Sexual Misconduct in Academia edited by Erin Pritchard and Delyth Edwards (review)

Reviewed by: Sexual Misconduct in Academia edited by Erin Pritchard and Delyth Edwards Samantha Seybold (bio) Erin Pritchard and Delyth Edwards (ed.)'s Sexual Misconduct in Academia: Informing an Ethics of Care in the University, New York: Routledge, 2023 You cannot read the book that I'm reviewing. Routledge published Sexual Misconduct in Academia: Informing an Ethics of Care in the University in March 2023. It then pulled the book in early September in response to an alleged defamation suit threat, leaving little trace of the volume's existence aside from a few broken links lingering on the interwebs. This book's story compels me to depart from the standard book review formula. My review is part summary, seeking to answer the pressing question that arises: What voices, and what message, has Routledge censored? My review is also part consciousness-raising, seeking to counter the threatening twin narratives of reasonableness and mundanity poised to justify Routledge's censorship. Let's dive in. This volume is powerful and piercing, elevating a chorus of voices that document and deconstruct the pervasiveness of sexual assault experienced by early-career researchers and staff in higher education. Pritchard and Edwards emphasize that mainstream conceptions of sexual violence in the university are often narrowly construed as something perpetrated against students. This marginalizes and even erases the coercion, exploitation, and humiliation that women and nonbinary researchers face while navigating the starkly patriarchal corridors of the academy. Sexual Misconduct in Academia sets these experiences front and center. Pritchard and Edwards frame the book's project along two core "intentions": an ethics of care and a pedagogical practice (7). As a moral framework, care ethics delineates the responsibilities of moral agents in relational terms. It is thus fundamentally "grounded in the importance of End Page 317 voice" (7), in the dual radical practices of bringing firsthand experiences with oppression and violence into the light, and truly listening to these voices. Here the normative theory intersects with pedagogical practice, articulating teaching as a practice contextualized by historical patterns of inequality and exclusion. To fail to exercise curiosity and self-reflexivity is to fail to truly commit to the pursuit of knowledge. The twenty-three authors in this collection meet these aims with a compelling combination of striking vulnerability and critical rigor. Over the volume's eleven chapters, they expose the many interlocking facets of academic patriarchy and how the deployment of sexual violence reinforces this system. Author Poppy Gerrard-Abbott memorably characterizes gender-based violence as an "enablement jigsaw" (64). This violence constitutes the latitude and nonanswerability this system affords to those whom Sarah Ahmed calls the "important men," the well-connected, predominantly white and upper-class scholars who occupy, run, and ultimately dominate academic spaces. Gender-based violence simultaneously maintains this arrangement by keeping women survivors in a constant state of precarity and thus deterred from (even unable to) speak out against the abuse. Breaking this silence is at once a radical act of resistance and a radical outpouring of care. The authors expose the individual and collective trauma that seeps from academic spaces; the level of honesty and vulnerability on display here is a profound challenge to the forces conspiring to keep us both silent and tolerant toward gender-based violence. Together, the authors' honest revelations extend a mighty reassurance to survivors everywhere: you are not alone (221). No other four words are quite so powerful when it comes to breaking the stifling silence that keeps the patriarchy's coercive mechanisms well-oiled and churning along. In short, this book is essential for anyone who is committed to ensuring that the university is a safe and vibrant space for every person in it. These are the voices and the message offered by this book, the voices and message that Routledge silenced. This book's fate is of urgent concern, not only to feminists seeking to expose and dismantle the mechanisms, often violent, that keep patriarchal oppression in motion, but also to those who are dedicated to the goods of free expression and academic freedom. According to Routledge, the book's non/existence hinges on its last chapter, chapter 12, coauthored by Lieselotte Viaene, Catarina Laranjeiro, and Miye Nadya...