UCC expresses concern as details of harassment complaint become public

UNIVERSITY College Cork has yesterday expressed grave concern about how details of an internal sexual harassment complaint have become public on the internet.

The college is under pressure from academics around the world over claims it is unfairly punishing an employee who showed a journal article about the oral sex habits of fruit bats to a female colleague in her office. They, and Dr Dylan Evans, a behavioural science lecturer at UCC’s school of medicine, argue that it contradicts principles of academic freedom to punish him for discussing research with a colleague.

The controversy relates to sanctions against Dr Evans after external investigators upheld a complaint that he sexually harassed his colleague last November by showing her the article. Her complaints about previous alleged instances of sexual harassment by him were not upheld. UCC president Dr Michael Murphy did not take disciplinary action as the investigators’ report in February said that, while it was reasonable for the colleague to be offended by a joke with sexual innuendo, the 43-year-old academic had not intended to cause offence. He instead told Dr Evans to undergo training and counselling and that his behaviour will be monitored by his head-of- school for two years.

About 2,500 people have signed an online petition to revoke the sanctions following an article about the case on American news website, The Huffington Post, which featured an open letter from Dr Evans to international academics.

A video on the YouTube website shows internal UCC documents, including the original letter of complaint, the investigators’ report and a letter from Dr Murphy to Dr Evans, all with the complainant’s name blacked out. UCC said it views with the utmost gravity the posting of confidential documentation about the case to social media platforms, in contravention of the college’s well-established procedure.

It said the failure of the university, or parties to those procedures, to maintain confidence around them impinges on the rights of staff who feel the need to make a complaint against another staff member. “The rights of staff who may wish to take similar action in future or defend themselves against such allegations would also be affected were confidentiality to be broken in such a manner,” it said.

A spokesperson said he could not comment on whether the publication of the documents was under investigation or about the international campaign in relation to academic freedom which is calling on a reversal of the sanctions.

The Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT), which last month asked Dr Murphy to reconsider the sanction, said it is preparing to refer the matter to the Labour Relations Commission’s rights commissioner service.

“There’s no justification for two years of punishment arising out of an incident where one person out of 11 who was shown an academic article took offence,” said IFUT general secretary Mike Jennings.

“We are very concerned about academic freedom here. If an academic was to show a research paper on the rights of Palestinians to a colleague and that person was politically offended, is that grounds for complaint?”