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TL;DR:
At a Christian university faculty retreat, a male faculty member groped a female colleague during a lip-sync skit. The unscripted and inappropriate act upset the female faculty member. Administrators and several faculty minimized it, calling it “goofy,” “bathroom humor,” and “just Mark being Mark.” Others, however, saw it as a violation of the university’s code of conduct and called for a public statement condemning the behavior. The case study can help spark discussion about a culture of dismissal and rationalization regarding sexual harassment.
At an annual faculty retreat at a private Christian university in America's heartland, three female faculty members and Mark, a male faculty member, performed a lip-sync to a Dolly Parton song. The skit was intended to give comic relief to the meeting. To simulate the well-endowed Dolly Parton, a female faculty member, Gretchen, added balloons under her shirt.
During the lip-sync skit, Mark, who was acting as a guitar player for the three women, reached over Gretchen's shoulder and attempted to grope her breasts. Looking startled, she pushed him away. Mark moved back a step or two and then came forward to reach over her other shoulder to try to fondle her again. Gretchen again pushed his hands away.
Apparently thinking that the contact was in the script, some in the audience openly chuckled. The groping, however, was not part of the skit. Gretchen, who has taught at the university for 15 years, and her husband are furious. However, the answer being given is that since it happened on stage during a skit, the unwanted touching should be considered play-acting rather than a form of sexual misconduct.
While the school's Code of Conduct explicitly says that unwanted, inappropriate touching will not be tolerated, the university's provost and some faculty members are saying that because faculty members were playing characters in a skit, they should not be judged by the Code of Conduct. Mark cannot be held responsible for inappropriately touching Gretchen, they say, since it wasn't really Mark but the character he was playing who did the touching. The provost also said that because Mark's fingers were likely touching balloons rather than Gretchen's skin, it could not be considered abusive sexual contact. What Mark did, said the provost, "was not criminal." There is a risk, he acknowledged, that the behavior will be seen as an endorsement of that action in real life.
Faculty opinion is divided on the incident. One faculty member has asked the school to make a public statement distancing itself from the skit and from Mark's actions, noting that national surveys have documented the widespread prevalence of unwanted sexual contact among American women. In response to that request, the provost said that while the episode did occur at a university event in front of a crowd of people, it needs to be dealt with quietly and privately by Mark and Gretchen. He does say he'll "make sure it doesn't ever happen again."
A couple of people expressed outrage at the use of exaggerated breast size as the central joke of the skit, asserting that such behavior ran counter to what the university tries to say to young women about their physical appearance. The head of the religion department said that, apart from Mark's behavior, there was nothing wrong with the skit. A local pastor who also teaches in the religion department said the skit and Mark's attempt to grope their colleague's breasts should be overlooked as nothing more than junior-high bathroom humor. The female vice-provost dismissed the episode by saying, "Mark just got goofy again."
Other faculty members in his department, all of whom were female, said it was "just Mark being Mark." They argued that it should be overlooked and that the university should "move on."
Larry, a faculty member who had been a student of Mark's, noted that during Mark's thirty years at the university, he had, from time to time, said or done outrageous things just to rile up people. In his opinion, Mark's groping at Gretchen's breast area was a crude attempt to upset the more conservative faculty members and their spouses. Larry argued that the incident should be met with complete silence, thereby giving Mark no satisfaction. Any attention brought to the sexual contact incident, he said, would be divisive and unhealthy for the campus community.
Sadly, this was a real event (although the names of the participants have been changed). That evening, the president of the university was not there. Assume you are the university president. What would you do upon learning what had happened?
Suggestions on processing a case study
—Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu
Inappropriate touching generally refers to unwanted physical contact that violates another person's personal, social, or sexual boundaries. It can include various actions, such as:
What may be considered inappropriate touching can vary depending on cultural norms, personal boundaries, and the specific context of the situation. In any case, we must respect other people's bodily autonomy and boundaries and obtain clear consent before initiating sexual or intimate physical contact.
