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Behind the MOOC Harassment Charges That Stunned MIT
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."
So you see nothing wrong with a professor using his status to obtain sexual favors?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Even if they are offered?
I've a friend who spent some time as a college level instructor and on quite a few occasions would have rather attractive co-ed here or there who would put on the water works or even make veiled sexual offers if he to try to get him to bump their grade or allow late work to be turned in for full credit.
My friend was at least smart and professional enough to refuse all such advances, not all are so.
I'm not excusing anything, I've just heard plenty from the other side.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I actively groomed my wife to marry me through Charm and Seduction. If we had not married would it then be harassment a year later if she had decided she didn't like me for whatever reason?
Sadly, after the point in time a woman decides she doesn't like you, a single flirt could cause all previous grooming to be used against you as evidence of a history of harassment. Happened to a person I know. Sad, but true.
So while no-one was physically compelled to send anything, it sure sounds as if they were psychologically compelled.
Well, it does sound like he lied to them (about exclusivity).
Lewin confessed his love for several of them, chat logs show, but often denied those feelings to women who asked about the others.
It's probably just me being cynical, but had the first degree women friends of the Professor on Facebook not replied to that first woman saying that they were also in an online sexual relationship with the Professor, then the first woman wouldn't have considered his behavior sexual harassment, and she would have never retroactively taken back her consent to the online relationship.
She also said she felt trap near the end, but really how trapped could she have been? She started all of this more than a year after the fact. Wasn't she finished with the course by that time? Shouldn't the power relationship be nullified once all the grades are in and the course finished? Also the Professor was already pushing 80 years old and had already retired? How much power did have from across the ocean as an 80 year old?
Did he try to blackmail her with the pictures he already had? From the detailed article, that doesn't seem to be the case. If the detail of him lying about other women is any indication, that seems to be the most relevant part of her grievance, and that's how he "psychologically compelled" her -- by lying to her. And by the time she found out about the online infidelity, she was already emotionally attached to him, that's why she felt trapped (at least, that would be my cynical interpretation of her statements, because I just don't buy the I-felt trapped-because-he-kept-on-contacted-me reason.).