The least of the grievances concerned recurring reports of women and people of color being ignored, slighted and talked over...Poisonous emails, copied to multiple parties, have been used to harass people of color and women. We also heard stories of sexual harassment. Openly sexist comments have been made to female faculty and office staff. Even female department chairs are not immune to unwanted sexually suggestive statements. Altogether, the climate in certain departments is, as one interlocutor phrased it, “testosterone heavy” and productive of a “macho culture."

Diversity hiring is not a priority in the department. We have a faculty of color and we don’t want her.--Harpur Faculty Conversation

Similarly, women and people of color are less likely to be assigned to teach graduate seminars. Some male faculty members are said to view this gender-segregated division of academic labor as part of the natural order of things: women, with their “maternal nature,” are better suited to mentoring undergraduates. Accordingly, there were reports of male faculty guiding students in need of special nurturing to their female colleagues. Some faculty members report that undergraduate mentoring in their departments has become feminized, treated as women’s work and therefore undervalued. Undergraduates, male and female, are not slow to grasp the message: they are generally more demanding of female faculty. This phenomenon has racial as well as gender dimensions. Male faculty of color report similar experiences of overwork and under appreciation in their departments.

I know I'd be a fool to be surprised about this but it still makes me sick. I have had mostly older white, male professors and I just like them so much and have so must respect for them that it makes me sick to know that some of them might be doing this, and that many of them could be witness to it. Especially when these are the people from whom we learn about microaggression, sexism, etc.

I've written so, so many papers about the fucked-up-ness of "women with their 'maternal nature.'" And some of the men here are still saying or implying it. Say all you want about sexism being everywhere, but I'd at least hope that a "premier" public university would be a bit more free from it. And "old boy's club"? This university is young. They have no two-hundred year tradition here, and in my mind that makes the people who perpetrate this semi-invented attitude even bigger pricks.