In summer 2019, the #MeTooPoliSci research team was awarded a $1million (USD) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the U.S. federal government for a project designed to address the problem of sexual harassment in the academic discipline of political science. The funding comes from the NSF ADVANCE project—a long-standing funding stream for projects addressing gender equity issues in STEM fields.  Our work extends the swell of #MeToo activism emerging from Tarana Burke’s 2007 campaign to stand with survivors of sexual assault, and the work of the #MeTooPoliSci collective.  This project pursues a recommendation from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that scholarly professional associations fight back against academic cultures that breed sexual harassment. 

We proceed from the understanding that sexual harassment is pervasive and impacts the interest, retention, and success of women+ in the field of political science and academe writ large. We employ “women+” to denote cisgender women and transgender, gender non-conforming, femme-identified, non-binary people, as well as other sexual and gender minorities among those impacted by harassment.  In academia, sexual harassment hinders progress of women+ (Zepeda 2018; Settles et al. 2006; Valian 1999; 2004) and is particularly acute in male-dominated workplaces and fields like political science (Rankin et al. 2010; Leskinen, Rabelo, and Cortina 2015).    

In response to this problem, the Women’s Caucus for Political Science (WCPS) organized a #MeTooPoliSci short course at the 2018 APSA annual meeting. The event created an empowering space where women+ discussed their experiences and developed recommendations to improve the culture of the discipline, including tools they could transport to their home institutions. In conjunction with the short course, WCPS coordinated with APSA leadership to survey APSA members about the obstacles faced by women+ at their institutions and in the discipline. The Journal of Women, Politics, & Policy published a special issue of essays in relationship with this short course, edited by Nadia Brown.

Political scientists clearly identified sexual harassment as a barrier for women+. When asked about barriers in the discipline, 34 out of 170 respondents (20%) noted issues with discrimination, harassment, and/or poor implementation of Title IX as obstacles for women+ within the discipline without prompting. For example, one respondent wrote, “[t]he biggest obstacle is sexual harassment. It is an absolute epidemic in political science.” The survey also asked respondents to reflect specifically on the biggest obstacles to success at their own institutions. To this prompt, 34 out of 218 respondents (16%) noted issues with discrimination, harassment, and/or poor implementation of Title IX without prompting. One respondent wrote, “I was severely sexually harassed by the department chair and other male faculty. I taught night classes, and friends on the faculty would have to stay with me to make sure that I was OK.” Another wrote, “Sexual harassment and cis/heterosexism are pervasive… To make matters worse, if you report this mistreatment you are met with intimidation, shaming, and aggressive retaliation.” 

When asked about harassment directly, respondents indicated that experiences and/or concerns about harassment were widespread, especially among women+. For example, 36% experienced colleagues commenting on their physical appearance and 72% received comments from students on their physical appearance in teaching evaluations; three quarters of those respondents identified as non-male. More than two-thirds of women+ had been told to avoid a particular person due to their history of sexual harassment; 82% of those warnings came from other women+. 

APSA leadership responded to the call for action on sexual harassment, albeit cautiously. In early 2019, APSA adopted the NAVEX EthicsPoint tool for tracking sexual harassment at the annual conference. This supplements the procedures adopted in 2017 to deal with violations of the APSA anti-harassment policy. Such policies are a notable improvement, but the policy is limited to addressing behavior at APSA meetings. What’s more, none of these policies addresses the root causes of the problem. Hostile, unprofessional work environments were identified in the NASEM (2018) report as the progenitor of pervasive cultures of sexism and sexual harassment like those identified in the #MeTooPoliSci survey. Indeed, “organizational climate is the single most important factor in determining whether sexual harassment is likely to occur in a work setting” (NASEM 2018, 121). Thus, any attempt to address sexual harassment must tackle the problem of department climate.  Our work endeavors to pursue this aim.