The Guardian said on Friday that it had received accounts of sexual harassment and gender violence through a questionnaire published on its website in late August.
The cases included verbal bullying, serial harassment, assaults, sexual assaults and even rapes. Many women did not file lawsuits as they feared for their academic careers. Those, who complained, said that they felt isolated and unprotected as they realized that the assaulters were untouchable.
The reported incidents took place in a number of universities across the United Kingdom, including the prestigious ones belonging to the Russell Group.
Over 300 Sussex University staff and students sent a letter to Vice Chancellor Adam Tickell demanding the establishment of a taskforce to examine the university's policy in the sphere of violence and harassment. In August, Salter was finally fired.
That is not the first sexual harassment scandal in the United Kingdom. For example, following the death of Jimmy Savile, former BBC TV presenter knighted by the Queen in 1990, in 2011, hundreds of victims came forward alleging they had been abused by him resulting in a major police investigation known as Operation Yewtree that discovered Savile had sexually abused over 450 people.
