ANTÁRTICA: A Boston University professor has been accused of sexually harassing 2 female researchers on Antarctic expeditions

–AFP / Australian Antarctic Division

By Dialynn Dwyer
October 16, 2017

Boston University is investigating allegations that one of its professors — a prominent geologist — sexually harassed two of his graduate students on field expeditions to Antarctica almost two decades ago.

The two women who have filed Title IX complaints with the university allege that during separate research trips in the late 1990s David Marchant, who’s listed as the director for the university’s Antarctic Research Group, sexually harassed them and repeatedly called them misogynistic slurs. Other allegations include that he repeatedly shoved one of the women down a slope and threw rocks at her when she tried to go to the bathroom in the field.

The allegations were first reported earlier this month by Science. The publication reported that documents associated with BU’s investigation indicate Marchant denies the accusations.

“Everyday, we woke up and would get ready for the day and would go into the cook tent for breakfast — and everyday, Prof. Marchant would say to me, ‘Today I’m going to make you cry,’” Jane Willenbring wrote in her complaint to BU.   

Here’s what we know about the allegations, the professor accused of the harassment, and what BU says it is doing to address the complaints from its former students.

The allegations

Jane Willenbring, 40, now an associate professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, filed a Title IX complaint with BU in October 2016, just a few months after she received tenure.

In her letter to the university, which she provided to Boston.com, Willenbring says she waited to come forward because she feared reprisal from Marchant, who was an assistant professor and her thesis advisor while she was a graduate student. She said while she was still a student, he “threatened to ruin” her career if she didn’t give him a positive recommendation when he was being considered for a tenured position.

“I believed he meant what he said, and since then I have been reluctant to tell the truth about his conduct for fear that he might retaliate,” Willenbring wrote. “As I now have an established and secure position in the field, I am now comfortable taking this step.”

In her complaint, Willenbring recounts her experiences with Marchant on two months-long expeditions to Antarctica when she was in her early 20s. She said at the beginning of the first trip, from November 1999 to January 2000, her thesis advisor encouraged her to have sex with his brother, Jeff, who was on the trip and with whom she shared a tent.

But things got worse as the days went on, she wrote:
I remember a particular week when Marchant decided that he would throw rocks at me every time I urinated in the field. There are really no easy places to escape in some of the places in the sites we were in; some areas were flat for miles with no tall boulders for protection from anyone’s gaze. I tried to stop urinating during the long field days and, I’m afraid to say looking back on it now, scaled back my water consumption so that I wouldn’t have to urinate for the 12-hour-days in the field away from the tents. I would drink liters of water at night instead. I regretted this strategy as I got a bladder infection that I had the rest of the season. Later, I mentioned to Marchant that I had blood in my urine. He prohibited me from going back to the base to get medical treatment. Marchant said that it happened to all women in the field and that it would go away on its own. The other members of the group suggested I just drink cranberry juice. Marchant even suggested that I not put my urine into the translucent tank to be airlifted out of the camp because he didn’t want people back on base to see my bloody urine and think someone in the group wasn’t healthy. Following his suggestion would have been a violation of environmental procedure in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, where all human waste in the camp has to be airlifted out. I did not have it before leaving for the field, but in January 2000 and now, I have urinary incontinence – more than 15 years after that field campaign.

Most days, Willenbring said Marchant would have “long discussions” with the other men on the trip about how she was a “slut” and “whore.”

She alleges that when she ignored his attempts to make her cry or engage her it “provoked real ire in Marchant.” In one instance, she said her advisor pushed her to the ground and pinned her so she couldn’t move. Willenbring says following that incident, Marchant told her to take a look at volcanic ash he was holding on a sampling spoon and, when she bent over to examine the sediment that contains small pieces of glass, blew it into her eyes.

“I’d had a lot of trouble with ‘ice blindness’ (i.e. too much UV radiation in the eyes) and Marchant knew this,” she told BU. “So he knew that glass shards hitting my already sensitive eyes would be really painful – and it was. The painful effects of this little ‘prank’ of his lasted about a week.”

The Boston Globe