Sexual Harassment in Forensics – 6 years later…

In relation to this previous post on a study from 1994 on coaching debate and raising children, I thought I might post some other studies that deserve revisiting.  This post refers to a study done by Pamela Stepp, former Director of Forensics at Cornell University, the results of which were published in an article in the journal Communication Education, in the January 2001 issue. 

Here is the abstract:

Recent court rulings have made incidents of sexual harassment more worrisome for professors, particularly those who coach students in forensics (individual speaking events and intercollegiate debate extra-curricular activities).  Participants were 611 students and coaches from four national forensics organizations who filled out a modified version of the Sexual Experience Questionnaire to assess understanding and experiences of sexual harassment.  Results indicated that sexual harassment is widespread in forensics, that women are harassed more than men, and that women in intercollegiate debate are harassed more than women in individual speaking events.

The study included behavior ranging from the quid pro quo harassment to sexually inappropriate behavior and talk that created a hostile environment.  Here is an excerpt from one of the narratives in a survey:

One of the worst experiences I had in college was at a large national NDT Tournament.  A debater from another school had expressed an interest in me.  When a judge from his school judged me, the judge began to question me before the round about my relationship with the debater.  This happened in front of my partner (a male) and the other team (both male).  The judge asked me if I had sex with him, if I was planning to have sex with him, if I wanted the judge to arrange for us to be alone at the hotel that night. . .I was so embarrassed that he was asking me these questions, and I didn’t know what to do.  (NDT female debater)

Whenever I read things like this, I wonder if incidences such as these are result of ignorance or malice.  I have to think it is often ignorance.  What I mean by this is in many of these situations if you spoke to the person who behaved inappropriately after the incident, they would have no awareness of how they made the other person feel.  And if they did know how it made them feel before they said it, they would never say it.  Obviously, there are those who are malicious and who do say things like this to hurt the other person, but much of the time in our community I think these things happen because the person thinks they’re being funny, and that everyone is enjoying the joke.  And they continue to think that because so many of us remain silent about our objections in order to “keep the peace” or to “fit in”.  Its a difficult place for one to be located.

Although Stepp recognizes that surveys are not the best way to collect information, as those who were harassed may be more likely to respond than those who were not, I think it would be interesting to have some similar studies done as a point of comparison.  In the article, there is a suggestion that would be interesting to explore in this era of “self-disclosure debate,” (for lack of a better term), where teams are choosing to disclose their personal experiences, including past sexual experiences, as narratives in policy debate rounds.  Although this is not what I would call widespread, it has appeared enough to become relatively known within the community.  The suggestion from the article is:

Research should explore the sexualized atmosphere of sexual talking and jokes, which appears to be so common in the forensics community.  Gutek (1985) claims that when women have a male supervisor more co-workers are likely to harass.  This may mean that forensics coaches can have an influence on the climate in their organizations in terms of the types of behavior that is encouraged or forbidden.  Lack of action represents tolerance for sexual harassment.  Fitzgerald and Shullman (1993) claim a dire need for a method to assess organizational climates and environments for these behaviors.

I am a strong believer in organizational culture and the leadership of an organization being responsible for that culture.  So, I agree that on teams, the coach can do much to alleviate the problems of harassment.  In addition, we can be the person to speak up in gatherings where inappropriate sexualized comments are being made.  But, with the new personal disclosure in rounds, it becomes a whole different concern of who is the manager of that environment?  Should the judge be responsible for that?  How do you know when disclosure crosses over into harassment?  As a coach and as an educator, I have responsibilities to my team and my classes, but as a judge, to whom am I responsible?  What about my debaters?  If they feel a disclosure crosses a line, how should they handle that?   I don’t have firm answers to these questions at this point, but I do think they are something that needs to be discussed for the forensics organizational culture, as the 2001 results indicate. 

I think this is worthwhile of research so we have an idea of where we stand as organizations (CEDA, NDT, AFA, NPDA, etc.) in the area of sexual harassment.