STATEMENTS AND ENDORSEMENTS

We have known, as a legal community, for a very long time, that sexual harassment curtails a person’s space for action and, therefore, their opportunities, both professional and personal.

We have known, as a legal community, for a very long time that sexual harassment keeps the gendered status quo intact, and limits some people’s freedoms, opportunities and security, and not others’.

We know that the diminished status of women won’t end until sexual harassment stops.

We know that sexual harassment is not only the problem of those individuals who engage in it or are subjected to it - it is an endemic cultural, institutional problem for all. 

We know that sexual harassment won’t end without hard thinking and different actions. Institutional and cultural change is essential and long overdue. Policies and compensatory mechanisms are not enough. Every word, deed, and attitude on display is part of the culture that can either enable or stop sexual harassment.

As members of the Australasian Law Academics Association, we are responsible for contributing to the institutional and cultural change required to end sexual harassment in our law schools, the legal profession, indeed, everywhere in our society. We are responsible for, and have the opportunity to, model and teach the attitudes and values we seek to instil in our students and to create and nurture safe learning, research and working environments in which sexual harassment is not practised or tolerated, so that all students and legal academics can flourish. We are committed to doing so.