.  Further, the degree class will likely be decided from aggregate marks from 16 or so modules, and any one lecturer will likely mark only 2 or 3 of those at most. 

All of that means that an academic would not find it easy to be vindictive towards a student by marking them down (though they could perhaps with enough planning and scheming). 

Of course none of that changes the fact that a student would often feel intimidated by the academic. 

In reply to Tom Valentine: can you show me a list of historical complaints against lecturers so people know what they're getting into?  How precisely should the students know about these things?  Or should they assume all male lecturers are potential offenders?

 In the context of this thread your post is as dismal as previously described. 

In reply to Coel Hellier:

I suspect many institutions still use exam ID numbers that are easily linked to names: mine does.

In reply to Coel Hellier:

Fair enough.