Behind the MOOC Harassment Charges That Stunned MIT

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 23, 2015 @08:32AM from the professors-behaving-badly dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The complainant in a sexual harassment case has come forward and told her story about what happened when she was a student in a MOOC led by a rockstar professor. "It would take almost a year before Harbi, with the help of MIT’s investigators, said she came to understand that Lewin’s interest in her was not motivated by empathy, and that their first conversations included inappropriate language. Shortly after contacting her, Harbi said, Lewin quickly moved their friendship into uncomfortable territory, and she was pushed to participate in online sexual role-playing and send naked pictures and videos of herself."

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Re:Not trying to excuse what he did by XXongo · 2015-01-23 09:36 · Score: 5, Informative

She thought she was sending naked pictures and could maybe win some extra points when grade time came around but it turned out she was just sending naked pictures with no long game payout and that's harassment.
More like she was told she would not get good grades if she didn't and she really needed this. Fear can do weird things to people.
From the article, it was apparently an open course online, with no grades and no credit. (And she was in another country, so there was no personal contact, either.)