Federal labor regulators have concluded that sexual harassment prevention training is often ineffective and sometimes even harmful, in a new report that strengthens growing claims that US universities are failing to combat gender discrimination.
A taskforce of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that workplace initiatives targeting harassment are generally focused on avoiding legal liability instead of stopping misconduct, echoing concerns of faculty at the University of California at Berkeley, which has received international attention for its high-profile scandals.
The new report from two commissioners of the EEOC, which enforces employment discrimination laws, comes as experts have increasingly called into question the standard responses to harassment. In the face of public scrutiny, employers and college administrators typically emphasize training initiatives, but critics say there is little evidence that courses make a difference.
“We were surprised at the research that showed that the type of anti-harassment training that has been done to date … is not as effective in actually changing behaviors,” said Chai Feldblum, EEOC commissioner and co-author of the report.
The taskforce’s findings build on the limited research on the impacts of training courses, including several studies with surprising conclusions.
Some researchers have found that training courses can reinforce gender stereotypes, make men less capable of perceiving inappropriate behavior, and may increase the likelihood that people discount victims.
“Much of the training done over the last 30 years has not worked as a prevention tool,” the EEOC commissioners wrote, adding that “ineffective training can be unhelpful or even counterproductive”.
Faculty at UC Berkeley said the EEOC report highlights the kinds of problems that exist at their own school, which has repeatedly promoted its training efforts and vowed to invest in programs in the wake of scandals.
The dean of the prestigious law school and a world-famous astronomer stepped down from their positions when news broke that the university did not issue serious sanctions after determining they had sexually harassed subordinates. Records have also revealed that faculty who have violated harassment policies have been shielded from termination.
Colleges across the country, including Yale, Boston University and Stanford, have faced similar scandals.
Consistent disciplining of harassers – and supervisors who protect them – can help with prevention efforts at universities, Feldblum said.
“If you’re a department chair and you’ve got a superstar harasser in your department and you know about it, we’re going to hold you accountable.”
At UC Berkeley, professors have been pushing the school to fundamentally reevaluate its approach to prevention – instead of defaulting to traditional training models.
“The training we actually have to do is laughable. It’s just terrible,” said Leslie Salzinger, a professor of gender and women’s studies. The administration, she said, should leverage expertise on campus to revamp its policies.
In line with state law, the University of California requires faculty and supervisors to complete a two-hour training every two years, and Salzinger said the online course she recently completed lacked nuanced discussions of power dynamics, inequality, and race and gender.
The training also implied that the people taking the course would never be harassers themselves, only that they may be supervising harassers, she said.
The EEOC report suggests that increased diversity in management positions could have a much greater impact than training, said Lauren Edelman, a Berkeley law professor. “Sexual harassment training protects organizations, not employees.”
Edelman has argued that the “cartoonish” nature of classes can provoke a “backlash” in men, making them resistant to trainings and resentful of policies.
Charis Thompson, chair of the gender and women’s studies department, said that an in-person harassment training she attended years ago at Berkeley shed light on the deeply rooted discrimination in academia.
Participants made repeated snarky jokes, mocked those who didn’t share their disdain for the process and “giggled in a rather infantile and super sexist way”, she recalled. “The facilitator herself and anyone who was trying to take it seriously was basically bullied … I remember going home just feeling so utterly depressed.”
Thompson said that the university should make gender discrimination and anti-harassment efforts part of a mandatory course – instead of treating the topic like a minor “campus life” issue.
“We’ve got to bring it into the realm of a core mission,” she said.
A UC spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
