Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - No Surprise: ASUU Opposing Campus Sexual Harassment Bill

Thanks Bolaji. I support your proposed revisions to and expansion of the bill. The only thing I would caution against is that we should not construct an equivalence between the usual manipulative (and yes, in some cases, seductive) behavior of students, who have absolutely no power over their lecturers (in the Nigerian context at least) and the sexual harassment of students by their lecturers. The power asymmetry and the abuse of authority makes sexual predation by lecturers an especially egregious crime. Students, both male and female and in all parts of the world, will try to manipulate their teachers or ingratiate themselves to their teachers and mentors as a way of getting better grades or getting away with doing little or no work. We should not criminalize this youthful behavior. Part of being a lecturer is the maturity and self-discipline to discern and deflect such manipulative behavior. Only in cases where the student is engaging in blatantly seductive behavior should sanctions apply and even then neither the behavior nor the prescribed legal consequence should be equated to the sexual offenses of lecturers.

On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 5:47 PM, Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Moses and My People:

1.  ASUU always confuses autonomy with independence, constantly referring to an 2009 Agreement that has not even been renewed, and has been violated in several ways in the breach.  Its leadership should be better guided.

2.  I support this legislation.....but I think that it should be:

     (i) made clear that it involves ALL sexual harassment, including homosexual ones.  My first

         astonishment (which, on second thought was naive, coming from the US) when I was VC at Otuoke , 

         was when I suggested that female staff quarters be allowed within a walled compound of a female hostel that 

         was being initially made available to us for rent. (There were some single-room apartments available).  The 

         outcry was that not only would some of the female lecturers make some students cook for them in servitude, but 

         also there could be oppressive lesbianism.  I was shocked, and so we had to WALL OFF the single-room apartments 

         from the rest of the hostel, and use them to house male and female lecturers.

 

     (ii) extended to students who harass lecturers. I had heard of this angle before going to Nigeria, and 

          made it a point to mention it in my first Orientation speech, and in MANY statements that I made on 

          the matter -  which was frequent.  The first time I mentioned it, many students - particularly the male 

          students - giggled knowingly, and the female students giggled nervously.  Some male lecturers 

          came  later to thank me for it, while some female lecturers agreed, almost as if the female students 

          deserved what they got.  I think that it is this belief that the female students are co-conspirators in 

         their own victimization that has made this practice to continue. [By the way, I always put an incestuous spin on the matter 

         by stating in speeches to the University community that we lecturers were "in loco parentis" to our 

         students, and hence could not be sleeping with them, or making it otherwise difficult to progress in 

         their studies, and that we should be looking out for the best interest.  I also asked how they would feel if their own daughters (say, 

         my own three daughters) were being  harrassed where they were  studying.  Students always looked at  each other nodding 

         concerning  the reference to incest.]

    (iii)  extended with a Whistle-blower protection be added - maybe it has.  Fear of victimization is real.

     (iv)  extended such that all POWER RELATIONSHIP sexual victimization/corruption in the public/private 

            workpace should be criminally punished, not just the education sector.  When you use your office - 

            no matter what it is, in the education or otherwise - to extract  a private (sexual) favor, that is 

            corruption. ASUU is right on that  one. To that extent, some existing laws may even be used while 

            this new one is being crafted.

 

3.  Sexual harrassment in the university space is not confined to Nigeria, and is actually an ongoing problem in the United States - but its effect on Nigeria may be asymmetric.  It is also not new.  When I was an undergraduate student at Ife in the early-to-mid 70s, a University lecturer was harrassing my then girl-friend, and she told me. (She is dead now).  I went straight up to him in his office, and asked him to stop "troubling" my girl-friend.  Ha, he said, he did not know he was my girl-friend, and laid his hands off her from there on. Two or three years later, he was one of several Unife lecturers FIRED for "moral turpitude".  Unfortunately, he got a job later at UniLag, but I think that he had modulated his behavior - or I hope.  At Otuoke, I had only one incident: a student was being harassed by a non-academic staff, and it was brought to my notice.   He was even using my name in familiarity. I called him to my office, and told me what I knew.  He denied with his father and mother's name, but when I told him that I had a phone conversation that was recorded by the female student, he immediately went on his knees and promised NEVER to do it again.  That was also what I told some staff - that in this day of electronic gadgetry, corrupt Don Juans can be caught in the act!  Beware You-Tube....

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

Shaking his head

On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 11:21 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:

I posted the link to a tape of a University of Ilorin HOD attempting to rape one of his students in his office and boasting about previous rapes of the same student as well as others. There was no reaction from the usual noisemaking ASUU-affiliated members of this list, who impulsively flock, like flies to spoilt food, to defend ASUU when it comes to matters of the pocket and the union's perennial financial blackmails misnamed strikes. They avoided the topic like a plague. Even our honorable home-based colleagues, who are usually the lone voices of rectitude from the other side of the Atlantic, stayed away from the topic.

The scandal has been raging for several weeks now but ASUU, whether national or the local UniIlorin branch, has yet to issue even a statement. Now we know why. That mediocrity-promoting, money-grabbing body of enablers and perpetrators is, alas, opposed to any effort to hold the large gang of rapist-lecturers and sexual abusers on our campuses accountable. Read the story below and weep for higher education or what's left of it in Nigeria. As usual, when it comes to being held accountable, they shamelessly run and hide under "university autonomy." But somehow, the narrative of autonomy never extends to monetary and compensation issues. ASUU exists simply to help its members to a bigger share of the proverbial national cake while protecting them from having to actually do their jobs and from being held accountable for this failure and for crimes against students.

What a shame! Nonsense!

https://www.thecable.ng/sex-marks-bill-violation-rights-say-lecturers

'Sex-for-marks bill' is a violation of our rights, say lecturers

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The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) says the 2016 sexual harassment bill before the senate will undermine the autonomy of universities.

Biodun Ogunyemi, president of the union, said this at a public hearing on the bill, organised by the senate committee on judiciary, human rights and legal matters.

The sexual harassment bill was sponsored by Ovie Omo-Agege (LP- Delta Central) and co-sponsored by 57 other senators.

The bill seeks to criminalise sexual harassment in tertiary institutions and  among other things, proposes a five-year jail term for lecturers found guilty of sexual harassment of students.

Ogunyemi said universities were established by law as autonomous bodies, adding that there were laws that clearly articulated redress procedures.

"As a global norm, universities and other tertiary institutions are established by law as autonomous bodies and have their own laws regulating their affairs," he said.

"This includes misconduct generally among both staff and students, with clearly articulated appropriate redress mechanism.

"Any law or bill which seeks to supplant these laws violates the university autonomy.

"In this particular instance, the bill violates the federal government of Nigeria and ASUU agreement of 2009 and as such should be rejected."

He said that the bill was discriminatory because it was targeted at educators.

According to Ogunyemi, it is unfair to come up with such a bill; sexual harassment is a societal problem and not peculiar to tertiary institutions.

He also said that the bill was a violation of section 42(1) of the 1999 constitution, adding that it was embarrassing that the legislative arm could seek to make such law that would violate the constitution.

Ogunyemi also pointed out that besides violating the constitution, the bill failed to take cognizance of various extant legislation that adequately dealt with sexual offences.

Faulting the bill, he said it failed to provide convincing evidence to show that sexual harassment in tertiary institutions had attained a higher magnitude than other spheres of the society.

"The bill is discriminatory, selective, spiteful, and impulsive and lacks logic and any intellectual base by attacking the character and persons of those in tertiary institutions rather than addressing the issue holistically," he said.

"Furthermore, the bill is dangerous and inimical to the institutions as it contains several loose and ambiguous words and terms which could also be used to harass, intimidate, victimise and persecute, especially lecturers, through false accusation."

The National Universities Commission (NUC), on the other hand, supported the introduction of the bill "in view of its relevance" and called for its passage.

Julius Okogie, executive secretary of the commission, said while federal and state universities had administrative structures for handling grievances, there was nothing wrong in having a legislation to help with that.

"University miscellaneous provision act gives them power to formulate policies and by-laws to guide them and most institutions have structures to handle these incidences," he said.

"However, there is nothing wrong if there is a legislation to add to what is on ground. We are only saying that universities are doing something about sexual harassment, which may not be enough".

Okojie called on the senate to extend the scope of the bill to cover primary and secondary schools.

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Copyright 2016 TheCable. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.thecable.ng as the source.

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