National Science Foundation funding rules target harassment
The NSF will fight sexism in science with its purse strings.
Sexual harassment has been an endemic problem within the scientific community for years. Well, the National Science Foundation is mad as hell and it's not gonna take it anymore. The NSF announced on Monday "its strong commitment to preventing harassment and to eradicate gender-based discrimination in science" and promised to cut funding to institutions that tolerate or enable such behavior.
"NSF does not tolerate sexual harassment and encourages members of the scientific community who experience such harassment to report such behavior immediately," the organization stated in a press release. "As the primary funder of fundamental science and engineering research in the U.S., NSF supports researchers and students at the forefront of their fields—each of whom deserves to be treated fairly, with dignity and respect."
To that end, the NSF announced that it will work with the Departments of Justice and Education to ensure Title IX compliance. Should any of the 2,000 universities and research institutes that the NSF funds fail to meet the Title IX standards and refuse to voluntarily come into compliance, the NSF vowed to cut their funding.
