The Locked Box

February, 1996

Hidden away within the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University is a mysterious locked box. The purpose of this box is to preserve informal complaints of sexual harassment until they are needed to ruin a career.When its existence became widely known last year after a professor was accused of harassment, the box (which may actually be a locked filing cabinet or desk drawer) took many faculty members by surprise. It shouldn't have. At a sparsely attended spring faculty meeting five years...