cont. from Page 5

booster club). By excluding these two members from the Panther Lounge, the univer- sity in effect has withdrawn some support from the team.

Secondly, the Panther Lounge lost a lot of money because the hockey team

wanted to celebrate together as a team along with their With two members excluded from the student lounge, it was only common

fans.

_ sense that the celebration ~would be moved. the

need for authority and puni-

I can’ understand

tive actions, but there is an exception to every rule. Signed, A hockey Fan who cele- brated at Myron’s

A reply to Rehman

To the Editor;

After the all the fiery rhetoric, innu- endo, and guilt by associa- tion has been cleared away,

smoke from

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there appear to be several points worth mentioning in response to Prof. Rahman’s article about our research:

(1) To Prof. Rahman, sexual harassment, except in its coercive

Al-

intrusive

most extreme, forms is a nonproblem. sexually behaviour is eaither a reflec- or bad

manners (for example, offer-

most all

tion of poor taste ing to exchange sex for bet- ter grades, or repeated un- wanted touching by a faculty member). We disagree... so do the federal and provincial governments and most of the universities in Canada.

Given Rahman’s posi-

tion on sexual harassment

generally, would pect that this to his scrutiny. Prof.

not wish

one sus- research into stand up

Apparently,

no

topic would

Rahman simply does

to see this topic

looked at, and he would

presumably criticize any re-

search that did. Case closed. (2)

One serious charge Rahman levels is that the information

‘|. provided by our respondants

may not be confidential, and that our assurance of confi- dentiality may have been “ hint /invitation /

encouragement|

a

to provide names and other specific details.”” What Rah- man fails to mention is that we soecifically asked respon- dents in the event that they re- lated a and in

not to give names specific incident-— fact, none did. It jseems ludicrous to suggest that when a_ questionnaire is mailed to individuals by name, one should do any- thing other than assure both anonymity and confidential-

ity.

(3) Prof. Rahman sug- that our research is This is

gests unethical. rious allegation as he well

a Se-

knows. Actually, he says our research is “consistent with ethically questionable prac-

tices” because we “sneaked

in” questions unrelated to sexual harassment. What Rahman precisely objects to,

is that in a section of our

questionnaire headed “At- titudes”, we asked ques- tions about attitudes to-

ward men and women (‘“fem- inism”’) and didn’t tell peo- ple why. This is tive and ethically question- able, he. says. But, in addition to 2 these attitude questions, we

decep-

“sneaking in

also asked students their age, sex and year at the univer- sity. Was this also decep- tive? Unethical? Would it be if we had the idea that sexual harassment might in- crease with year at the uni- Would Rahman be

questions if

versity? raising ethical we had “snuck in” questions about extraversion, sociabil- ity or attitudes toward au- thority? Is it the inquiry into attitudes toward “feminism”? that bothers him so?

(4) We are not the only targets of Rahman’s criti- cisms. There are also the 215 students who completed our questionnaire. According to Rahman, anyone who did fill out the survey without ques- tioning what our “sneaky” attitude questions were do- ing there (ic. the large ma- jority of our respondents) is simply so gullible and sug- gestible that their answers to our questions are not to

In addi-

tion, Rahman must also have

be taken seriously.

a fairly low opinion of the lo- cal granting body for fund- ing our “costly” (a phrase he uses more than once) re- search.

So much for our response to the content of Prof. Rah- man’s article.

But it seems to us that there are other issues raised by this article that have lit- tle to do with us personally. We are deeply offended by this article. It makes serious charges about our academic competence and ethics. Our reputations have been ques- tioned and our ability to carry out our research pro- gramme potentially jeopar- dized. But we think it would be

dent was

unfortunate if this inci-

only seen as an Rah- We he-

lieve that it raises questions

issue between Prof. man and ourselves.

that need to be addressed by all sectors of the university. What should be-

tween people be like at a uni-

relations

versity? Of course, the right to speak one’s mind freely, to teach and write what you believe is essential at a uni- versity, but what role, if any, should respect for other per- process?

sons play in this

How does referring to peo- ple’s work as bad nonsense, bantering about its pseudo- scientific qualities and cava- lierly challenging their ethics relate to the idea of academic freedom? How responsible should the criticism of oth- ers’ work be; how well in- formed need critics be about

the work they criticize.

Substantive debate and

. . discussion about research

and ideas plays a vital role

in the life of the univer-

: — eo

sity. At the Faculty Sem. inar we gave on Jan. 29 we provided a public forum where such debate could take place, where criticisms could be voiced and responded to, At this presentation, we dis. cussed what we saw as the limitations and problems of survey methodologies. But Prof. Rahman did not at- tend, choosing The Gem in. stead, where a direct and im- mediate response to his com. ments would not he possible.

We believe that the ques- tions we have raised are.im- portant ones that should be relected

upon widely and

commented upon. A_nonre- sponse on the part of the aca- demic community will only this

The is-

reflect kind

sue here (perhaps like the is-

acceptance of of criticism.

sue of sexual harassment it- self) is not simply what kind of behaviour is permiissable within academic community when it comes to questions bubt

what the kinds of behaviour

of academic freedom,

are desirable... not just what you can get away with, but how people ought to be with others.

And finally: What does the nature of Prof. Rah- man’s criticisms of our work tell our students about what academic debate should be like? And what would si- lence to Rahman’s article tell our students about how they should relate to people who hold opinions different from their own?

Don Mazer & Beth Per- cival

UPEI Psychology Dept.

Life W

ith Shari

m1 English

Yesterday was the pits. The computer ate my term paper, I spitied coffee on pre€.

Qi roomate locked me out.

It was just one af hese days where you wish you'd never gotten out of

Good thing I'm not going malee the same Wer ane

ci _ Se eS ee ee ee