Minoritized groups and sexual harassment policies in academia – a feminist institutionalist re-reading of findings of a large-scale survey study

Gender-based violence in universities is a persistent problem across academia. According to our own recent large-scale study (Lipinsky et al., 2022), around 62 % of staff and students experience gender-based violence in academia, with women (66 %) and non-binary people (74 %), queer people (68 %) and people with disability or chronic illnesses (72 %) as well as people from ethnic minority groups (68 %) – are more likely to be affected compared to heterosexual cis men. Gender-based violence at work negatively impacts the well-being and career progression of researchers and students. Despite increased attention from researchers and policymakers, there remains much work to be done before students and academics in this setting are free from harassment and abuse. In this paper, we revisit our survey findings on the prevalence, determinants, and consequences of gender-based violence from a feminist institutional perspective, focusing on sexual harassment of minoritized groups. Utilising a multi-level modelling approach on our empirical survey data, our study evaluates how informal-cultural institutions in academia, such as competitive orientation towards excellence, the acceptance of essentialist gender beliefs, and the normalisation of violent behaviour, as well as formalised rules of the organisation, such as gender balance in leadership and policies against gender-based violence, impact the prevalence and consequences of sexual harassment in minoritized groups in academic environments. Our analysis shows resistance against feminist and intersectional agency in decision-making structures, the formalisation of policies, and the normalising gender-based violence (Lombardo & Bustelo, 2021). Heteronormative masculinity works at different levels in academic institutions. Our findings call for more attention to intersectional approaches to understanding factors that persistently facilitate discrimination and gendered violent behaviour in academia.