Some change may finally be around the corner for the University of California, Berkeley, a school that has been plagued by sexual harassment cases against faculty for the last two semesters.
UC Berkeley announced Thursday that it will create a review board to go over cases involving sexual assault and harassment allegations against faculty and staff, the Huffington Post reports. The school also announced the development of a Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment Task Force to investigate and assess the campus climate in terms of these issues, as well as general amping up of campus resources for students, faculty and staff dealing with situations of sexual assault and harassment.
The campus climate is one of questioning the scrutiny of campus officials, whom many criticize for being too lenient in sentencing faculty accused of such crimes, UC Berkeley’s independent student newspaper, The Daily Californian, explains.
“We have an obligation to promote a campus culture in which sexual harassment, sexual violence, stalking and any abuse of power are neither tolerated nor ignored, but proactively prevented,” UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Claude Steele wrote to the community Thursday.
This announcement follows just a week after UC Berkeley’s assistant basketball coach was accused of sexually harassing a sports reporter, and a few weeks after a law school dean resigned over harassment allegations. The task force is expected to deliver a summary report of their findings in July.