Academic ‘laughed off stage over her study into sex pests’
A CAMBRIDGE researcher claims she was laughed off stage by ‘older men’ at a prestigious archaeology awards ceremony due to her investigations into sexual harassment.
Danielle Bradford, 21, graduated from the university this year and has been conducting research into sexual harassment in the archaeological and anthropological fields since.
She had been nominated for a Marsh Archaeological Award at a ceremony hosted by the Council for British Archaeology in central London last Friday. But when the presenter announced her field of research, a ‘large group of older men’ began to laugh at her.
She said: ‘I managed to go up and get my certificate, but as soon as I sat back down I burst into tears in front of a hall full of people. It was humiliating. What I was surprised at was the fact that these people were so f****** open about it that they laughed in front of a room of their colleagues, at a young woman.’
But Miss Bradford said the CBA had been ‘amazingly kind’ since. Afterwards, Dr Mike Heyworth, director of the CBA, tweeted: ‘The appalling reaction of a few people in the audience to her deserved citation was a disgrace.’ And a CBA spokesman said: ‘We offer our sincere apologies to Dani and anyone who has suffered from sexual harassment in archaeology.’ Miss Bradford has been a strong advocate against harassment during her time at Cambridge University.
Earlier this year, she told Channel 4 News that she would sue the institution over its handling of her complaint of sexual misconduct against a tutor. In August, the university said: ‘The discipline process is not equivalent to a court of law.
‘It is designed to take action to investigate whether a student has breached university rules and, if so, to impose proportionate sanctions.’