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#MeToo: Former TISS student accuses graduate adviser of sexual harassment

#MeToo: Former TISS student accuses graduate adviser of sexual harassment

By Shiladitya Ray

Oct 28, 2018

11:18 am

What's the story

On Saturday, a former student of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) accused her graduate adviser of sexually harassing her while she was pursuing her M.A. in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations (now called M.A. in Human Resource Management and Labour Relations) from 2004-2006. Reacting to the allegations, TISS has assured that it will take necessary action. Here are the details.

Details

Empowered by the #MeToo movement, the ex-student shared her ordeal

Saying that she drew her strength from the strengthening #MeToo movement, the former student took to Facebook to share her ordeal at the hands of the accused, Prof. P Vijayakumar. She said that she had not been in a position to say "no" to Vijayakumar's advances, owing to the power disparity between them. The ex-student added that she was willing to take formal action.

Facebook Post

READ: The Facebook post by the former student

Reactions

TISS assures that necessary action will be taken

When contacted by Indian Express, the former student said that TISS had reached out to her after her post. TISS Director Prof. Shalini Bharat confirmed the same, and iterated that TISS has a "zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual harassment" and that "necessary action will be taken" once investigations against Prof. Vijayakumar has been completed. Vijayakumar, however, was unavailable for comments.

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