For the past three months, Student Life has been investigating allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct between a faculty member and his students. The results of this in depth reporting appear on today’s front page.
In our investigation, we found something more troublesome than a professor abusing his position of power. This is not to say that we take the subject matter lightly; rather, former Earth and Planetary Sciences professor Joshua Smith’s multiple instances of inappropriate conduct with his students are extremely troublesome to us. This conduct made a student uncomfortable enough to leave the University and led to Smith’s eventual resignation. In short, these are no trivial matters.
Yet, amidst all this inappropriate behavior, it is the University’s conduct that we find the most appalling. Both the University’s sluggish investigation into allegations against Smith and their current silence on the matter are incredibly irresponsible ways of handling matters of extreme consequence.
As students at this University, we would hope that any legitimate allegations of a professor’s sexual misconduct be addressed in a thorough and prompt manner. We expect that the University would value the importance of responding to such claims quickly as to curtail any inappropriate behavior that could likely be continuing.
We do not want a split-second decision; important matters do take time to deliberate. But we certainly do expect a timely response and certainly not the two years that it took the University to act in response to graduate student Julia Heathcote’s accusation.
We find this lag in reaction time nothing short of appalling. That a professor remained at our University and taught for four semesters, after administrators had been made aware of and investigated his misconduct, is a shocking disservice to the students who worked with him. That it took two additional cases of sexual misconduct to finally convince the University that Smith was a threat to his students troubles us even more.
It is imperative that the University take care of any situation that involves inappropriate conduct of professors in an appropriately timely manner. Failing to do so only allows dangerous behavior to continue and for the professor to cause additional injury to his students. In this case, it meant that Smith’s harmful behavior continued long enough and frequently enough for a student to feel uncomfortable enough as to discontinue her studies at the University.
Today, things have not gotten any better. We find it negligent of the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department and the University administration to withhold any and all information regarding Smith’s resignation from their community. With the exception of a few professors who recognized the gravity of this situation and spoke with us under anonymity, we found all of our requests for comment turned down. This is not another fraternity party gone awry or Student Union meeting- – this is a professor who, on multiple occasions, has had inappropriate sexual conduct with his students. This is information that could be of enormous consequence to those who work with Smith in the future. This is not something that can be swept under any rug.
Within the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, little has been done to address the policies that allowed for inappropriate conduct to occur in the first place. No policies have been set in place regarding professors sharing rooms with their students during field trips – a situation which seems to open the doors to inappropriate behavior. While action cannot be taken to remedy past mistakes, future troubles can be evaded with a recognition of what went wrong and policies that prevent such situations.
At Student Life, we are very used to hearing the words, “no comment.” We do not take it personally when an e-mail goes unreturned or a phone call unanswered. We respect the rights of individuals to make decisions regarding their willingness to speak to the press. Yet in a case of such magnitude, one that bears directly on the well-being of the students who attend this institution, we do not find such silence acceptable.
Student Life calls on the University to break the silence and take action on these matters of incredible importance to this community.