According to a new investigation by the Guardian, sexual harassment, misconduct and gender violence by university staff are at ‘epidemic levels’.
It’s important to keep in mind that these incidents aren’t just confined to staff-student relationships – while 169 allegations were against academic and non-academic staff from 2011 to 2016, at least 127 other allegations about UK university staff were made by their colleagues.
The most high-ranking universities aren’t immune to these growing problems, either. Oxford University actually saw the most staff-on-staff allegations in the UK, while in America, the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) recently saw six faculty members facing sexual misconduct investigations.
Kathleen Salvaty, who is responsible for coordinating compliance with US sexual discrimination laws in the California state university system, says that there were likely other victims who decided not to come forward: