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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."
that's harassment.
... and it took her a year to realize that it was harassment. But once she finally figured out what happened, MIT was stunned!
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!
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.
And they could have stopped it immediately by blocking him on FB and/or just stopped the course they paid a whole $0 for.
In the whole history of people being psychologically manipulated and abused, they *all* could have stopped it simply by saying no, and walking away. Yet they don't. Kinda suggests that doing so is very difficult to do, and that there are things in play that you are not crediting.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
You know it is the modern age when:
If a man talks dirty to a woman it is sexual harrasement
If a woman talks dirty to a man it is 4.99/minute
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.)
why are you post this question on slashdot? Do you assume women come here to get some sort of advice?
It's a tricky question. I would say that the dividing line is coercion-- is the professor using some form of threat, or promising good grades?
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. Ultimately gender equality means others have the right to hit on her, and she has the right to tell them to fuck-off. That's what you do as an adult.
And it's not as if women don't use their sex-appeal when it suits them.
This Sig does not Exist.