PMRA Sexual Harassment Statement

Dear PMRA Members: 

PMRA has become aware that a senior scholar in the public administration field has been accused of a long-standing pattern of sexual harassment. While this person is not a member of PMRA, we feel compelled to (1) unequivocally state that such behaviors are inconsistent with our association’s norms and values and (2) speak out on what PMRA is doing to deter such behaviors at future meetings and activities.

We want all PMRA members to feel safe and welcome attending our conferences and publishing in our journals.  To ensure this safety, we are in the process of devising PMRA Community Standards that will enable incidences of discrimination, harassment and bullying to be reported to the PMRA Secretariat. The draft set of Community Standards will go before the board at the June meeting.  The Board plans to make ethics and associational behavior a permanent agenda item and will revisit the Community Standards every year, for any additions, issues and procedural changes needed to reflect our vision of PMRA as a safe, welcoming and inclusive professional association. The Community Standards are intended to reinforce positive behaviors, deter unacceptable behaviors and facilitate safe spaces for all PMRA members. 

We also want to make you aware of one result of the ethics survey we conducted in November/December of 2020. The survey yielded a 22 percent response rate (n=296 responses). While the low response rate limits generalizability to all PMRA members, the results suggests that incidences of sexual harassment are not widespread at our conferences. Of course, even one case of sexual harassment is unacceptable, which is why developing Community Standards for PMRA is so important. 

If you have any questions about PMRA’s plans for Community Standards, PMRA’s stance on issues surrounding sexual harassment, or the results of the ethics survey, please contact the PMRA Secretariat at pmra@ku.edu.