Poet Katarina Frostenson is married to Jean-Claude Arnault, the man at the center of a sexual abuse scandal that came to public knowledge last fall.

Klas Östergren made his announcement through Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet on Friday morning:

”The Swedish Academy has for a long time had serious problems and now tried to solve them in a way that allows obscure regards take precedence over its own bylaws and that is a betrayal of its founders and its guardian, not to mention its function to serve the motto talent and taste. That is why I have chosen to no longer participate in its work. ’I’m leaving the table, I’m out of the game.’”

Author and historian Kjell Espmark followed suit a little while after Östergren.

”When leading voices within the Academy put friendship and other irrelevant considerations before the responsibility of this integrity I can no longer participate in its work”, Espmark wrote in a note to Dagens Nyheter.

Peter Englund, also an author and historian—as well as previous permanent secretary of the Academy—wrote on his blog:

"Decisions have been made that I neither believe in nor can defend, and I have thus decided to no longer participate in the work of the Swedish Academy."

Arnault accused of sexual abuse

The scandal that shook the Academy was revealed by Dagens Nyheter in November of last year.

Jean-Claude Arnault, who is married to Academy member Katarina Frostenson, and who has close ties to the Academy himself, was the subject of multiple stories told by numerous women. What all the stories had in common was that Arnault was accused of sexual assault, and that he had taken advantage of his power and position.

Arnault, who was considered a power-player in the Swedish cultural elite, ran Forum in Stockholm, a stage that has had a major impact on the cultural scene in Sweden.

Arnault was given significant grants from the Academy to run the club.

Other members in the Academy have come forward and said they knew of Arnault's behavioir, but did not report it.

Most recently poet Kristina Lugn told French tv station TF1:

"It's true what they say about him. It's true. What he did to young girls. It's true. But the Academy was not involved in that."

Founded by the king

The Swedish Academy is awarding the Nobel Prize in literature each year.

The Academy was founded by king Gustav III in 1786 and has 18 chairs.

Two members have already left their seats: Author Kerstin Ekman left after a rift in 1989. Lotta Lotass left the Academy 2015.

With the three new departures, five out of eighteen chairs are now empty.

The Academy can’t pick new members for those chairs since membership is for the lifetime of each member, even if he or she decides to leave the Academy.

Katarina Frostenson has not been seen at any of the Academy's meetings since the scandal broke, Expressen has been told.</s>”The Swedish Academy has had serious problems for a long time, and are now trying to solve them in ways that put obscure considerations in front of their own statutes, which is a betrayal to the Academy's founder and its highest patron, not to mention its function of representing brilliance and taste. Therefore I have chosen to not participate in the institution's activity any longer. I'm leaving the table, I'm out of the game,” he wrote in the letter.

”Integrity is the blood of the Swedish Academy. When leading voices in the Academy put friendship and irrelevant regards over the responsibility for this integrity I can no longer be involved in the work,” he wrote in a message to Dagens Nyheter.

On Friday afternoon former permanent secretary, historian and author Peter Englund, also decided to leave his seat in the Academy. In his announcement, published on his blog, he wrote that there is a divide within the Academy, where permanent secretary Sara Danius’s handling of a deep crisis in the Academy has been criticized internally.

”Decisions have been made which I neither believe in nor can defend, and I have decided to no longer participate in the work of the Swedish Academy,” he wrote.</s>The Swedish Academy has been rocked by a series of rows over a scandal that emerged last year, when several women accused a man – who is not a household name in Sweden but has strong ties to the Academy and is a well-known figure on Stockholm's cultural scene – of sexual abuse and harassment.

It sparked a crisis on the Academy committee, which decided to cut all ties and funding to the man – who has been referred to as "the culture profile" in Swedish media – with immediate effect.

The Academy said at the time that it had potentially broken its own rules regulating conflict of interest and appointed a legal firm to investigate its committee members' ties to the man in question.

Swedish media report that the investigation is now finished and that Friday's resignations come on the back of a meeting yesterday, when the Academy met to word a press statement to be sent out next week.

Renowned author Klas Östergren stepped down in the afternoon, followed in quick succession by fellow members of the Academy Kjell Espmark and Peter Englund.

Östergren announced his departure in typically striking Academy style by referring both to King Gustaf III, its founder back in 1786, and a quote by singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen.

"The Swedish Academy has for a long time had serious problems and has now tried to solve them in a way that puts obscure considerations before its own statutes, which is a betrayal of its founder and patron, and not least its mission to represent genius and taste. Therefore, I have chosen to no longer take part in its activities. 'I'm leaving the table, I'm out of the game'," Östergren told Svenska Dagbladet, with the last line in English.

The Swedish Academy, which has awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1901, has 18 permanent members. Membership is for life and a person who quits is traditionally not replaced until their death. Two more members have previously resigned, for other reasons not related to the recent crisis.

Permanent Secretary Sara Danius told Svenska Dagbladet that the Academy was now looking at revising the rules, making it possible for a member to leave and be replaced by another person. She said she was saddened by the trio's decision, but added that she understood their reasoning.

Danius added that she herself had thought about quitting.

"That's what you do in these situations, you consider various options. But I feel that our mission is so important that it is greater than our differences of opinion. I have come to the decision that I will keep going as long as I can, but I will work for what's right," she told the newspaper.

Few other details were released on Friday, but that did not stop the rest of the Swedish world of literature and culture from commenting.

"It's like the whole Tower of Babel is collapsing, it's very interesting," Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet's culture editor Åsa Linderborg described the situation.

Dagens Nyheter's culture editor Björn Wiman described it as a "catastrophe".

"It is difficult to see how the Academy will be able to move on after this. It is a bomb dropped right onto the Stock Exchange Building," he wrote, referring to the building housing the Academy. "The institution is in ruins."

The allegations against the man were first revealed as part of the #MeToo campaign exposing sexual misconduct, which began in Hollywood and went on to shake artistic, media and political circles in Sweden, one of the most gender equal countries in the world.

In March, Stockholm's public prosecutor's office announced that part of the investigation, into claims of alleged rapes and assaults between 2013 and 2015, had been called off as the statute of limitation had passed or due to lack of evidence.</s>STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Three members of the Swedish Academy, the body that selects the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, have withdrawn from its board in protest over the handling of allegations of sexual misconduct by a man married to another member.

Academy members and authors Peter Englund, Klas Ostergren and Kjell Espmark all said separately they would no longer participate in its work. Since seats are for life it, is not technically possible to resign.

The Swedish Academy in November severed ties with a man whom it had helped financially in running a cultural club in Stockholm after allegations of sexual misconduct on his part.

At a time of global concern over the treatment of women spearheaded by the #MeToo movement, state prosecutors opened a premliminary investigation into the incidents, but later dropped parts of it without charges being laid.

Lawyer Bjorn Hurtig, who represents the man, told Reuters his client denied all allegations.

The Swedish Academy has yet to make public the results of its own internal investigation. But Englund said in a blog on Friday that a rift had grown in the body over the probe and the measures taken by the Academy’s permanent secretary in the case.

He said that its assessments showed “too much regard for the individual, and too little for the statutes”.

“Decisions have been taken that I neither believe in nor can defend, and I have therefore decided to no longer participate in the work of the Swedish Academy,” he said.

Espmark told Reuters he backed Englund’s opinions on the matter. Ostergren did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment but said in a letter to newspaper Svenska Dagbladet he believed the Academy was failing to live up to its own code.

The manager of the Swedish Academy’s office said that only Sara Danius, the permanent secretary, could comment on the case. Danius did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment but an auto-reply said she was currently on leave.

But in comments to daily Svenska Dagbladet, she said the Academy had decided to look into whether it could be made possible for members to formally resign while also saying she was saddened be the exit of her colleagues.

“It is very sad. But I understand their reasoning,” she was quoted as saying.</s>Three prominent members of the Swedish Academy resigned on Friday in protest at close ties between the institution, which awards the Nobel Literature Prize, and a high-profile man accused of sexual assault.

The Academy has been reeling since it was revealed as part of the #MeToo campaign in November that several members, as well as members' wives and daughters, had allegedly been assaulted by the well-known figure at the center of the scandal.

Sweden's Dagens Nyheter newspaper broke the news, publishing the testimony of 18 women claiming to have been assaulted or raped by one of the most influential figures in Stockholm's cultural scene.

The Academy has since cut all ties with the man, who has not been publicly identified.

But his identity is generally known by the public as he is a high-profile person in cultural circles.

The alleged sexual assaults occurred between 1996 and 2017, according to Dagens Nyheter.

One of the resigning members Peter Englund said the scandal had deeply divided the Swedish literary world.

"Over time, a crack that appeared has continued to grow," he said in a letter to the Aftonbladet newspaper, adding that the Academy's permanent secretary Sara Danius had been subject to "unjustified" criticism.

The fallout continued Friday as King Carl XVI Gustaf was informed of developments as the director general of the Nobel Foundation Lars Heikensten expressed concern over a "serious and difficult situation".

Along with Englund, members Klas Ostergren and Kjell Espmark decided to step down after the group's normal meeting on Thursday at a Stockholm restaurant.

"It is with great sadness that after 36 years working at the Academy, including 17 as chairman of the Nobel Committee, I feel forced to make this decision," Espmark said in a letter to the media.

"When prominent academy members put friendship ahead of responsibility and integrity, I can no longer participate in its work".

Ostergren condemned "a betrayal of the founder and his great protector", referring to the Academy's founder, Swedish King Gustav III, and inventor Alfred Nobel, who left some of his fortune to the institution.

The three men are lifetime members and cannot technically resign, but there is nothing forcing them to attend meetings.

Of the academy's 18 members, five are no longer active after two women, Kerstin Ekman and Lotta Lotass, went on leave for several years.

Bjorn Wiman, the culture editor of Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, said the resignations are "a disaster" for an academy "in ruins".

His counterpart at the Aftonbladet newspaper, Asa Linderborg, said "the tower of Babel is crumbling".

The allegations against the man were first revealed as part of the #MeToo campaign exposing sexual misconduct, which began in Hollywood and went on to shake artistic, media and political circles in Sweden, one of the most gender equal countries in the world.

In March, Stockholm's public prosecutor's office announced that part of the investigation, into claims of alleged rapes and assaults between 2013 and 2015, had been called off as the statute of limitation had passed or due to lack of evidence.</s>Over the past year, the NUS Women’s Campaign has been working with The 1752 Group to conduct research on staff-student sexual misconduct in UK higher education. On Wednesday, we were thrilled to announce the publication of our ground-breaking report “Power in the Academy: Staff Sexual Misconduct in UK Higher Education”.

The report was commissioned amidst increasing concerns about the abuse of power and sexual misconduct between staff and students in higher education institutions. The case of Allison Smith, a student at the University of Sussex who suffered domestic abuse from a member of staff highlighted the inadequacy of university action, after the perpetrator was allowed to remain in post. The surfacing of multiple historic and recent allegations at Goldsmiths, University of London also threw light on a culture of sexual harassment.
• 4 in 10 respondents had experienced at least one instance of sexualised behaviour from staff;
• women are twice as likely to experience misconduct compared to their male counterparts - with LGBT+ women most likely to have experienced misconduct;
• Postgraduate women student, in particular, experience staff-student misconduct at a higher rate.

The “Power in the Academy” report is the first step towards understanding student-staff misconduct in the UK. The findings are sobering and demonstrates the urgent need for action. Higher education is an environment where casual misconduct, harassment, and sexism are rife, and where sexualised and sexist behaviours are culturally embedded.

Perhaps it’s worth stating, the study does not intend to feed into the sensationalist reporting that often accompanies sexual misconduct in higher education. Rather, it attempts to locate student-staff misconduct as part of a continuum of sexism and sexual violence in universities (and society more broadly) and lobby for meaningful change in the sector.

It is well known, for example, that harassment and gendered violence is a reality for many in academia. Our Hidden Marks Report (2010) was particularly influential in uncovering the scope of these experiences for women students. Indeed, the research found that 2 in 3 women students had experienced some form of harassment, whilst 1 in 7 had experienced serious sexual assault. The most recent study conducted by Revolt Sexual Assault echoes these findings, and reinforced calls for universities to introduce robust guidelines.

However, the issue of student-staff misconduct is much less researched. Until now, the most recent study of staff-student misconduct in the UK dates back to 1995; 23 years ago. As such, Universities UK (UUK) have been unable to issue effective guidance on the matter. As it stands, one in three institutions have no policies on student-staff relationships.

A lack of research in this area, combined with wide-scale institutional failings has meant that we had very little idea of students’ experiences.

The “Power in the Academy: Sexual Misconduct in UK Higher Education” report intends to bridge this gap and provide a holistic understanding of staff-student sexual misconduct; how it manifests, how students perceive their relationship with staff, who is disproportionately affected and, above all, how institutions are responding.

Thus, it is crucial that the findings of this report influence meaningful change and ensure an institution-wide approach to tackling harassment. For one, we need to ensure that there are accessible reporting tools and clear signposting around student-staff incidents.

For example, our report found that universities are failing in their response to staff sexual misconduct. Only one in ten respondents who experienced staff sexual misconduct reported it to their institution. Of those who reported to their institution, over a half believed that their institution did not respond adequately to their concerns. More worryingly, just under 31% of respondents said that their institution had suggested their experience might affect the reputation of the institution.

If there is underreporting it signals a wider institutional failing; a lack of confidence in the system and a reporting tool that fails to empower students.

Most importantly, we need to ensure training is provided to academics who teach, at all levels. This is especially true for postgraduate students who are not given appropriate training or guidelines for how to interact with students - this leaves both parties vulnerable.

We must remember, above all, that we cannot afford a knee-jerk response to this as it would risk endangering students even more.
Three members of the Swedish Academy leave their seats after failing to oust another member whose husband is accused of sexual misconduct including raping young female writers.