How to Avoid a Federal Investigation

The federal government recently began investigating complaints of sexual harassment at the hands of a gynecologist employed at the University of Southern California, where I am a Ph.D. student and research associate. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has come to the university because allegations of ongoing assault of female students have reportedly been systematically ignored. Perhaps USC, as well as other institutions of higher education, might use this time of crisis as a call to engage in reflection.

The accusation that nearly 400 women were violated for three decades at the hands of a trusted Trojan doctor has now left many scholars, myself included, feeling insecure and confused -- and not at all comforted by the administration's 30-page action plan.

This is not an easy time to be a female graduate student at USC. I am reliant upon the university health center for my health-care needs, for no other low-cost health-care options are available to me. And yet my health center is said to have allowed sexual abuse to go unchecked, ignoring the many nurses, students and assistants -- a female-dominated group -- who tried to speak up. Mounting evidence suggests that years of sexual abuse by George Tyndall, and the selection of someone as dean of our medical school who’d in fact been previously disciplined for sexual harassment, perpetuated a culture of misogyny, homophobia and racism.

How do we move forward? And what can other universities learn from our failures?

One branch of sociology, new institutionalism, considers how organizations are shaped by informal rules associated with individuals’ social identities and interactions, as well as our belief systems and shared assumptions. New institutionalism also describes how organizations, in turn, shape individuals. These interests lead us to think about rules, rewards and sanctions that drive behavior of organizations and their members. It’s clear that things need changing here at USC. In the spirit of reflection and improvement, I have observed five assumptions that bear examination.

Predominantly male leadership thinks it can govern women’s safety. Tyndall is said to have victimized his female patients in many ways, including inserting ungloved fingers and sometimes his entire hand up to his wrist into women’s vaginas. This is not a scandal: this is rape. But perhaps men in charge don’t understand how very unusual that behavior is, or know instinctively, as perhaps female leaders might, the invasive, predatory nature of his actions. The university recently announced a new board chairman, Rick Caruso. A minority of trustees of the board are female. Past USC leadership has assumed that our current, predominantly male leaders can sufficiently care for female students -- that they understand and will stand behind laws that protect women. It seems they haven’t. At all levels of the organization, we need to look at how gendered assumptions impact decision making.

Young, female, vulnerable students are easy money (and prey). The disgraced doctor reportedly preyed on vulnerable young women, many of whom were visiting a gynecologist for the first time. The university has aggressively recruited full-paying Chinese students, and a number of the survivors of Tyndall’s alleged abuse are Asian women. This transactional ethos -- women and students, in general, as commodities -- appears to be endemic in Tyndall’s behavior and in that of the many managers who allowed it to continue. We need to reconsider how women are viewed and treated within all levels of our institution. Do we value them for more than their tuition dollars? And if we do, how can we show it?

Prestige matters more than honor or ethics. I am complicit in this. I chose to attend USC, in part, because of the prestige of our university. My school, the Rossier School of Education, was recently ranked No. 10 in the nation. But this prestige has come at a steep price, as journalists have noted. Honor is more than a plaque or a mission statement. How might we make decisions based on ethical and moral values, rather than values of rapid growth or financial gain?

Top-down structures of organizational power work. In fact, as we have seen here at USC, our organizational structure has marginalized many voices. According to the news reports, nurses were ignored. Student complaints were pushed aside, for reasons unknown, says USC. Adjunct faculty whom I’ve spoken with say they are afraid -- or not allowed -- to speak up. A hierarchical, top-down structure at USC creates a powerful few who reign over many. In such environments, power will be mishandled. How top-down is your structure? Whose voices are heard? These are not unknown factors but structures and systems that must be changed.

Women, queer students and students of color are of lesser value. It is health-center policy that a chaperone accompanies USC gynecologists during exams. Yet the many -- largely female -- chaperones who complained about Tyndall were silenced. A queer USC student said she was told that if she lost weight, she might be able to get a man. Chinese women students reported being exploited in Tyndall’s examination room, as did black patients. We cannot divorce this sexual abuse from its deep roots in a culture of misogyny, homophobia and racism. To ignore the salience of race, color, sexual orientation and gender is to perpetuate this culture of abuse.

The irony of times like this is that, when institutions are destabilized, there is also opportunity for change. And indeed, our shared beliefs, standard operating practices and structures at colleges and universities need to change. We have seen similar scandals elsewhere, such as at Michigan State University, Penn State and the University of California, Los Angeles. This is not only USC’s problem; it is perhaps higher education’s problem writ large.

In a Me Too era, we can no longer rely on making symbolic changes -- such as ousting our president-- to create change in deeply flawed systems. To make true change -- and to make USC a safe place for female, queer and minority students, as well as staff and faculty members -- we must examine taken-for-granted assumptions at all levels. We must do this with one another through painful conversations, multidirectional dialogue and outside help. It also means confronting and dismantling any systems of power and prejudices-- misogyny, racism and homophobia -- that have allowed such abuse to occur.

For other institutions that maintain an image of stability: the problems that I’ve described at USC exist everywhere. What kind of assumptions might be made about your institution? Don’t let the abuse of power at your institution come as a surprise. You can effect change without waiting for the foundation to crack -- or for the Office for Civil Rights to arrive.