Leila Whitley is a lecturer in the Critical Gender Studies program at the University of California, San Diego.

Labor struggles in higher education marked the beginning of 2020. U.S. graduate student workers went on strike over institutional reliance on their low-cost teaching labor, non-tenure track faculty bargained over their low pay, high workloads, and insecure employment conditions, and in the United Kingdom faculty across the country walked out on strike.

These labor movements come at a time when approximately 75% of university faculty in the United States are employed off the tenure track. Non-tenure track, or contingent, positions tend to be short-term, temporary appointments, without right of renewal or employment security. They are often part-time and paid at a lower rate than tenure-track or tenured positions. There is ample reason to believe these contracts have negative effects not only on faculty but also on students.

Facing a global recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, institutions have first moved to deepen the precarity of faculty employed in this way by threatening them with mass layoffs, and ultimately are likely to attempt to cut costs by further expanding the use of, and reliance on, temporary, low-paid teaching contracts. But employment practices that push the majority of faculty to the edges of institutional life not only undermine faculty life and student learning conditions—they also keep sexual violence in place.

Employment practices that push the majority of faculty to the edges of institutional life not only undermine faculty life and student learning conditions—they also keep sexual violence in place.

The widespread use of contingent contracts makes sexual violence more possible in universities, and, when it occurs, more difficult to report.

Sexual Violence on Campus: Pervasive, Gendered, and Racialized

Sexual violence on university campuses has received increased attention in recent years. While much of this reporting has focused on student-to-student sexual violence, research suggests that as many as 20-50 percent of students experience some form of sexual violence from faculty or staff, including assault, harassment, and other forms of misconduct. Among employees, universities have among the highest rates of workplace sexual harassment, second only to the military.

Research also shows this violence is gender-distributed, with transgender and genderqueer students reporting the highest rates of harassment, and women reporting higher rates than men; that queer students, and particularly bisexual women, are disproportionately affected; and that the violence is racialized, with higher numbers of black, indigenous, and women of color exposed to sexual violence in higher education.

Despite high prevalence, instances of sexual violence on university campuses are reported at a lower rate than in other areas of society, with only 5-28 percent of instances ever reported. These low rates point to a problem with the avenues for lodging complaints.

Temporariness as a Barrier to Reporting

Both students and contingent faculty are, by design, temporary members of the university. Students are only on a campus for as long as it takes to complete a degree program, while contingent faculty are not guaranteed employment beyond the period of their current contract. The majority of contingent faculty appointments are made either on a year-by-year or term-by-term basis, and a significant proportion of contracts are never renewed, leading to substantial faculty turnover.

Temporariness presents challenges to reporting and accountability because quick turnover is at odds with the temporality of reporting sexual violence.

Temporariness presents challenges to reporting and accountability because quick turnover is at odds with the temporality of reporting sexual violence. First, students and faculty who experience sexual violence may need time to process their experiences and make a report. In some cases, this process can take years, and the time needed to decide to make a report is likely longer when the person who committed the violation is a professor or colleague-mentor. Second, university complaints processes are lengthy, sometimes remaining unresolved for over a year. The protracted nature of proceedings is a barrier to reporting given the toll it inevitably takes on the person who reports – or who may decide not to because of the burden imposed by a drawn-out process.

In this context, students may make a strategic decision to wait a situation out, rather than make a report, especially as complaints procedures may interrupt a student’s ability to focus on their program. When faculty are employed for short periods, there is a similar effect. When a job contract is shorter than the complaints process, contingency requires the faculty member to engage in a process that may extend beyond their relationship to the institution. A short contract may also mean the faculty member is ready to make a report only after their contract ends. In this case, temporariness constitutes a structural barrier to reporting because it asks the person to return to an institution where a violation occurred, and with which they no longer otherwise have a relationship.

Institutional Hierarchies and the Risk for Contingent Faculty

Contingent faculty not only have shorter contracts and less institutional security than other faculty, but considerably less institutional power. They are likely to be less well integrated in departments and to have fewer and weaker relationships with their colleagues. Often, contingent faculty receive little institutional support or guidance, leaving them heavily reliant on the one or two faculty members with direct oversight of their work, and who also may be responsible for rehiring them. Many schools and departments exclude contingent faculty from faculty meetings, and 90 percent of institutions exclude them from faculty governance, leaving them without access to accountability structures.

This institutional positioning leaves contingent faculty more exposed to sexual violence, and also contributes to making reporting more difficult. Making a report about a colleague with more institutional power and security can mean risking one’s career, and thus can make it necessary to endure the treatment in order to retain employment. Lack of departmental integration also means contingent faculty have few colleagues to rely on for support when harassment occurs, just as isolation can make harassment more likely. In cases where contingent faculty rely on a sole supervisor, they are also structurally vulnerable to this supervisor and abuses of power. When employment renewal decisions are reliant on a supervisor’s discretion, as opposed to a transparent process of evaluation, this precarity is further amplified.

If contingent faculty are over-exposed to sexual violence, it is significant that contingency is not evenly distributed. Sexual violence is raced and gendered, and the risks of sexual violence that flow from contingency reinforce these inequalities.

If contingent faculty are over-exposed to sexual violence, it is significant that contingency is not evenly distributed. Sexual violence is raced and gendered, and the risks of sexual violence that flow from contingency reinforce these inequalities.

Among institutionally secure faculty in the United States—that is, tenured professors—81 percent are white, more than 62 percent are male, and 54 percent are white and male, according to recent data. Contingent faculty are disproportionately not men, and not white. Women hold more than half of all non-tenure-track appointments. And while institutions are structured around whiteness, with all types of faculty appointments disproportionately filled by white people, non-white faculty disproportionately hold contingent positions.

Who Teaches Students, and to Whom Will They Report?

Contingent faculty positions are, for the most part, teaching-intensive positions. In the United States, half of all university courses are taught by contingent faculty. This makes contingent faculty vital to students’ educational experiences.

Faculty members are among those in whom students first confide experiences of harassment or assault, and as such are critical “first responders” to reports of sexual violence. This means that training faculty in how to respond to disclosures is crucial. It also suggests that an institution’s ability to effectively respond to student disclosures is curtailed by the widespread use of contingent contracts.

As short-term faculty members, contingent faculty may be less aware of an institution’s complaints process and support structures, which compromises their ability to help students access resources. Contingent faculty are also likely less able to support a student because of their own compromised position within institutional power structures. This effect may be particularly acute when a student confides in a contingent faculty member about a violation committed by a secure faculty member, who may have institutional power not only over the student, but also over the person to whom the student has turned. And it may be that the faculty member with whom a student formed a strong relationship, and in whom they might confide, is no longer employed on the campus when a student needs them.

Securing Positions, Securing Accountability

Ultimately, investment in secure faculty positions is central to the struggle against sexual violence on campuses. Long-term contracts allow faculty to report sexual misconduct when they experience it and engage in accountability processes. Such contracts are also essential to providing accountability for students, giving faculty time to accrue sufficient institutional knowledge and engage in the necessary training to support student disclosures of sexual harassment.

Contract security with the right to renewal via transparent evaluation processes is also necessary to increase structural protection for contingent faculty against abuses of power. The integration of contingent faculty into departmental structures and governance would also help to provide robust structures of support and reduce the isolation that may lead to abuse, while strengthening the ability to advocate for students experiencing sexual violence.

Finally, the labor associated with participating in faculty governance and training to respond to student disclosures of violence should not simply be added to job expectations but, crucially, conceptualized as part of all faculty’s paid work.

The labor associated with participating in faculty governance and training to respond to student disclosures of violence should not simply be added to job expectations but, crucially, conceptualized as part of all faculty’s paid work.

These recommendations for strengthening reporting and accountability in relation to sexual violence on campus align with the organized labor demands of contingent faculty more generally. This suggests not only that sexual violence is a labor issue, but that labor demands aimed at reducing precarity can also contribute to strengthening the necessary work to end sexual violence on campuses.