"Because of political correctness, we aretotally vulnerable to [being accused of sexualharassment]," van der Merwe says.

But the female graduate students say politicalcorrectness has nothing to do with their charges.

"His excuse is Western women... are uptight andprudish," says a female graduate student.

And grad students say the jokes are frequent.

"I must have heard ten to 15 jokes in the timeI've been here," the same female graduate studentadds, "What do you do? You laugh nervously."

"I know of few people who don't find himoffensive," the graduate student says, "I thinkthe University and the department should be prettyembarrassed."

Van der Merwe has a picture of a bare-breastedwoman wearing beads on his wall, eight graduatestudents and a faculty member say. Some studentssay they find the picture offensive.

But van der Merwe says that he acquired thepicture at a conference and that it is ofanthropological interest.

Susanna K. Mlynarczyk '97, who took van derMerwe's freshman seminar last fall, says van derMerwe at one point asked her: "Why don't you lookat the pictures of beads in my office."

"I thought the [picture of the woman] was alittle strange, but it's supposed to be aboutbeads, but beads aren't very ethnic," Mlynarczyksays, "It was a little weird."

Mlynarczyk, however, says she liked van derMerwe as a professor.

Margot Gill, dean of student affairs of thegraduate school of arts and sciences, says shecannot comment on any specific charges orallegations. She says that each year only ahandful of graduate students charge professorswith sexual harassment.

Knowles did not return a phone call to his homethis weekend.

Two graduate students who say they weretold sexually explicit jokes charge that otherprofessors in the Anthropology Department wereunsympathetic to their complaints.

"I went to another professor in the department,who told me it is 'just [van der Merwe's] style,"'one female grad student says. "He wasn't at allinterested and told me not to make waves."