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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."
Woo hoo!
Another ahrassment thread. I'm here with a big bag of popcorn and ready to post.
Wiggle out of this one, harassment denialists!
SJW n. One who posts facts.
But how exactly did he force them to do what they did *Over the internet*
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Tell me more about how women are being oppressed by men and how I, as a man, should be ashamed of myself.
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.
WTF! How a 32 years old private English tutor can naively believe sending naked pictures was not involving her into sexual activities? I would consider this as consent, dot period. Perhaps Lewin was infringing the MIT policies, however I would not qualify this as harassment since she, as an adult, decided to go ahead with this from the beginning.
Achille Talon
Hop!
You obviously read the article, but didn't comprehend it. Nowhere does your quoted text say how the professor coerced the student, only that he did.
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.
No, wrong wrong wrong wrong. Goddamnit how many illiterate people manage to get this far on Slashdot?! From THE FUCKING ARTICLE:
What may be most difficult to understand, Harbi said, is why anyone would respond to Lewin’s requests. Harbi, who is originally from Algiers, Algeria, is open about having been sexually assaulted in the past, and said she struggles with abandonment issues. The more she tried to distance herself from Lewin, she said, the more he attempted to contact her through email and social media. Ultimately, Harbi said, she felt forced to “obey.”
“We all felt trapped,” Harbi said.
Dziech said Harbi’s history as a victim of sexual assault was relevant.
“That stays with you all of your life,” Dziech, who this quarter teaches a seminar on child and adolescent abuse, said. “You never get beyond it no matter how much therapy. It’s terrifying, and it raises another problem for all institutions: They can never know the background of the student -- in what way the student is vulnerable.”
Slashdot: The place where the most "interesting" and "insightful" comments are completely made up fantasies about what actually happened.
So what you're saying is women are weaker and more manipulable than men?
What he is saying is that people with psychological issues are more vulnerable to manipulation that those without them.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
So what you're saying is women are weaker and more manipulable than men?
I think what he was saying is that people who have been abused in the past are more likely to permit abuse again.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But it happened on the Internet!
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Look ladies, yea I'm a middle aged white male, but why do some of you let these things happen to you?
Now I'm not saying this guy doesn't deserve to be castigated for demeaning women, but shesh ladies, you need to have some self respect. I'm not saying this wasn't harassment, but don't let some scumbag do this kind of thing to you. Where is the outcry for the way this woman was raised? Where is the outcry for the mentalities that lead to a woman who cannot or will not stand up for herself? Who thinks that this kind of behavior is OK? That asking for and expecting racy pictures over the internet is something you can do? Why do we see situations where women are OBVIOUSLY bullied into doing things they wouldn't or didn't really want to do?
I raised my daughter to not be afraid to say no and mean it. To tell these abusers to take a hike, don't be manipulated into doing things you don't want to. If they don't respect you, they are not worth dealing with. Don't suffer fools who disrespect you and above all, respect yourself enough to say "NO WAY scumbag!" and mean it regardless who's asking or what position they hold.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Yeah! They are poor things incapable to be responsible of what they engage into, in particular if they are 32 years old and adults. So, beware!
Achille Talon
Hop!
Then he should have left the "women" part out of it. Both men and women suffer from abuse, from their same sex and the opposite sex. We'd be better off focusing on preventing abuse in general, instead of specifically focusing on "man abuses woman" cases. There are many woman-against-man, woman-against-woman, and man-against-man abuse cases that don't get the attention they deserve because they're seen as less important.
I read the article. I'm just claiming bullshit on the argument that somehow this physics professor is such a master psychological manipulator that he coerced dozens of women halfway across the world to send him nudes over the internet for no good reason.
If you're *that* emotionally troubled with abandonment issues that you're sending a guy over the internet that has no leverage over you nudes, I dont see how you can deal with offline interactions period.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
True, though I don't see many people wearing "I was abused in the past" signs around their necks... maybe I'm just not as good at reading people as others are.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Whether or not there was a promise of quid quo, to trade dirty pictures with someone who is presently one's student is unacceptable. But you know what? I'm so numb from the constant barrage of social justice stories that I just don't give a shit anymore. Enough already.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Select text, right click, select "Search DuckDuckGo for $Text".
Enter.
You're welcome.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Yeah, and don't tell me you're using an Apple one-button mouse and that I'm an insensitive clod.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Then he should have left the "women" part out of it.
Given that the case in question revolves around a guy supposedly manipulating women, I don't think it's unreasonable for the OP to frame the statement in terms of female victims. But I agree that abuse in general needs to be prevented.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
MOOC = Massive Open Online Course.
That one threw me too because the particular instance of MIT's MOOC has traditionally been referred to as MIT Open Courseware since it started. Many other institutions have started them since MIT. (Stanford, Harvard, Cornell etc..)
It is a failure of communication to either assume the jargon is something everyone knows or to throw out an acronym and not explain what it is the first time it is used in the article. It is traditionally seen as bad form in academic articles however in the arts that same mechanism is used to draw interest (Oh! I wander what that is?!) much the same way that click bait article titles are designed. Both attempt to draw one in with either subtle or blatant missing information. It is a creative device in the arts but is looked upon as bad form in academia so you are totally right for bringing that up.
So what you're saying is women are weaker and more manipulable than men?
No, only that THESE women where without the necessary self respect to RESIST this dirt bag and tell him to get lost. This lack of self respect is not related to gender, even though their gender was apparently part of the reason they where targets.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
i think the argument is that she couldn't refuse since the professor was in a position of power.
I didn't think the grades from these courses counted for anything (if they even were grades) so where exactly did the power come from? She was under no obligation to keep up with the course and if someone started asking me fore nudes I'd just learn physics some other way.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So you didn't watch how the bullies worked all this out on the playground as a kid? Or better yet, when you where an adult, watch your kids playing with a group of kids?
Seemed pretty straight forward to me how the abusers identify likely targets and how the suitable targets would react to situations. Even as adults, the behaviors are similar, even if the fine details of how it's done are a bit more nuanced.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
it's one thing to bash the stupid articles complaining about how their aren't enough white chicks in programming or whatever, but this shit is straight up sexual harassment. Of course, this shit happens just as often if not more with "liberal arts" professors, so no this isn't why "there are so few women in STEM" but it's just creepy and unprofessional bullshit. I work in education, I know there are a lot of, pardon the frankness, "slutty" women who come on to you, but dude, have some fucking professionalism, especially as some MIT bigshot....again, disgusting.
I fucked up and actually read the article. They'll probably take my /. posting privileges away, I know. Anyway, apparently as soon as she started the FB group for the course Lewin contacted her to chat. She was excited about the attentiveness of the professor, and opened up that she had anxiety issues (was on medication) and he said through the course he would help her get her self-confidence back.
So basically yeah, she opened up about her psychological problems, and he saw a victim he could manipulate, and proceeded to do so.
A lot of harassment claims are bullshit, no doubt. But this guy is a pretty open and shut case. He used his position of authority to manipulate vulnerable women into providing him with sexual jollies. That's kind of the definition of sexual harassment.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
If you're *that* emotionally troubled with abandonment issues that you're sending a guy over the internet that has no leverage over you nudes, I dont see how you can deal with offline interactions period.
Yes, it's sad how some people can't deal with life. In this case, probably due at least in part due to prior instances of abuse. But you know what's even more sad than that? That some people take advantage of them because of how sad their lives are. You know what's almost as sad as that? The people whose lives are so empty and self-esteem so low that they have to talk shit about people who have been taken advantage of repeatedly.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Yeah, and don't tell me you're using an Apple one-button mouse and that I'm an insensitive clod.
Where have you been? Apple got rid of that button a while ago.
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
So what you're saying is women are weaker and more manipulable than men?
Nope. You need to learn to read and reason logically. He said no such thing at all. This is simply you layering whatever the hell is swimming round inside your own head on top.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
anyone else coming?
Nope, not even breathing heavy.
I grant that I wouldn't want endless stories about this sort of thing, but Walter Lewin is a special case. He's possibly the most celebrated (relatively) current physics lecturer there is - if you have any interest at all you should seek out some of the videos of his lectures, they are terrific. And that's reasonably nerdy. It's also MOOC (massive open online course) related, and that's a new thing and internet-centric.
I appreciate this update to the previous story about his removal, the lack of any sort of real explanation left me with a rather bitter taste in my mouth. It still... the new story says that all of the evidence of his transgression came from his accuser, which... well. It would have been nice if they had thrown in a line about confirming the chat logs with Facebook, and an additional something about confirming that it was indeed him who said / sent these things and not just someone who had access to his account (when I worked at a distance learning program, I had access to all of the faculties' account pages - this is what the article says he used as proof of his identity to the student). But I'm able to make the assumption that the people investigating this are not completely incompetent. I had come away from the previous story unclear on just how this harassment had taken place, so the new story gives me a bit of satisfaction in that this was indeed unacceptable behavior.
I'm a physics professor at a mid-sized non-MIT university. I teach introductory physics using a "flipped" classroom, and I have in the past used Lewin's 8.01 lectures on YouTube as one of several online learning references for my students.
They are really good lectures, and I consider them a valuable tool for my students. But I also agree with MIT's decision to remove them from the OCW site: Lewin's alleged behavior is reprehensible and I do not want to promote him in my course.
So my question is, can anyone here suggest a replacement for his set of 8.01 lecture videos? I've found a few online, but nothing so far that is as high-quality as what I've been using from MIT. Suggestions are welcome! (and no, Khan Academy isn't there yet.)
Murphy's law: the semester started this week.
If you're *that* emotionally troubled with abandonment issues that you're sending a guy over the internet that has no leverage over you nudes, I dont see how you can deal with offline interactions period.
You clearly have no idea how the psychology of abuse works then. Most people think of their bodies and belonging to them and as being something they need to protect by not allowing others access. Abuse victims have had those ideas shattered, and even if consciously they understand them at a subconscious level it's all screwed up. No amount of therapy can completely fix it.
Mental illness is often like that. People with depression can interact pretty much normally most of the time, but it doesn't mean they are not suffering from a genuine and debilitating illness. Hopefully more people will come to recognize how serious mental illness actually is, and get past the largely incorrect stereotypes that lead them to views like yours.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
That's addressed in the article.
The fact you say "The article" makes me wonder if you read either. There are two...
The thing is, I read both articles. Neither of them address the position of power issue. One says "she felt trapped". But how? That makes NO SENSE when you can so easily block or otherwise ignore people communicating solely over social media, which offer many means for blocking annoying people. There is no means of trapping someone.
I would understand how someone might "feel trapped" if they were a student attending a college into which they had put forward substantial tuition. I would understand if they were to gain credit from a course needed to move forward in education. Even just being in physical proximity I could see it. There are a lot of circumstances in which I can image someone feeling trapped in some way, where there was a small amount of power to leverage - but not in this case. The course was free, the grades if any counted for nothing. The moment the contact started getting lewd the person should have broke off contact, and could easily have done so.
I'll leave the RRTFA to the person willing to make an argument/ask a question that takes the entire article into account, as you have utterly failed to do.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There may have been a perception of power which may be enough
How? That does not seem reasonable.
Either way, it's incredibly stupid for someone in his position to get involved at all with a current student.
What he did is INCREDIBLY stupid. I'm not saying he does not bear primary fault in this. He had the most to lose also, it was just idiotic. Although if you were playing devils advocate, couldn't you claim he had a sexual addiction that compelled him to ask? That sounds as reasonable as saying the women had some kind of illness that compelled them to submit; in fact his actions speak even more strongly to there being a mental issue that overrode strong rational and moral reasons not to act as he did. The potential impact to him was proportionality much greater than any one of the women, exactly because of his position and status - and yet he appears to have contacted hundreds of women. How can you look at that and not claim he was mentally ill?
What the women did was stupid also though. They had no reason to send him nude images or video. At any time they could have simply ceased communication, and gotten what they wanted (physics education) from some other source.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
typical predatory behavior, singles out the weak from the pack to dine on it later.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
A 32 year old woman took a year to recognize that the harassment "started day one", and when she was "pushed" by her PHYSICS professor to participate in online sexual roleplay and send naked pictures (which she did?) she didn't comprehend that his interest in her might be more than academic?
At what age is someone expected to be able to deploy the word "no" on their own behalf?
-Styopa
I think that's where you have to draw the line. I mean a college-aged girl has to get over the fact that older men will be attracted to her, and make advances. Just because she's creeped-out by it, doesn't necessarily mean it's inappropriate.
Just a quick note-- she wasn't a "college-aged girl"-- she was 32.
Ultimately gender equality means others have the right to hit on her, and she has the right to tell them to fuck-off.
And if he or she doesn't stop? This really isn't about getting the nerve up to ask for a date. This is an almost classic example of a person in a position of power finding a mark to go after.
But, uh, he wasn't in a position with any power over her. She was a student in a not for credit, no grade course that he taught. He had no power whatsoever.
And it's not as if women don't use their sex-appeal when it suits them.
Well sure. But now you're using the "she asked to be raped" stupidity.
Warning! Warning! Strawman argument! Warning!
She wasn't raped. She was not raped . She--voluntarily-- send him nude pictures.
Women regularly don't report abuse because they think they're going to be treated badly if they do, including being asked why they didn't do this or that to protect themselves. That kind of insult added to injury is actually another injury.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I took 8.02 with Professor Lewin when I was at MIT. Before that class I despised physics in every way but Professor Lewin changed my views. He was one of my most gifted professors at MIT (and that's saying something).
While I understand MIT needs to discipline him, taking his emeritus title and removing all of his courseware from MOOC is a HUGE loss to the world as a whole.
If this girl had come forward when this all began, more than likely this would have been a much smaller issue that would have warranted less of a dramatic result. I'm not blaming the victim in this case, I'm just saying that MIT could have handled this much better.
Though I am not surprised. Assuming everything happened as TFA stated, how was the alleged professor to know that she had psychological problems? He can't, and if her problems were so severe why is her family/medical care worker, etc.. letting her unsupervised on a web page? You are giving her all of the benefit of the doubt, but not the other way around. You are severely lacking in empathy in your post, and if this is your true feelings I'll suggest a mental health exam.
Forget MIT for a moment and take this for what it is, internet web sites providing content and chat. Not very different from what Facebook does, or Google+, or even Twitter for that matter. If you meet someone online and ask for naked pictures and they comply, are you supposed to have done an extensive background check on them? Given that there is anonymity and you don't even know that the person is who they say they are (remember she didn't even know if it was the real guy or not due to the nature of the system). If you want to hold that viewpoint fine, but it had best be unilateral.
A huge issue in this case is that we don't see any evidence, only anecdote and allegation. Given that we have had several Universities falsely accuse people of crimes (see fraudulent sexual assault cases) there is an issue of trust here which the University is not meeting.
Plausible, perhaps, but I still believe that a person should be presumed innocent until proven otherwise. You know, the same way our legal system is supposed to be working but isn't. Without proof, and without trust in the system, I refuse to condemn the guy.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
I mean a college-aged girl has to get over the fact that older men will be attracted to her, and make advances. Just because she's creeped-out by it, doesn't necessarily mean it's inappropriate. Ultimately gender equality means others have the right to hit on her...
I read a line like this and all I can think of is the ton of crap dumped on my sisters when they entered graduate schools focused on careers in male-dominant professions.
Indeed, it is rather unlikely that this professor is such a master manipulator. These women made a decision they later regretted. It is not unheard of, but the adult thing to do is to admit that it was them making the decision and taking responsibility for their actions. You cannot retroactively retract consent for something you did in the past and still be considered an adult. Because doing so would mean that your word has no value and that you are not fit to make decisions. I am sure, most women would find the idea to be viewed as this type of creature pretty repulsive.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If these people are really like this (and I somehow doubt it for a majority of them), then they have absolutely no business using the Internet unsupervised. None at all.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Good idea. Not perfect, but there are no perfect solutions in this space.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
While that will not be well received here, I do agree that victims requiring the world to be tailored to their needs are a force of destruction.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Lewin's behavior may have been creepy and disgusting if the allegations turn out to be true. MIT is also fully within its rights to sever ties with Lewin for any reason.
But as far as I can tell, Lewin had no power over the student; the course was free and open, and participation was voluntary. There shouldn't be any legal case or any Title IX case here.
I can tell you're a big hit at parties.
(There's this thing called "compassion". You should give it a try sometime.)
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
You think it is compassionate to send people into danger they cannot handle? What kind of evil ass are you?
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
See, the thing about "compassion", and the reason that it's in such short supply, is that men don't get any, and you tend to get what you give in life.
This was an old man. This are not the normal actions of an old man. What would compel him to do such things? Dementia? Early-stages of Alzheimers? Some past traumatic event in his life. Even perversion is a sign of potential mental deviance, almost none of which is voluntary.
What if she took advantage of him? Old man, young woman, it's not hard to see how he may have been flattered. And his patterns with other women certainly show he had some weird proclivity toward it all. That he was a sucker for younger women. That they could easily make him think they were attracted to him and this somehow elicited a response in him.
But, there is no compassion. None. Men commit suicide 4x more often than women (yet women get treated more often for depression), and this is a large reason why. Women enjoy very benefit of the doubt, and men are held fully accountable for everything that they do, without any sympathy whatsoever for the things that have effected them in their own life.
And people crow about "compassion".
Compassion does not discriminate, and if you do, you're not truly compassionate. Compassion requires that we hold the un-proven guilty as innocent, because it would be cruel to do otherwise. The mob always favors the popular explanation.
And if this situation is one of "power", I would say it's the weakest example that I've personally ever seen. You can always extrapolate some power imbalance if you look hard enough. Frankly, I don't think I should be held to any of the contracts I've signed. I have ADHD and do not read them all. My weaknesses are being exploited to financially enslave me, yet, who speaks out for me? I've been homeless before, and my fear of being homeless again causes me to do all kinds of shit I don't want to do for my employer. Fucker is totally exploiting my fears.
So, she had issues. Well, guess what, nearly half of American women are on some form of psychiatric medication. That's 50% of women who cannot be held accountable for their actions. Take that, potential employers.
And how is it that this woman is from a culture that discourages speaking out, yet, she's been speaking out for over a year. Kind of contradicts that whole claim, eh?
No, no, let me guess, it was the third Tuesday under a full moon when she sent the pictures, clearly, CLEARLY causing her to be more passive and yada yada yada.
Alright. As long as this same extreme, contorted, heavily-clauses, benefit-of-the-doubt is given to everyone but, oh wait, it's not.
And you're all evil for not going along with the thought-control experiment.
That's my position anyway.
Who knows? Who cares? It's against the MIT code of conduct to solicit your students for sex. Just like every other organization in the developed world. For just these reasons.
At your job, I recommend not soliciting the customers or those employees who report to you for sex.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
The economy would stop dead in it's tracks. It is simply an untenable position, and I think that deep-down, everyone knows it. It's a product of affluent-white fantasy-land where every annoyance of a female is equated with the holocaust.
Using such a standard of non-responsibility if one has any issues, leaves 50% of women out of decision-making positions, as this is how many are taking some form of psychiatric medication. It's a misogynists wet-dream.
The professor should not be disciplined, and the creepy women should be held to account for her actions every bit as much as the professor.
It's amazing where people find strength once you stop infantilizing them. Some people want to keep woman infantilized because they are easier to control that way.
Oh, and this woman's culture has not prevented her from speaking out. I would say that argument has been duly rebutted. And her concern for "the other victims" is so laughable, that anyone who believes it is not someone with a high degree of wisdom.