Katie Horowitz, Ph.D.

Women  make up 53% of PhDs and only 38% of tenured faculty in the U.S.—a gap that increases for women of color. Through a study of nearly fifty interviews, this talk identifies one cause of this leaky pipeline as gender-based abuse within the academy and the normalization  and replication of abusive structures by administrators and faculty of all genders. While universities’ approach to addressing sexual misconduct that involves students has changed dramatically, if imperfectly, over the last decade, there has been no parallel  shift in the way institutions handle reports of misconduct between faculty. Indeed, virtually no research on the topic has been done in the US since the 1990s. As a remedy to the individualizing interventions currently favored by most institutions, I propose  an alternative solution rooted in QTBIPOC traditions of transformative, community-based responses to harm.

Katie Horowitz (she/her) is Associate Professor of Gender & Sexuality Studies and Director of the Writing Program at Davidson College. She writes about the operation of state and institutional power on marginalized bodies, with case studies from drag to pornography to carceral spaces to anti-trans executive orders. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty, the Office for Institutional Diversity, Sexual Health, Advocacy & Relationship Education (SHARE), and Student Life.

Reed students are invited to attend lunch with Katie Horowitz on Wednesday, March 11th. See details and learn how to RSVP here.