The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) on Monday announced it would fire faculty or staff found to have committed sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking or interpersonal violence.
What’s more, information would be made public about any faculty or staff found to have committed such acts but not fired because of mitigating factors, said Dr. Gregory Fenves, UT Austin’s president, in a letter to the UT community.
“Sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking and interpersonal violence will not be accepted at The University of Texas at Austin,” wrote Fenves in his letter. “If a faculty or staff member commits these acts, the consequences will be clear.” The changes “are designed to better support survivors, provide clear disciplinary guidelines and improve communication with the campus community.”
UT Austin’s decision is a victory for students who have, since October, been demanding the administration fire professors involved in sexual misconduct.
“The students and our group as a whole were very excited and overwhelmed with joy upon hearing the president’s announcement, especially given the resistance we faced initially,” said Alejandra Zuniga, a junior at UT Austin who was an organizer of one of the October sit-ins, to Diverse. Zuniga is also a member of the Coalition Against Sexual Misconduct, a student group at the forefront of protests. “When we first met with administrators, they said it will take a long time to do everything that was needed, but then they were able to do it in a semester.”
Zuniga is talking about the media attention the protests have garnered, which she says is the reason the university acted so quickly. Student activists began their protests after two professors returned to teach despite being found to have committed sexual misconduct. Students wanted the professors removed from courses scheduled for this spring, and they also demanded the university provide a list of all professors with sexual misconduct violations.
“These professors committed sexual misconduct and what does the university do? It puts them on administrative leave, paid leave, basically a paid vacation. The message was ‘you will be rewarded for sexual misconduct.’ The university’s response to their [the two professors’] actions just wasn’t appropriate,” said Zuniga.
