Christ University students speak out against sexual harassment, 'draconian' rules

An anonymous girl student from Christ University, Bangalore, posted on her blog detailing past incidents of sexual harassment that was meted out to her by senior faculty members of the college. This anonymous blog was in solidarity with the student protest happening at the Bannerghatta campus against the “draconian dress code”. [caption id=“attachment_2937726” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. News18.[/caption] According to The News Indian Express, which had quoted from the blog, the blogger, on her very first day, had encountered harassment from a professor, who was also part of the college administration. “He proceeded to peer at my rather fitting suit and commented that I looked smart. But, he wouldn’t stop at that. He said he wished girls dressed as smart as I did in a tone that reeked of conceit, knowing fully that I wouldn’t bring it up ever because he was an influential man. He was the very man who was said to have been accused of sexual harassment,” she wrote in her blog. While The News Minute reported that the blogger was again harassed by her English professor, who “flirted with me and wondered if I might be lured into watching a movie with him”. She further mentioned about the same professor who asked her male friend about the “maal”  he managed to “score” among his female classmates. Apart from the anonymous blogger, News18 also reported that a faculty member of Christ University was allegedly asked to quit after he decided to support the ongoing students protest against ‘draconian’ dress code, which includes a ban on growing a beard and rolling up the sleeves of a shirt. “This is supreme injustice. If they did not want to give me the space to voice the concerns of my students, then why did they even make me the class teacher,” the assistant professor of economics told News18. Other complaints include students punished for having male friends, surprise checks at girls hostel at odd hours by authorities and a law student alleging that a teacher proposed her.