Political Quotes

“Some universities protect predatory professors with slaps on the wrist and secrecy, just like the Catholic Church sheltered child-molesting priests for many decades. The incidents described in this report are lurid and disturbing. One graduate student was told regularly by Dr. Slater that she would teach better if she did not wear underwear. He asked another graduate student to give women pointers on oral sex techniques. Dr. Slater himself admitted that he gave an employee a vegetable- shaped vibrator and that he frequently commented to his employees and students about the appearance of women. My staff spoke with one female grad student who was required to attend a strip club in order to discuss her academic work with Dr. Slater. The woman has since left the field of astronomy. The second female grad student told us that, during a one-on-one work meeting with Dr. Slater, he told her that all of the other graduate students had had sex at his house, that he had video cameras, and asked when she would join him to have sex there. She transferred out of Dr. Slater's lab, losing years of work. This is a significant reason as to why women hold fewer than one- third of the faculty positions in science and engineering. Dr. Slater has said he is now reformed, which may be the case, but his actions, however lurid, are just symptoms of a larger problem of how to effectively deal with sexual harassment in academia. I agree with Dr.…”