• About

kimberly theidon

~ exploring civil wars and their legacies

kimberly theidon

Category Archives: Opinions

Turning the “Spotlight” toward college campuses…..

02 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by kimberlytheidon in Opinions, Title IX Issues and Updates

≈ Leave a comment

We watched “Spotlight” last night and it is a powerful film which I highly recommend. It is based upon the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting of widespread clerical sexual abuse in our city. As I watched, the parallels to professorial sexual harassment were stunning: complicity of those in power (and colleagues in the know who said nothing); structurally vulnerable young people who feared speaking out; priests who preyed upon poorer students whose parents were delighted their children were being singled out for the attention; a church policy of moving priestly predators from one parish to another when their actions became so extreme as to draw attention (akin to moving professors from one center or department on campus to another when their harassing ways cannot be swept under the carpet, or encouraging them to take a paid leave or early retirement); and Cardinal Law who knew about all of it for years  and did nothing (the deans and campus presidents who file away the harassment reports in ever-thickening-and-sickening-folders to gather dust while lives are wrenched apart and academic careers derailed). If all the students and untenured faculty who have been targeted for harassment joined forces with formerly complicit senior faculty who finally found their courage and their voices —- this could equal the power of the student-led Title IX Movement spreading from one side of this country to the other. For every person who watches “Spotlight” and is justifiably horrified by all of those who silently stood by, isn’t it time to stand up and speak out?

#It’sonus.org #courageiscontagious #thehuntinggroundfilm.com  #Ibelieve AlyssaLeader  #HarvardSoSecret

 

 

Dutiful Daughter? I think not.

05 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by kimberlytheidon in Interviews and Podcasts, Opinions

≈ 1 Comment

http://www.wcvb.com/news/professor-who-spoke-about-harvard-sex-assaults-claims-discrimination/31757336

http://www.wcvb.com/news/harvard-professor-suing-over-denied-tenure/25728580#!GDImf

 

WBUR/NPR interview with journalist Fred Thys

21 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by kimberlytheidon in Interviews and Podcasts, Opinions, Title IX Issues and Updates

≈ Leave a comment

Thank you to my students and colleagues. It is time for faculty to step up and be our students’ best allies in making campuses safer and more equitable learning environments. And as long as students, faculty and staff are more frightened by the capacity of their universities to retaliate than they are of their assailants or harassers, then policy reforms are largely cosmetic, designed to placate donors and keep the Department of Education at bay.

http://www.wbur.org/2015/04/06/harvard-tenure-lawsuit-sexual-assault

Meltdown Pension Woes

Article on retaliation against faculty, from Marie Claire

21 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by kimberlytheidon in Opinions, Title IX Issues and Updates

≈ Leave a comment

http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/speaking-out-against-campus-rape?src=spr_TWITTER&spr_id=1449_65660406

Campus sexual assault bill, and its limitations

03 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by kimberlytheidon in Opinions

≈ Leave a comment

“Right now schools have reason to repress reporting and be focused on public image rather than being focused on the problem, because there is no real penalty for not accurately reporting and there is no standardized survey,” said Nancy Cantalupo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/02/upshot/campus-sexual-assault-bill-relies-on-public-shaming.html?ref=us

“The new bill proposes fines of up to 1 percent of a college’s operating budget. If Harvard were found responsible, for example, the university would be on the line for $42 million — a sizable fine, but one that would probably not hurt the university’s students.”

This is a start, but only that. Each week I hear from former Harvard students about sexual assault and sexual harassment on that campus.  Not one of these young women is willing to be identified by name for fear of retaliation from Harvard University and its powerful networks.  Additionally, several people have written to tell me about professors who sexually harassed them, and about the futility of reaching out to the university for assistance.  It is a depressing and reiterative story.

It’s a tough week when…

02 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by kimberlytheidon in Opinions

≈ Leave a comment

It’s a tough week when a former Harvard student reaches out to me, concerned that a professorial colleague might have raped someone else…and then she remains anonymous.  I was sickened by the messages, and walked across the campus one last time hoping I would not cross paths with him.  What in the world would I say? How could I have worked with him all these years and not have known? I feel deep sorrow for this young woman, and for what must be others. He was too smooth to have been a first timer.  Yes, I firmly believe in innocent until proven guilty. Her level of detail, however, was painfully convincing.

Interview, Boston Globe

13 Friday Jun 2014

Posted by kimberlytheidon in Interviews and Podcasts, Opinions, Title IX Issues and Updates

≈ Leave a comment

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/06/12/harvard-professor-challenges-tenure-denial/E64ruokHoD1WpokjwsbR3M/story.html

Interview with Ronan Farrow about Campus Sexual Assault

27 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by kimberlytheidon in Interviews and Podcasts, Opinions, Title IX Issues and Updates

≈ Leave a comment

http://www.msnbc.com/ronan-farrow/watch/college-sex-assault-probe-underway-nationwide-244287043523

 

Why all of this matters: It’s about the students

24 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by kimberlytheidon in Opinions

≈ Leave a comment

I am moved everyday, emotionally and to action, by the emails I am receiving. I excerpt from an email that arrived yesterday.  Thank you to this former student for reaching out, and making painfully clear what is at stake here.

Dear Professor Theidon,

You may not remember me, but I took Memory Politics with you in the Fall of 20XX. It was a formative class for me and midway through the course I declared my concentration in anthropology. I have been reading coverage of the university’s denial of your tenure. I write to say that to me, your actions serve as proof that your commitment to social justice is as real in your personal life as it is in your academic one, and that the compassion and care you showed to those in your ethnographic work does not remain in the field when you return to Cambridge.

For most of us who reach Harvard, it is the pinnacle of a life spent reading and learning, and we are supposed to be grateful and say nothing but thank you to the institution. But in my time at Harvard, I also had to learn to be a partner and a friend to women who faced their rapists in class and feared being kicked out for having mental health concerns. I ultimately lost two of these beautiful friends to suicide. I applaud your strong stance and your personal commitment to students in an academic environment where that support from a professor is rare.

My best wishes to you.

[Name withheld for privacy concerns]

Rape reporting and rhetoric

21 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by kimberlytheidon in Opinions

≈ Leave a comment

In today’s New York Times, there is an article about the trial and conviction of five men who gang-raped a photojournalist, and other women, at an abandoned mill in Mumbai.  According to the reporters, the men had used the mill on several occasions, communicating with one another that “the prey has arrived.”

As I reached the concluding paragraphs of this article, I was utterly perplexed. The journalist had previously introduced both Mr. Ansari and Mr. Jadhav as two of the five men who used the abandoned mill as a gang-rape site. Yet the article ends by presenting their plights, evidently to curry the reader’s sympathy. Here is the text:
“Outside the courtroom, the wife of Salim Ansari, who is in his late 20s and has two young children, reached into a cloth bag and produced a small metal box containing rice and meat. Mr. Ansari’s son Saadiq, 10, threw himself at his father’s legs, pummeling and biting him, while Shaafiq, 6, scraped bits of plaster from the wall with a finger.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Mr. Ansari told his wife, taking a liter bottle of a mango drink that she had brought. “Our family is your responsibility.”

Vijay Jadhav, another of the defendants, sat on a wooden bench at the back of the courtroom and wept into a handkerchief because no one from his family had come to see him. A police officer, who guarded him, advised him to be patient.

“There is no one to see if I’m dead or alive,” Mr. Jadhav said.

What is this rhetoric about, and what is its  effect? I recall a similar storyline used about the Steubenville rape case, and the television journalist who concluded her segment by asking what was to become of the young  men and their promising futures in the wake of the rape they had committed.  What is the perverse message being communicated about sexual violence and its legacies?  Who are these journalists portraying as the victims of these bloody acts of gang rape?

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/21/world/asia/5-convicted-in-gang-rape-case-that-shocked-mumbai.html?emc=eta1

← Older posts
Newer posts →

Recent Posts

  • La Tercera, Chile
  • Gracías al Instituto Milenio VioDemos, Chile
  • Legados de la Guerra: Violencia, Ecología y Parentesco
  • Delighted to be joining wonderful students and colleagues in Chile
  • Colombian Studies Initiative, “Presidential Elections in Colombia: Challenges in Perspective”

Categories

  • "Challenging Conceptions: Children born of wartime rape and sexual exploitation"
  • Announcements
  • Drugs, Security and Democracy Program
  • Ecologies of Justice: Environmental Humanities and civic Activism
  • Gender Analysis and Inclusive Leadership Program
  • Interviews and Podcasts
  • Intimate Enemies: Violence and Reconciliation in Peru
  • Legacies of war: Violence, Ecologies and Kin
  • News from Colombia
  • News from Peru
  • Opinions
  • Publications
  • Reviews of Intimate Enemies
  • Solidarity and What We Can Do
  • Speaking Engagements
  • Teaching
  • Title IX Issues and Updates
  • Uncategorized

Archives

  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • November 2020
  • September 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • January 2020
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • January 2019
  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012

A WordPress.com Website.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • kimberly theidon
    • Join 3,316 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • kimberly theidon
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...