Two doctoral students at the University of California at Los Angeles who say they were sexually harassed and assaulted by a history professor over a period of years have sued the university for allegedly doing little to help them.
UCLA officials dissuaded the two women from filing formal complaints against the professor, Gabriel Piterberg, and urged them to keep quiet about the alleged abuse, according to the lawsuit, filed last month in federal district court against the University of California’s Board of Regents.
The students, Nefertiti Takla and Kristen Hillaire Glasgow, said Mr. Piterberg had repeatedly made lewd and explicit comments about his sex life, pressed his body against them, and forcibly kissed them.
Mr. Piterberg, who specializes in Middle Eastern studies and the history of the Ottoman Empire, did not respond to email or phone requests for comment.
In a statement issued late Thursday, UCLA said he is still employed by the university but will not teach in the coming fall quarter.
“UCLA is committed to providing an environment free from harassment and discrimination and ensuring due process for all members of our community,” the statement said. “The facts of this case are complex, and the university will respond to the allegations made in the lawsuit in the course of the legal process.” Privacy laws, the statement continued, prevented the university from commenting further.
The allegations come at a sensitive time for the more than 120 universities, like UCLA, that are being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education for possible violations of Title IX, the federal law banning sexual discrimination in education. Many are scrutinizing relationships between professors and students more closely than ever before, with some concluding that the power imbalance between faculty members and students puts any sexual relationship off limits.
A Hold on the Purse Strings
In the UCLA case, both women, who agreed to be identified by name in the lawsuit, said they were nervous about reporting the alleged abuse and worried about the repercussions on their careers. Mr. Piterberg was Ms. Takla’s dissertation adviser, and he served on a committee that held the purse strings for graduate-student funding.
Both women have suffered panic attacks and been afraid to return to the campus, setting back their doctoral studies, the lawsuit contends.
Ms. Takla began her graduate studies in 2006 at UCLA, where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in history with a focus on modern Middle Eastern studies. She expects to submit her dissertation in 2016.
In 2010, Mr. Piterberg became her dissertation adviser, and that summer and the next, she worked as his research assistant. In the summer of 2011, he began repeatedly to bring up sexual matters and to tell her he was attracted to her, according to the lawsuit.
The abuse escalated to groping her backside, pressing against her, and forcing his tongue into her mouth, the lawsuit contends. She said she had objected to the advances and told him she wanted to keep the relationship strictly professional, but the harassment continued.
“Although she felt extremely violated, and dreaded the thought of seeing Professor Piterberg again, Plaintiff Takla believed that losing him as an adviser could destroy her career,” because there was no other Middle Eastern historian she could enlist to oversee her dissertation.
‘Uncomfortable and Disheartened’
In 2013, Ms. Takla spoke with the university’s Title IX coordinator, Pamela Thomason, who then met with Mr. Piterberg. Ms. Takla said she was told that her adviser had admitted to “the basic facts” but had denied “manipulating or trying to coerce” her. A kiss between them, he reportedly said, was based on “mutual attraction.”
Ms. Takla also met with the chairman of the history department at the time, David N. Myers, to request a new adviser. He agreed but, according to Ms. Takla, asked her to keep quiet about the alleged harassment.
“It made her feel extremely uncomfortable and disheartened that he was asking her to remain silent and let Professor Piterberg get away with sexually harassing her,” the lawsuit states.
Contacted this week, Mr. Myers referred a request for comment to the university’s media-relations office, which declined to comment on the specifics of the case.
Ms. Takla said Ms. Thomason had never informed her of her rights under Title IX. She said Ms. Thomason also had discouraged her from requesting a formal hearing before the Academic Senate, saying Mr. Piterberg’s peers would probably side with him.
Ms. Thomason, who is now the Title IX officer for the California State University system, has said confidentiality laws prevent her from discussing the case.
UCLA wrapped up a nine-month investigation into the matter in March 2014, according to the lawsuit, but didn’t tell Ms. Takla how it had been resolved.
‘A Target on Her Back’
Mr. Piterberg didn’t teach at UCLA during the spring semester, when he was a fellow at the European University Institute, in Florence, Italy.
After word got out about Ms. Takla’s complaint, another doctoral student came forward, saying that Mr. Piterberg had sexually harassed her as well.
The other plaintiff, Ms. Glasgow, said she was harassed from 2008 to 2013 but didn’t speak up earlier because she was afraid the committee Mr. Piterberg served on would cut her funding. The university, she said, never followed up on her complaint and ignored similar reports from other women in the department.
“Plaintiff Glasgow is now afraid to go onto campus because she knows that she is not safe from Professor Piterberg’s sexual advances,” the lawsuit states. “When she does have to attend meetings at the history department, she sneaks up the back stairs to avoid being seen by him. She feels as though she has a target on her back for reporting Title IX issues, and that she has no support within the history department.”
UCLA has until early next month to respond to the lawsuit.
Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.
