The influence of race and gender on student self-reports of sexual harassment by college professors

A survey of 525 undergraduates found that 40 percent of the women and 28.7 percent of the men had been sexually harassed by a college professor or ins tructor. Most incidents were gender harassment. While women reported signif icantly more gender harassment than did men, there were no gender differenc es in the frequency of unwanted sexual attention or sexual coercion. At lea st one incident of sexual harassment by a professor was experienced by 30 p ercent of the Blacks, 30 percent of the Hispanics, 33 percent of the Asians . 30 percent of the students of other minority groups, and 39 percent of th e whites. Again, most of the experiences were Render harassment. Among thos e respondents who had experienced at least one incident of sexual harassmen t almost all answered "never" to the question "Have you ever been sexually harassed by a college professor or instructor? " We conclude with some sugg estions, particularly the need to improve measurement of the harassment exp eriences of men and of nonwhite women.