Tag: sexual harassment

On Avital Ronell, Nimrod Reitman, and Sexual Harassment in the Academy

I wrote a piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education about the Avital Ronell/Nimrod Reitman sexual harassment story. Here are some excerpts: The question of sex, of Ronell’s work and stature in academe, of literary theory or critical theory or the academic left, of the supposed hypocrisy of the scholars who rallied to her side, of the fact that the alleged harasser is a woman and gay while the alleged victim is a man and gay — all of this, if one reads Reitman’s complaint, seems a little beside the point. And has, I think, clouded the fundamental issue. Or issues. What’s clear from the complaint is just how much energy and attention — both related and unrelated to academic matters — […]

What we talk about when we talk about sex in the academy

I have a piece in The Chronicle Review about a genre that has annoyed me for some time: Every few years an essay appears that treats the question of sexual harassment in the academy as an occasion to muse on the murky boundaries of teaching and sex. While a staple of the genre is the self-serving apologia for an older male harasser, the authors are not always old or male. And though some defend sex between students and professors, many do not. These latter writers have something finer, more Greek, in mind. They seek not a congress of bodies but a union of souls. Eros is their muse, knowledge their desire. What the rest of us don’t see — with our roving […]

Did Jill Abramson Plagiarize Ian Milhiser?

Jill Abramson, the former executive editor of the New York Times, has an article in the current issue of New York making the case for the impeachment of Clarence Thomas. I don’t have any problems with the substance of the piece, though I don’t think Abramson breaks much new ground on the Thomas sexual harassment front or with respect to the fact that Thomas committed perjury in his Senate confirmation hearings. (Having co-authored, with Jane Mayer, the book on Thomas and Anita Hill, Abramson knows this case better than almost anyone.) My problem is that Abramson seems to have lifted, sometimes word-for-word, an extended passage from a October 2016 blog post by Ian Milhiser. Here is Milhiser: He [Clarence Thomas] joined the majority […]

Trump Everlasting

I’m glad I’m not a journalist. I don’t think I could handle the whiplash of the ever-changing story line, the way a grand historical narrative gets revised, day to day, the way it seems to change, week to week, often on a dime. Or a $1.5 trillion tax cut. In my Guardian digest this week, I deal with the media’s memory, taxes, the state of the GOP, judges, sexual harassment, and leave you at the end with my assessment of where we are. Here’s a preview: Last week, after the victory of Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama’s senatorial election, the media began reporting that the Republican party was facing an epic disaster. Citing insider talk of a “political earthquake” and a “party in turmoil,” the Washington Post anticipated a […]

When Libertarian Judges Rule

Prominent libertarian jurist Alex Kozinski has been accused of sexual harassment by six women, all of them former clerks or employees. One of the women is Heidi Bond. In a statement, Bond gives a fuller description of Judge Kozinski’s rule, sexual and non-sexual, in the workplace. One day, my judge found out I had been reading romance novels over my dinner break. He called me (he was in San Francisco for hearings; I had stayed in the office in Pasadena) when one of my co-clerks idly mentioned it to him as an amusing aside. Romance novels, he said, were a terrible addiction, like drugs, and something like porn for women, and he didn’t want me to read them any more. […]

Because of her, it went well with him: Weinstein, Wieseltier, and the Enablers of Sexual Harassment

Part of this week’s Torah portion, from Genesis 12, tells the story of a famine in Canaan that drives Abram and Sarai (the names of Abraham and Sarah before they became Abraham and Sarah) to Egypt. As they near Egypt, Abram fears that Sarai will be sexually desired there and that he’ll be killed so that she can be taken. Abram devises a plan. Sarai should pretend to be his sister. That way, she’ll be taken but he won’t be killed in the process. “Please say that you are my sister,” he says, “that it may go well with me because of you.” And that’s what happens. Sarai is taken by Pharaoh (none of this is described as rape; it’s all part […]

Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand At Work: The Harvey Weinstein Story

Of all the sentences I’ve read on the Harvey Weinstein story, this one, from the New York Times, was the most poignant: More established actresses were fearful of speaking out because they had work; less established ones were scared because they did not. In virtually every oppressive workplace regime—and other types of oppressive regimes—you see the same phenomenon. Outsiders, from the comfort and ease of their position, wonder why no one inside the regime speak ups and walks out; insiders know it’s not so easy. Everyone inside the regime—even its victims, especially its victims—has a very good reason to keep silent. Everyone has a very good reason to think that it’s the job of someone else to speak out. Those […]

The Prison House of Labor

When Kathy Saumier learned that a new factory was coming to town, it seemed as if there really was—as that absurdist bit of suburban wisdom from The Graduate has it—a great future in plastics.  Landis Plastics, to be exact.  Landis, a family-owned company based in Illinois, makes containers for yogurt and cottage cheese.  The company was opening a plant in Solvay, New York, not far from Syracuse where Saumier lived.  She applied for a job.  “It’s a new place,” she thought.  “It’s more money.  It sounded good.”  New York Governor Mario Cuomo thought so too.  With the help of Solvay officials, Cuomo’s administration had put together an $8.5 million package of tax breaks, cheap electricity, and direct aid to lure […]