Apparently Tufts Doesn’t Care About Harassment of Employees, Either
Apparently Tufts and a professor are being sued by a former employee. According to what the Tufts Daily says, she filed a complaint with the OEO who said that there was no evidence of such. The former employee says there were eye witnesses as well as other people who complained about the same professor, yet Tufts did not do anything about it. On Boston.com they mention that a different former Tufts employee had to get a RESTRAINING ORDER against that same professor.
I can’t say that I don’t see a few parallels here with what happens with students. Someone is subjected to work in a hostile environment and unfortunately the system put in place that is supposed to help does not. A perpetrator of sexual assault/sexual harassment won’t just have one victim. They keep on doing it because where they are allows them to be. Tufts clearly perpetuated the sexual harassment of multiple people for who knows what reason. Perhaps the investigators too believed that it would be best to protect the reputation of Tufts by pretending nothing happened.
Director of Public Relations Kim Thurler insists that Tufts does its best to protect the members of its community.
“We take any allegations very seriously…It is important to keep in mind that Tufts is fully committed to ensuring that we offer a workplace and educational environment that is supportive and respectful of all members of our community”
So if Tufts is so committed why are sexual assault victims being dismissed, called “crazy” behind their back, and retraumatized? Why does Tufts perpetuate so many facets of oppression by hurting people of colour, women, and members of the LGBT community? That doesn’t sound like commitment.
This school seriously needs to implement some oversight to ensure that people are getting their rights observed. Instead of having PR representatives just spit out generalized statements that may or may not be true (I personally do not think they are in this case), perhaps Tufts should take serious initiative to change the institutional barriers in place that creates a steady flow of victims who are not getting any justice within the system.
It is a shame that a place that can provide such a great education can also create such a damaging, negative environment for many.
One of the many things that bothers me about these situations is that you always have some representative or lawyer or SOMEONE who says stuff like, "We are committed to fighting sexual violence and we take all allegations seriously," etc. etc. Someone needs to explain to these people that SAYING those things does not make them magically TRUE (reminds me of That '70s Show where Red demonstrates this issue by saying, "I'm Mr. Rogers. But wait! I'm not wearing a sweater!"
Of COURSE you have to SAY you're committed to protecting your students or employees or clients or patients. And when you say it, that OBVIOUSLY absolves you of any responsibility, or even NEGATES the fact that you are saying the opposite of what's TRUE.
Hold on, I need to stop fuming; the smoke is making it hard to read my screen.
Seriously it's like the biggest slap in the face. If I've been wronged and then someone who WASN'T INVOLVED AT ALL says a statement that basically is calling me a LIAR, that's is really fucked up. At least say "we're looking into the investigation that took place then; we went to ensure that our OEO takes all issues of sexual violence seriously." They don't have to be denialist assholes.
The dean of students started playing games, manipulating the situation to help my abuser while accusing me of things i never did that were actually quite petty in relation to the violence, never mind false. when i went to the dean of students she just sat there tapping her fingers on the desk and ignoring me. Because it was a woman-on-woman situation. She also didn't believe me. The other dean told me she didn't understand domestic violence or sexual assault, and that once she had someone else in her office who was afraid of their boyfriend and she just couldn't deal with the whole situation and wanted to know what was wrong with the girl and why she didn't just leave. I couldn't believe the dean was telling me about this as I was trying to get help form her. It boggles my mind how the people put in charge of helping people in these situations are incompetent and ignorant about the cycle of abuse, never mind how to handle them appropriately. The deans started treating me like I was a bad person and threatened my academic career in the event that I file complaints with the university against my abuser or say anything. They created false police reports that weren't what I told them and tired to cover up the entire situation by calling me a crazy person!
I'm so sorry to hear about your experience. If you ever want to talk or want advice or support, please feel free to email me at blog@rapedattufts.info. What they did was wrong. This is why deans need to be trained on how to handle this stuff…and if they don't get it they need to get a new job. You should have a write to file against your abuser and the school who refuses to do anything. You're not crazy. You were being brave and sharing your story.
I hope you get the peace and justice you deserve.