NIH strengthens sexual harassment reporting rules

Measures aim to stop the music in the long-running game of ‘pass the harasser’

The National Institutes of Health has reworked its sexual harassment policies to try to prevent universities from covering up sexual harassment by moving “NIH-funded harassers” elsewhere.

Previously, universities were free to remove a principal investigator from an NIH-funded research grant or change the institution linked to the grant without revealing that this was due to allegations or evidence of sexual harassment or other forms of abuse.