EDUCATION

UWO students weren't only harassed on campus. They got inappropriate messages everywhere

Oshkosh Northwestern

Records from UWO highlight how social media and technology play a role in harassment situations between students and university employees.

OSHKOSH - At least five sexual misconduct complaints against University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh employees alleged an inappropriate use of social media or texting to target students, according to an analysis of public records.

The records, which the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel obtained in May and shared with the Oshkosh Northwestern, document a total of seven UWO investigations of sexual misconduct by university employees against students.

In five of those cases, the complaints showed that technology made it difficult for victims to avoid the harassment.

“It’s an environment that’s constant," UW-Oshkosh Interim Provost John Koker said, in reference to digital communication. "It never shuts down and that proposes a challenge.”

The five cases revealed two main themes: Social media and texting became a tool for the harassment, although it was not necessarily the cause; and digital messaging created documentation of some relationships, helping university investigators review the cases and claims.

In one case, two students said a campus police officer stalked them on social media and made inappropriate sexual advances. In another complaint, a student accused a former art professor of inundating her with phone calls and of posting sexually explicit images and messages online in a clear reference to her.

UWO Dean of Students Art Munin said he's seen an increase in the role social media plays in harassment situations over the past decade.

“Quite honestly, from a conduct perspective, sometimes when it’s done on social media, it makes it a lot easier because it’s black and white,” Munin said.

UW System policy prohibits the use of university technology resources for harassment. UW-Oshkosh policies explicitly tell employees to refrain from bullying, including cyberbullying, which includes harassment via text, video and audio.

The university's mandatory anti-discrimination and harassment training for employees includes information about social media, texting and online interactions, but the school doesn't forbid the use of those platforms to communicate with students.

“It’s about the behavior and about what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate. It’s not really focused on the means through which you can implement that behavior,” Koker said.

Experts agree that social media itself is not to blame.

Digital technology is "a vehicle for people who would have harassed anyway," UW-Madison’s Catalina Toma, whose research focuses on the social and psychological effects of online dating, social networking sites, email and instant messaging, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this month.

Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center and criminology professor at Florida Atlantic University, said the challenge with social media is the air of privacy it affords and how it can quickly give one person power over another.

“It sometimes feels that since there’s no accountability, everything is happening behind the scenes (through) private messages and one-on-one conversations that a person can use power and their position to coerce or induce the other person to act in certain ways or not report,” Hinduja said.

It’s difficult to speak generally about how technology plays into relationships between students and professors or other employees, Hinduja said. He was unaware of people who research the issue specifically.

“Policies need to come out across all universities, across the entire nation, about this because more and more educators are online,” Hinduja said.

And to some extent, educators continue to learn as they go.

“Technology and social media is a very powerful tool, and it can be used in very positive and good ways,” Koker said. “This is coming on so fast; I think we’re still, as an education community, understanding the power and the use of technology. I think the whole world is. And just like anything, it can be used or it can be abused.”

UWO officer takes to Facebook, Snapchat, texts

In spring 2017, two student employees told university investigators that then-UWO Police Officer Anthony Keller added them as friends on social media and sexually harassed them, prompting a campus police investigation.

The first student said Keller added her on Facebook and Snapchat and began texting her, although she didn’t remember giving him her phone number. She said he would ask her to hang out, and she blocked him because the interactions felt inappropriate.

The student said she initially thought he was joking because she knew Keller was married. She told investigators he commented on snaps — Snapchat messages — she sent him while working out at the gym, saying, “I’ll take you to the gym and show you a few workouts. We could pull over on our way and have our own workout.”

The student also said Keller asked her if she would perform oral sex on him, brushed against her in a “flirtatious manner,” and once caressed and massaged her hand inappropriately. When she pulled away, he told her, “Don’t let it happen again.”

She said conversations with him often became sexual, and he often talked “about how he hated being married, and how marriage is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

A second campus police student employee also told officials Keller added her on Snapchat and Facebook, and he would become upset when she did not reply to his snaps. She also said he would also show up where she was assigned to work, made comments about her trying on clothes for him, called her his "work wife" and visited her dorm room when dropping her off after work.

In his response to investigators, Keller denied most of the allegations, although he admitted discussing his marriage difficulties with the first student and that he “considered her a good friend." Keller said the student initiated sexual conversations through text messages which he had deleted.

He also denied inappropriate conduct with the second student.

The Northwestern has been unable to obtain contact information for Keller.

Investigators concluded Keller sexually harassed the students and “created a hostile and offensive environment.”

Mandy Potts, UWO's communications director, confirmed Keller no longer works for the university and declined to comment further, citing it as a personnel issue.

Other cases address control, blurred lines

In another case involving a confirmed policy violation at UWO, social media and cellphone use became a source of control.

Investigators found former art professor Michael Beitz, who violated multiple university policies before resigning from UWO and later got a job at the University of Colorado Boulder, spent over 3,000 minutes on the phone with the student he harassed, during which the student said he temporarily persuaded her not to file a complaint.

The victim also told investigators that when she filed her complaint, Beitz used his Tumblr blog to target her, posting sexually explicit pictures with several labeled with an anti-female expletive. Beitz told investigators the posts were not about the student and were “just random, creative expressions.”

A 2016 case at UWO shows how easily social media can break down barriers of location and access.

One employee complained an academic staff member had commented that the employee's photo posted on the Google+ online platform “was very beautiful and he was planning on saving the photo.”

The employee laughed nervously, to which the supervisor said, “I’m not hitting on you. It’s not like I would make your picture my screen saver or anything.” A university investigator spoke with the accused staff member and his supervisor and closed the case, reporting they had reached an informal resolution to end the behavior.

The remaining two complaints, both in 2017, were anonymous. University investigators could not substantiate either case.

► A person alleged a faculty member was involved with a student who left the program because of the relationship. The complaint also cited rumors from current students that the faculty member was in a relationship with another student researcher. The complainant said the professor and the student were texting back and forth at a junior faculty get-together and left together.

The faculty member told investigators he was in a consensual relationship with the former student that began only after she left the program. After the two became close, the student chose to leave the university.

The professor denied any inappropriate interaction with the second student and told investigators any text messages between the two were related to her internship. The student also denied any inappropriate relationship, saying their interactions related to her internship and guidance on graduate programs.

Investigators determined the professor did not violate the university’s policy on consensual relationships.

► A UWO coach and academic staff member was accused of having a relationship with a student athlete without disclosing it to the athletic director and of distributing “sexually suggestive images” to student athletes on social media.

The coach and student athlete denied being in a relationship. Witnesses said it was common for the coach to communicate with his athletes through Snapchat and texting. Other coaches also reported using such methods to communicate with their athletes.

Witnesses said they did not receive any inappropriate messages from the coach and that students normally initiated conversations. The coach denied ever sending explicit messages.

University investigators determined the coach did not have a relationship with the student athlete or sexually harass anyone. The full details of the case remain unclear because the university blacked out additional accusations against the coach in the records released to the Journal Sentinel.

Aside from conversations with faculty, UWO is working to train students about what harassing behavior could look like. Munin said many of today’s college freshman are coming to school with such training from high school, too.

Munin and Koker agreed students should be educated on how to identify inappropriate behavior and reduce risk, but “we also have to do what we can to make sure they’re not put in that type of situation,” Koker said.

And just because something happens in private, off the clock, does not mean the university would not get involved following a complaint, Munin said.

“At the end of the day, our students are living online, so we have to be there as well,” Munin said.

Karen Herzog of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.