{ Collecting Evidence }

Graduates and/or Former Students. Faculty harassers are often habitual sexual predators. In other words, they have repeatedly violated student civil rights for years. To the extent that this is true, there are likely to be many other victims, some of whom may be willing to file a complaint in support of yours. These women could include graduates who have completed their degrees and/or former students who have not yet finished their coursework or dropped out of school.

Locating and contacting women who have had harassing experiences similar to yours can be very challenging. Don't expect any help from the university. In fact, their attitude typically is, "if there was no complaint filed, no civil rights violation occurred, and a silent victim is not a victim." This type of morally bankrupt, self-serving thinking continues in spite of research evidence indicating that only 2% to 3% of women students who are harassed actually file a formal complaint.

If your complaint ever goes to court, your attorney may be successful in forcing the university to provide you with the names and addresses of former students who had classes with the harassing professor. This would significantly simplify the task of identifying and locating them.

Obtaining signed statements from other women who were harassed by the same professor can provide you with powerful evidence to support your complaint. In most instances, you will find that graduates are more willing to come forward because the threat of academic retaliation is not present.

For example, several years ago a female medical school student filed a formal sexual harassment complaint against an M.D. on the faculty. It was a classic case of "he said, she said" and the university was unwilling to thoroughly investigate the professor's behavior by contacting former students.

Frustrated about the entire situation, the young woman searched for other ways to collect supporting evidence. Since she had heard rumors about this professor for years, she decided to personally write to female graduates of the medical school program to inquire about their interaction with this professor. If they had been harassed, the student asked them to put their experiences in writing and send a letter to the university (with a copy to her).

Six young M.D.s wrote letters detailing the sordid behavior of the professor. In view of this additional evidence, the university finally acted to terminate the professor.
 

While the harassing faculty member was ultimately removed from his position, the university itself had been unwilling to conduct a thorough, rigorous investigation after receiving the initial complaint. Once again, we see compelling evidence that universities are more interested in protecting professors than student civil rights.