Records of Women Organized Against Sexual Harassment, 1978-1980

Women Organized Against Sexual Harassment was an organization of undergraduate and graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley, who organized as a group in 1979 around complaints of sexual harassment against assistant professor of sociology Elbaki Hermassi by thirteen female students. Ruth Milkman was one of the leaders. The group corresponded with university administration, distributed flyers, held press conferences, and collected signatures on petitions in an effort to call attention to the case and to hold Hermassi accountable for his actions. In addition to their actions on campus, the organization also filed a Title IX complaint with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare on behalf of several of the affected students. They also researched sexual harassment policies and reporting procedures at other universities and state government agencies in order to ultimately force the University of California, Berkeley, to institute its own policies and procedures (none were in place at the time of the Hermassi case). The group also submitted an amicus curiae brief in 1979 in the appeal of the Alexander v. Yale case.