ACJ sexual harassment case: College's 'liberalism' in face of crisis threatens its credibility, reputation

The Asian College of Journalism — one of the preeminent media institutions in the country and my alma mater — is a liberal place. The men and women who teach there are all liberal, in every sense of the term. The college is so liberal that in the wake of the sexual harassment scandal against one of its faculty members — Sadanand Menon, a well-known Chennai-based journalist and culture critic — Sashi Kumar, the chairman of ACJ, did the most liberal thing imaginable. When the allegations surfaced in the media, Kumar, instead of dealing with the issue with the sensitivity that it deserved, pointed out in an interview how it all might just be a case of a witch-hunt against the college. And if one were to ask why a witch-hunt, and why particularly against the institution, Kumar’s circuitous argument is simple: Because ACJ is liberal! As the bare facts of the case goes, in October of last year, activist and lawyer, Raya Sarkar, put out a public Facebook post that contained some prominent names in the academia who have allegedly sexually harassed students in the past. The list was based on information from anonymous sources and Menon’s name was one of them. A few months later, in January of this year, an article by a former student of the college went up on the news website, The News Minute, wherein she spoke about being sexually harassed by a ‘prominent Chennai-based culture critic’ under whom she was employed at that time. On 8 May, a statement by some prominent activists, journalists and students of the college  surfaced. The statement, at length, delved into how the former student had lodged a formal complaint with the Internal Complaints Committee of ACJ and how the college refused to take action because the complainant was not a student of the college anymore when the incident transpired and the event in question took place outside the college premises. [caption id=“attachment_4465397” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of the Asian College of Journalism campus. ACJ’s official Facebook page[/caption] On 9 May, the college put out a public statement . The statement begins by saying that the Asian College of Journalism notes “with concern, ill-informed and vague allegations and assertions, most of them made anonymously and with scant regard for the facts and the law, have been published in a section of the online news media about how it handled a complaint of alleged sexual harassment made against Sadanand Menon”. The statement reiterated the same argument noted above: “The ACJ wishes to reiterate that the alleged incident in 2011 at Spaces, a cultural centre in Chennai, had no connection with the college. The person who preferred the complaint in January 2018 to the Internal Complaints Committee, which had been duly constituted as per law and included a well-known woman lawyer, was not a student of the college at the time of the alleged incident and her work at Spaces had no connection with the college”. The statement further went on to argue that the ICC, thus constituted, had communicated in writing to the complainant that ‘as per law it had no jurisdiction in the matter’. In conclusion, however, it noted that “Sadanand Menon has informed us that after taking into account the overall circumstances and in order to avoid any damage to the reputation of the ACJ, he has decided not to teach his elective course at the college for the coming academic year, and also that he is considering taking legal action against those who have published false and defamatory allegations against him”. The statement ended by the college reaffirming that it had a policy of “zero tolerance towards sexual harassment within its jurisdiction” and that it “provides a secure and world class learning and teaching environment to all who come under its jurisdiction” (emphasis added). On close scrutiny, this statement by the college, however, falls apart as easily as a casket made of cardboard when pried open. To begin with, the statement, on the very face of it, is insensitive. It makes no attempt to even appear to regard the complaints against Menon with the seriousness and gravity that complaints of sexual harassment deserve. It disregards them, firstly, by noting that the complaints are based on rumours and are anonymous. When Sarkar’s crowd-sourced list based out of anonymous sources went up, one of the arguments in support of it was that the anonymity was needed because the men thus named in the list (like Menon) hold unquestionable cultural power and standing, enough to ensure the future career trajectory of the complainant — who are young students in this case — be swayed in any direction the men would want. Second, and far more importantly, the complainant who wrote the article for The News Minute in January, and subsequently, lodged a formal complaint with the ICC, was not anonymous. While the college washed its hands off the case by noting that it had no jurisdiction to intervene, it failed to underscore a very key point: That Menon is an adjunct faculty of the institution, that this case notwithstanding, as a faculty member he would continue to interact with and teach future students in his professional capacity. And by that fact alone, ACJ as an employer is well within its jurisdiction to initiate a probe against him. Can the college guarantee that in the future young students who are taught by Menon, within the ACJ premises, will not complain of sexual harassment by him? If it can’t, by what authority can it claim that it has zero tolerance policy towards sexual harassment? What kind of precedent is the college setting in dismissing cases of such magnitude, when it should come out in support of the students, with such a flippant wave of its hand? It can reiterate till kingdom come, with all its pious platitudes, about how the college is concerned about the well-being of its students, but the truth of the matter is simple: The college, when tasked with protecting its own students, and taking their side, did nothing. But, of course, ACJ is a liberal institution, and the welfare of its students will come secondary. Maybe that is the new definition that liberalism has come to acquire today. The college, in its statement, spoke about how Menon has decided not to teach the following academic year, in keeping with the reputation of college. In the very next line, the statement also slips in the following fact: that Menon is also mulling taking legal action against those who have published false and defamatory allegations against him. To any casual reader, does those two lines, juxtaposed together, imply that the college believes the statements of allegations against Menon are false and defamatory too? If so, how did the college reach this conclusion without due inquiry? Does it also not imply that the college feels Menon is being needlessly victimised? Maybe my illiberal heart has been hardened to the point that I wasn’t able to shed tears when I read the part about him deciding not to take classes. In the college’s library — one of the most beautiful spots on campus, in my opinion — there is an old worn out copy of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. I believe it would serve the management better if it picks that copy up and reads the following line from The Inferno: “The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis”. But then, maybe, Dante, by the college’s standards, isn’t liberal enough. The author is Delhi-based journalist and writer. His debut novel, Darklands, is being published by Penguin Random House India