USC must implement recommendations from sexual harassment task force, advocates say

Activists are calling for the University of South Carolina to implement and enforce recommendations made by a task force on sexual harassment and assault.

The task force, made up of students, faculty and staff, released its final report Thursday calling for USC to require training on sexual harassment and assault for everyone on campus and to reform the process for handling reports of sexual harassment.

“I do think the recommendations are the right idea,” said Lauryn Workman, a recently graduated campus activist who worked on the task force. However, “I’m more about them getting implemented than the recommendations themselves.”

USC’s administration, not its board of trustees, will decide whether to implement the recommendations from the task force, said Larry Thomas, USC’s vice president for communications.

Kelsea Woods, who accused a theater professor of sexual harassment in 2012, said she also thought the recommendations from the task force were helpful. The key, however, is making sure new policies are implemented, Woods said.

Several activists expressed dismay that USC will not reconsider punishment for employees who faced prior allegations of sexual harassment.

“These past cases are what has been galvanizing us,” said Sophie Luna, a campus activist who helped organize an April protest calling for USC to fire employees accused of sexual harassment.

Workman agreed, saying that while she felt her perspective was heard on the task force, her “main frustration” was that neither the task force nor an audit report released the same day reconsidered earlier cases of sexual harassment.

Luna is concerned that administrators, such as deans and department chairs, still don’t have enough incentive to respond to and pursue complaints of harassment, especially when they are levied against a colleague.

“The administration has played a large role in sexual abuse being the problem it is at USC, and the report makes no mention of that at all,” Luna said.

In the long run, the key will be making sure the recommendations become policy and that the policy is enforced, Workman said.

“What we noticed is the policy may say something, but in practice that isn’t what’s getting done,” Workman said. “There’s only so much we can do. At some point, the culture at the university has to change.”