The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/metoo/)
In her Wednesday evening talk entitled “In the Workplace,” Lara Hamburger outlined the often-overlooked culture of sexual harassment that plagues places of employment, ranging from waitressing joints to well-off corporate headquarters.
For South African activist and former sexual assault survivor, Jenny Nijenhuis, visual art is not a mere form of communication, but something which represents the “first step in healing.”
Chie Matsumoto, Japanese reporter and activist, gave a lecture on Wednesday about her efforts following the #MeToo movement to push for legislation penalizing workplace sexual harassment in Japan.
“This is a community that needs to change a culture—there needs to be a cultural shift here, and this is not just for Cornell, this is the same shift that needs to happen in the world,” said Burke.
As #MeToo Movement garners global attention to raise awareness of sexual misconduct, the Cornell University Program Board will host the founder of the movement to speak about its origins and mission.
To the Editor:
We are writing in regard to the recent guest column, “Being a Graduate Student in a Harvey Weinstein World at Cornell University,” to emphasize that sexual harassment or coercion of any kind has no place at Cornell. The author is absolutely correct that graduate students and, indeed, all members of the Cornell community should be protected from sexual coercion and that academic success should never be linked to such pressures. For that reason, it is important to be aware that Cornell Policy 6.4 clearly prohibits such misconduct. That policy defines “Sexual Coercion” as follows:
“To obtain compliance with sexual acts by using physically or emotionally manipulative actions or statements or expressly or implicitly threatening the person or another person with negative actions. Examples of sexual coercion include statements such as “I will ruin your reputation,” or “I will tell everyone,” or “your career (or education) at Cornell will be over.”
The policy also defines Sexual Harassment as follows:
A form of protected-status harassment that constitutes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other oral, written, visual, verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that unreasonably interferes with the individual’s work or academic performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working or learning environment under any of the following conditions:
Submission to, or rejection of, such conduct either explicitly or implicitly is (1) made a term or condition of an individual’s employment or academic status, or (2) used as a basis for an employment or academic decision affecting that person; or
The conduct is sufficiently (1) persistent, severe or pervasive, and (2) has the purpose or effect of altering the conditions of an individual’s employment or academic pursuits in a way that a reasonable person would find abusive, hostile, or offensive.