Student Accused of Sexual Harassment Temporarily Suspended

BY HANNAH ALTMANN

AUC administration decided to temporarily suspend student “W” who was last week accused of sexually harassing Political Science graduate Holly Dagres on a university bus.

“This suspension is temporary as a precautionary measure [pending the completion of the investigation]. Please note this does not mean the accused is convicted,” Jennifer Skaggs, Dean of Students, told The Caravan.

Skaggs added that the temporary suspension prohibits the accused student, who asked that he be referred to as W, from riding the bus, entering campus or attending any classes.

The report Dagres filed against W last week is still under investigation in the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action (EOAA).

Samah Selim, senior manager at the EOAA office, said that procedures for any filed complaint take approximately ten days. She then added that they still need to find an eyewitness to confirm the incident, which she says is a difficult thing to do.

“Some 90 percent of sexual harassment cases do not have [eyewitnesses],” she added.

Selim was unable to comment on any other aspect of the investigation for the time being.

Although Dagres could not share any specifics of the case, she told the Caravan that she has no sympathy for W’s situation and believes that what she did is “fair and just”.

“He’s lucky I didn’t go to the police station; he actually got it good apparently because a lot of people were pressing me to [go to the police],” said Dagres.

She added that every criminal should pay his dues and that W should have thought of the consequences of his actions beforehand.

W could not be reached to comment on the decisions taken against him, but had previously denied Dagres’s version of events and said that he was the one who had been “violated physically and emotionally”.

Some students believe that it is unfair to temporarily suspend W before the investigation reaches its conclusion.

“I think it’s unfair and [the incident] might not be true. After they find out he’s guilty, then they can suspend him,” said Maria Beniamin, Political Science senior
Karim Ibrahim, a Business senior, agreed that W should be treated as an innocent man until he is proven guilty.

He added that it can’t be proven W harassed Dagres until the investigation is complete.

“They don’t know if it’s true or not. Is there evidence? Maybe she made it up,” added Shahd AbdelKader, graphic design sophomore.
On the other hand, a majority believe that suspending W was the right thing to do.

“Sexual harassment is determined by the girl. She is the one who decides if what happened to her is sexual harassment or not,” said Yasmin Zeid, an economics graduating senior and logistics officer at HarassMap, an initiative created to end the social acceptance of sexual harassment in Egypt.

She added: “If the man approaches her body in a particular manner that has a sexual nature and she considered it as such, this means that he is a sexual offender and that she has been subjected to sexual harassment.”

Although Dagres has already met with Selim, there is still no specific date for a final verdict.

In early April, The Caravan began interviewing a random sampling of female undergraduate students in hopes of updating a December 2012 poll on sexual harassment.

In the latter poll, only eight percent of 281 respondents said they were subjected to sexual harassment on campus.

Most of the girls who experienced harassment were Egyptian, while 60 percent of those were not veiled.

Two-thirds of these girls were subject to verbal harassment while the rest experienced physical harassment and only one was subject to both.

The Caravan has over the years documented cases of sexual harassment.

In April 2010, a case was filed against a member of custodial staff who was caught performing physical acts in front of female students in the library.

Two years later, a student took a staff member to court for similar indecent exposure, but she dropped the case after his family pleaded on his behalf.

In 2013, a Cilantro employee was fired for sexually harassing a female student and a month later a female member of AUC faculty accused a worker at TBS of making indecent gestures toward her.

TBS was closed pending an investigation, but the worker was later exonerated. He no longer works on campus.