Author: Kyle Plantz / Source: Science News
Science is catching up to Hollywood in coming to terms with its own #MeToo moment. In the last year or so, several high-profile scientists left their posts after investigations of sexual harassment allegations, including geneticist Francisco Ayala, cancer biologist Inder Verma and astrophysicist Christian Ott.
But getting rid of the “bad actors” isn’t enough, according to a report released in June by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (SN Online: 6/22/18). The report, along with the rise of #MeToo in science, has begun to spur institutional changes.The problem is widespread in the United States, according to the report. Of nearly 18,000 female undergraduate and graduate students surveyed at the University of Texas System, 20 percent of the science students, 27 percent of the engineering students and 47 percent of the medical students said they had experienced sexual harassment from faculty or staff.
“We recognize that we need to change the culture and environment that is allowing sexual harassment to continue,” Victor Dzau, president of the National Academy of Medicine, said in Washington, D.C., in November at a workshop on best practices for preventing sexual harassment.
As of October, the National Science Foundation requires institutions to report confirmed cases of harassment by researchers who are receiving NSF funding. Failure to do so could result in the removal of scientists from a project or termination of funding. The Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, however, have been under fire for not amending policies quickly enough or going far enough to punish abusers who receive government funding.
“There are a lot of individuals in academia and scientists specifically that are eager for change and don’t really see why it’s taking so long,” says Kate Clancy, an anthropologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a coauthor of the National Academies report.
#MeToo in academia
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