Lecturer resigns in protest against sexual harassment claims on campus

Goldsmiths is offering scholarships to six asylum seekers Pic: Lamees Altalebi

Goldsmiths Pic: Lamees Altalebi

Goldsmiths lecturer Sara Ahmed has resigned from her post at the university in what she termed as a “protest against the failure to address the problem of sexual harassment.”

Explaining the reasons of her resignation on her blog Feministkilljoy, Ahmed said: “I have resigned because the costs of doing this work have been too high.”

This decision comes six months after Ahmed published a post addressing sexual harassment in higher education.

Ahmed was the head of Goldsmiths’ Centre for Feminist Research.

Jane Powell, Goldsmiths’ deputy warden, said: “[…] under Professor Sara Ahmed’s directorship, this has brought together a constellation of staff and students at all career stages whose expertise and experience stimulates and informs debate within and beyond Goldsmiths.”

Powell said that she understood the silence around sexual harassment and insisted that “[Goldsmiths] must continuously monitor and review our mechanisms for reporting harassment, investigating complaints, and dealing with the consequences: cultural change takes time and effort.”

She continued: “An absence of complaints is absolutely not indicative of a healthy, thriving, organisation; more often the reverse, as it all too often reflects a blindness of eye or institutional unwillingness to listen.”

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