By anne dobson
College sophomore Sonia Pascal says she has seen women drop out of the University due to sexual harassment. Now, she's out to make a difference.
Inspired by the sexual-assault conviction of former Penn professor Tracy McIntosh and the two Penn-related sexual assaults reported this year, Pascal is working to establish a sexual harassment task force on campus.
Pascal's efforts are aimed at actively addressing issues of sexual harassment that she sees as being passively accepted at Penn.
A double major in women's studies and politics, philosophy and economics, Pascal says she knows women who either switched majors or dropped out of the University due to harassment.
"I have known several female students who acknowledge harassing behavior but do not want to receive a lower grade, either in their current class, or in classes they take later on in the same department," Pascal said.
And she is not the only one on campus with these concerns. Already, Pascal has garnered support from the Penn Women's Center and the Office of the General Counsel.
Women's Center Director Ellie Di Lapi said that one of the primary difficulties of addressing sexual harassment at Penn is that no one within the University administration has central oversight.
Di Lapi said that since the McIntosh case, there has been a lot of talk among faculty aimed at addressing sexual harassment issues, giving Pascal a good opportunity to pursue her task force.
She added that student responses to sexual harassment have a different effect than administrative ones, but that Pascal's vision needs support from University resources.
"There needs to be a different level of education on campus," Di Lapi said.
As a result, Pascal said she wants to bridge the faculty-student gap in terms of dealing with assault.
"I am hoping [the group] will acts as a liaison with the administration to remedy the problems I see with the current policies and procedures," Pascal said.
Pascal's concerns include not only peer-to-peer violence but also cases in which teachers harass students.
Pascal said that after former Penn professor Tracy McIntosh pled no contest to the 2002 sexual assault of a 23-year-old prospective graduate student, other female students came forward with other instances of McIntosh's inappropriate behavior.
McIntosh's attorney, Thomas Bergstrom, had no comment.
Yet observing the effects of past cases is not the only factor that drove Pascal to form the group.
She is a former member of Students Together Against Acquaintance Rape, which disbanded earlier this year. She described STAAR as one of the few student groups which dealt with "the continuum of violence against women."
According to a 1999 nationwide survey examining "the extent and nature of the sexual victimization of college women," submitted to the Department of Justice, only about 3 percent of reported incidents of campus sexual harassment were committed by professors -- compared with 40 percent by classmates and 30 percent by friends.
However, Pascal said that many college women are unaware that they have been sexually harassed. She cited a survey in which the number of incidents of reported sexual harassment increased when definitions were given of specific kinds of sexual harassment.
Penn General Counsel Wendy White, who is supporting Pascal's project, said she's very interested in addressing sexual harassment,
She added that her office is in part responsible for raising awareness about any issue of student concern.
Fight assault - A new group on campus plans to work with officials to curb sexual harassment at Penn - 1999 statistics indicate that 70% of campus harrasment cases were committed by victims' friends and classmates
