#MeToo —A Town Hall Meeting on Transforming a Culture of Sexual Exploitation and Harassment in the Academy and Scholarly Professions

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

This town hall meeting speaks to contemporary concerns about the ways in which power differentials and dominant social norms and practices have led to sexual harassment, abuse, and intimidation in scientific and academic workplaces. The forum begins with reflections on this topic as well as on the issues involved in identifying inappropriate practices, the responsibility and options of social institutions for addressing sexual misconduct, and strategies that can be invoked to protect individuals and to systematically enable social and structural change. Each invited speaker will talk briefly from the vantage of their observations and expertise, with a moderated open forum across panelists and with the audience. The findings, research, and data relevant to identifying the scope and forms of sexual misconduct will be considered and what we need to ask and know fully noted.

The aim of this town hall meeting is to elevate how we address reducing sexual violence, intimidation, and harassment within the research and academic environments in which students, faculty, research professionals, support workers, and other academic and research personnel live and work. The forum is also designed to create space to hear from attendees so that AERA and other scientific and scholarly associations committed to supportive, safe, and just environments can benefit from this convening. Based on this AERA session and other work underway, we hope to better define what we can do—take actions (e.g., in our codes of ethics, training workshops, membership surveys, deans conferences), gather critical data and report on findings, or foster more inclusive environments within our own purview that can best contribute to eradicating sexual exploitation and harassment and producing tangible change.

Sub Unit

• AERA Sessions

Cosponsor

• Committee on Scholars and Advocates for Gender Equity in Education

Chairs

• Felice J. Levine, American Educational Research Association

• Laura L. Namy, Society for Research in Child Development

Participants

• Rhonda Davis, National Science Foundation

• Paula England, New York University

• Shaun R. Harper, University of Southern California

• Shirley M. Malcom, American Association for the Advancement of Science

• Charol Shakeshaft, Virginia Commonwealth University