CWU Sexual Harassment Policies and Reporting

A recent anonymous commenter shared her experience of unwanted sexual attention from Professor Manweller:

Several years ago Manweller made unwanted sexual advances towards me. At the time I wasn't aware of his "history" of preying on young women. Had I known I would have been more likely to report the incident and would have avoided ever interacting with him. Instead, I had felt embarrassed and upset and didn't tell anyone. I had let it go until I heard about this report. I don't think he believes there is anything wrong with his behavior. He prioritizes his desires over any kind of ethical code. I read the report and would agree with the woman's statement that he is intelligent, manipulative, and sexually aggressive. I don't want to provide any more details and still do not want to come forward or make any kind of formal complaint or accusation. Part of me wants to come forward to strengthen the case against Manweller, but at this point I haven't been able to convince myself to do it. I do wish the university had done its job 6 years ago, it would have likely prevented this incident from occurring, either because Manweller would have been disciplined or because I would have been aware of his behavior and would have avoided contact with him.¹

There is no way to know how many stories like this might be out there, both among current and former CWU students and among members of the larger Ellensburg community and beyond, and it's not clear whether this commenter is/was a CWU student. But it's worth looking at CWU's sexual harassment policy, and whether there have been any changes as a result of recent events.

A search on the phrase "sexual harassment" at CWU's web page turns up a number of hits, most of which are frankly not going to be useful to one of Professor Manweller's victims. 

Here's an example: the CWU Status of Women Commission's web page on sexual harassment (shown above, click on the image to go there) features four links to "Resources." Seems promising, right? But the first link leads CWU policy verbiage that even I don't have patience to read.

And the other three links are broken.

The CWU Diversity Center's page on sexual harassment is more useful. It features quotes from students describing sexual harassment, and a link titled "report an incident." The quotes even include one about improper faculty behavior, but you have to scroll down to see it. And the report-an-incident link goes to a page that requires the user to log in. It seems to me that it would be nice to offer a way for people like the anonymous commenter to make an initial inquiry, maybe as a step toward talking to someone who can help.

Considering the very real problem of sexual harassment that the Manweller Report describes, one would expect CWU to redouble -- and redouble again -- its efforts to help students who may be victims.

But there's another problem, which we see in the most recent news reports: CWU isn't any more interested than Professor Manweller is in addressing these problems.² CWU is in damage control mode, even as parents and students are working on their college applications for the 2013-14 school year.

More on all that later, maybe. Meanwhile, I'm giving CWU's sexual harassment reporting system a D+.

¹This was the fourth comment to my "The Manweller Report" post. Two subsequent posters urged her to report Professor Manweller, which can be done, if not anonymously, very discreetly.
²See, for example, "CWU Official: Manweller Probe Reveals No Wrongdoing," in the Yakima Herald-Republic. Make your own decision on whether the probe reveals wrongdoing by reading the report for yourself -- the body of the report is only 17 pages long.