Resources

We have provided information that we hope will be helpful to you, your organisation, group or institution. We will continue to add to these resources. We also post links to articles on our twitter feed @1752group

Submission to Office for Students’ consultation on tackling harassment and sexual misconduct in HE

You can read our submission (May 2023) here. 

Submission to Office for Students’ Call for Evidence on International Students’ Experiences

May 2022: The Office for Students called for evidence on international students’ experiences in UK higher education, which included work on preventing and responding to harassment and sexual misconduct. Drawing on evidence from the Silencing Students report and Anna Bull and Erin Shannon’s ongoing research into Higher Education after #MeToo, we submitted an overview of international students’ experiences of their universities’ responses to sexual misconduct, and recommendations for improving these responses. You can read our PDF submission of evidence here.

North-South Feminist Dialogue: Online Sexual Harassment in Higher Education (HE)

Download report here

This handbook is a result of a one-day workshop on online sexual harassment as a part of the North-South Feminist Dialogue conversation series that aims to bring together academics, activists and survivors from the Global North and South, working in the area of Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) in Higher Education (HE). Through this handbook we attempt to share some of the knowledge produced in this day-long workshop with fellow academics, activists and organisers.

Along with sharing experiences and strategies, we collectively formulated a list of demands to address online sexual harassment that we can take to our institutions to urge transformation or even our organising spaces for further reflection. These demands and reflections for change (see pg. 10) are by no means comprehensive and we see this as a live document that others can add to. While much has been written theoretically about online sexual harassment, within the HE sector its understanding remains quite nascent. Hence, we imagine this workshop only as a beginning of a much wider and ongoing conversation.

North-South Feminist Dialogue: Sexual and Gender Based Violence in Higher Education-Report

Download report here

This report is a result of a 3-day workshop called North-South Feminist Dialogue led by Adrija that happened from 29-31st July 2020. You can watch the videos here

This was the first workshop to bring together academics, feminist activists and survivors working in the area of Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) in Higher Education (HE) from India and UK. This report is our attempt to share some of the knowledge produced in this workshop with fellow academics, activists and organisers.

Currently most studies on the problem of SGBV in HE, primarily focus on the Global North, making the voices of survivors from the Global South and the path breaking strategies, initiatives and activism developed there, practically invisible. This project aimed to break that silence and start conversations where new theories, policies and practices in the field can be developed through collaboration and communication, and in that process, strive to decolonise the discipline by shifting the imperial geographies of knowledge production.

The video of the report launch event which was a conversation between Anna and Prof. Mary E. John (Centre for Women’s Development Studies, Delhi) can be found here

Podcast

Anna Bull recorded a podcast with Julie Macfarlane and Georgina Calvert-Lee about Julie’s book, ‘Going Public: A Survivors’ Journey from Grief to Action‘ (for UK users, it’s easier to buy from Foyles). In the podcast, we discuss Julie’s legal activism against both the Anglican Church, and her university (in response to staff sexual misconduct) and the lessons that can be learnt from her approach. Download or listen below.

Going Public with The 1752 Group

Response to Office for Students’ consultation on reportable events

The Office for Students’ consultation on reportable events (2020). Read our response (co-authored with Helen Mott) here: Consultation response

In this response, we ask why higher education institutions (which are mostly ‘exempt charities’) are being held to a different standard of reporting than charities regulated by the Charity Commission.

Racism and sexual misconduct

Here are some resources that will continue to grow on the intersections of racism and sexual misconduct in higher education, especially in relation to staff sexual misconduct. We welcome suggestions to add to this list.

Better policies in the UK

Consensual relationships/personal relationships policies

Roehampton ‘s policy prohibits staff-student relationships. There are advantages to prohibiting such relationships, primarily that it explicitly disallows boundary-blurring behaviours (as described in the ‘Silencing Students‘ report). If staff-student relationships are not prohibited, there is a danger that staff feel it is still appropriate to make sexual or romantic advances towards students.

For a more fully developed versions of consensual relationships policy and the process of implementing this, Cornell University in the US has put its full report online based on an extensive consultation with staff and students.

The Power in the Academy report found that around 80% of students were uncomfortable with staff having sexual or romantic relationships with students, with female students being more uncomfortable than male students. We can make available the questions used for the ‘professional boundaries’ section of the survey for any institutions that want to use them. This survey can be carried out within your own institution to find out what type of policy might be appropriate for your institution. Please email contact@1752group.com if you’d like these questions.

Staff-student sexual misconduct policy

Durham University has a specific policy on dealing with staff-student sexual misconduct, entitled the Procedure for managing disclosures or reports involving allegations of staff sexual violence and misconduct. This document is a good example of how to think through the complexities this process and we would recommend it as an example of good practice.

UK-based data on staff sexual misconduct

2018 report ‘Silencing Students: Institutional Responses to Staff Sexual Misconduct in the UK’. This report drew on interviews with 16 students and early career academics as well as analysis of 61 policies across 25 institutions to explore students’ experiences of attempting to report staff sexual misconduct.

2018 Survey of UK current and former students: National Union of Students. 2018. Power in the Academy: Staff sexual misconduct in higher education. This is a survey of 1839 current and former students in the UK on their experiences of sexualised behaviour and sexual misconduct from staff within UK higher education, as well as their experiences of reporting staff sexual misconduct, and their attitudes towards professional boundaries with staff.

One-day conference on staff sexual misconduct in UK universities, held at University of Portsmouth, May 2018.

Audio files from talks at this event can be found here.

Support services

Professor Alison Phipps has created a growing list of support services for survivors which can be accessed here: https://genderate.wordpress.com/support/

Submission to Universities UK violence against women, harassment and hate crime taskforce January 2016

Download the Goldsmiths Centre for Feminist Research UUK Taskforce Submission

Blogs

Strategic Misogyny – Collects stories of sexual harassment in higher education

Feministkilljoys – Prof. Sara Ahmed’s blog, with many relevant posts

Gender, body, politics – writing by Dr Alison Phipps

Tenure, She Wrote – a collaborative blog devoted to chronicling the (mis)adventures of women in academia, from undergraduate to Full Professor

Feminist Philosophers

Being a woman in philosophy – the sexual harassment archive