Protecting interns and apprentices against sexual harassment: Why schools and Universities need to act?

French companies are required to put more programs in place to address sexist and sexual violence in the workplace. They are requested to respond promptly to cases to discrimination and harassment, and to be diligent in their protection of all their employees. However, our recent research project shows how many cases of sexual harassment targeting precarious workers – and particularly relevant for schools and Universities: interns and apprentices – recurringly go unpunished. In this short article, we summarize this research that shows how anti-harassment programs supposed to protect all workers tend to be less efficient to protect these more precarious workers. Based on these findings, we recommend that business schools and any higher education institution put in place further measures to protect their students during their first, often precarious, professional experiences.

Anti-harassment policies remain insufficient to protect precarious workers

Since the #MeToo movement, the legal apparatus to protect workers against sexual harassment and sexist violence has been reinforced in France. These new laws are compelling companies and organizations to have a coordinator in charge of implementing anti-sexual harassment policies. Guidelines from the French Ministry of Labor specify several legal obligations of any employer, including the necessity to promptly conduct internal reviews after a case of reported sexual harassment, the necessity to take action to protect workers against retaliation during this internal procedure, and to ensure that all employees are aware of their rights and of the possible measures, including the judicial measures they can take against their harassers, and the support they are entitled to claim from their employer.

Yet, a non-profit created by three former emlyon students  – Balance Ton Stage – created in the wake of the MeToo movement, collected hundreds of testimonies from the precarious workers that need to complete an apprenticeship or internship to validate their diploma, showing how their sexual harassment remains very often unpunished. Our goal in this article is to try to explain why this is the case, and what schools and Universities could do to try to counterbalance this serious issue.

Explaining the shortcomings of anti-harassment programs

An important scholarship has demonstrated that programs supposed to respond to sexual harassment remain flawed and limited to achieve their objectives. Anti-harassment programs tend to effectively sanction rank-and-file workers, but often fail to hold harassers in position of power accountable for their actions. We also know that the delays in implementing internal reviews after the reporting of a sexual harassment case are often very long, and that the safeguards to protect victims against backlash during this sensitive time are often insufficient or lacking.

The testimonies that students were willing to share highlight that interns and apprentices are often afraid to report the fact when they are victims of sexual harassment. The reasons for this recurring underreporting of sexual harassment cases are multiple. Many students describe how their harassers waited for the end of their internship before acting, and thus students had a very limited time to denounce these acts in corporations. Students also often mentioned how they feared retaliation (most harassers were, unsurprisingly, in a higher position than them). Several also mentioned that they were afraid of what reporting could have as consequences on their internship status, and therefore their ability to obtain their diploma. Interns and apprentices are indeed in a particularly delicate situation: they need to validate their internships to graduate, and thus, without proper support, voicing up a denunciation might have hugely detrimental consequences for them. Even more concerning: several students reported that, when they did dare to report their harassment to their schools or to their employer, their interlocutor did not take action to support them.

The need to further protect apprentices and interns against sexual harassment

Our research demonstrated that flaws in anti-harassment programs not only keep existing in France after the passing of new laws to protect employees against sexual harassment, but also that they disproportionally affect interns and apprentices, who are both young, having their first professional experiences, and in a precarious position with many things to lose if they are not properly supported by their school or their employer. For instance, the testimonies that students were willing to share stressed how the lengthy delays in implementing internal reviews were playing against them. Because they will be only in companies for a short time, and because their harassers often hold more dominant and stable position, they have both lower incentives and lesser chances of receiving reparation after reporting harassment, and might even face a backlash for doing so.

What consequences should we draw from this research? According to me, this research is relevant to academic communities worldwide, because most higher education schools now heavily rely on apprenticeship and internship in their curriculum. These schools should train their staff to be proactive when a student reaches out to report a case of sexual harassment in internships or apprenticeships. Raising awareness among the students, and ensuring them that they will be supported by their school in case of sexual harassment, would also be necessary for increasing the number of reports. Students will be more likely to confide in their school if they have heard before that they will be supported and that such reporting would not have negative consequences for obtaining their diploma. Schools should also be proactive in interacting with companies when a case of harassment is reported. This would enable then to stop collaborating with companies that tolerate harassment in their walls, and to help students be protected and pursue their internship in a less toxic context.

At the level of companies, this research shows that having a program to address sexual harassment is not enough. What is necessary is to incrementally improve these programs to fill existing gaps in implementation. Our research demonstrates not only that existing programs still have flaws, but also that these flaws are particularly detrimental to young and precarious workers, and more specifically interns and apprentices. Companies could develop faster processes of internal review to support their interns and apprentices, and could also communicate to reassure them that they should not fear retaliation if they report harassment or discrimination.