University of Manchester to investigate sexual harassment of female medical students

One of the students targeted has written to the university’s vice-chancellor describing a ‘pervasive culture of sexual harassment’ in the school of medical sciences. Photograph: Mark Waugh/Alamy View image in fullscreen One of the students targeted has written to the university’s vice-chancellor describing a ‘pervasive culture of sexual harassment’ in the school of medical sciences. Photograph: Mark Waugh/Alamy University of Manchester to investigate sexual harassment of female medical students About 20 students report anonymous late-night phone calls from men who ‘intimidated, demeaned and belittled’ them The University of Manchester has launched an investigation after about 20 female medical students complained of receiving anonymous phone calls in the middle of the night from male callers who intimidated and sexually harassed them. The calls have been going on for at least three years, according to Charlotte Buttercase, a final-year medical student and one of those targeted. Woken in the dead of night, female students have been told they are being watched, or have been asked to perform sexual favours, while in other cases callers have screamed gender-based slurs at them. Buttercase, 24, described her own experience. “On April 16 I was phoned at 2am from an anonymous, no-caller ID and in a two-minute interaction I was subjected to sexually harassing comments. “Given I was alone in a dark room at 2am – it was one man speaking and three men laughing – I felt incredibly intimidated, demeaned and belittled by this event.” Speaking to fellow medical students later, Buttercase discovered 16 calls were made in 22 minutes that night, and she was the fifth woman they had called. Others have since come forward with stories of sexual harassment, in person and via phone calls. In an open letter to the university’s vice-chancellor, Duncan Ivison, Buttercase called for a formal review of what she described as a “pervasive culture of sexual harassment” in the school of medical sciences. “If one less young woman feels unsafe in her own home, feels less alone in experiencing these attempts to intimidate and belittle her, then we have succeeded,” she wrote. One in three female students say they have endured sexual harassment during their time at university or college. A recent survey of undergraduates found that students at England’s leading universities were more than twice as likely to experience sexual harassment than those at “lower tariff” institutions. The research by the Office for Students , England’s higher education regulator, also uncovered hotspots of sexual harassment and sexual assault or violence against those studying courses requiring high entry grades, such as medicine, dentistry, veterinary sciences or languages. Responding to the Manchester case, the BMA medical students committee co-chairs, Henry Budden and Elgan Manton-Roseblade, said: “These incidents are appalling and have no place in medical school or education. This deplorable behaviour