2 Universities Conclude That a Prominent Political Scientist Violated Sexual-Harassment Policies

As 2018 came to a close, Rebecca Gill posted a video on her Facebook page of a tiny, frantic dog fighting a much bigger dog for a dirty old sock. After being tossed around a bit, the tiny dog seizes the sock in his teeth and walks away triumphantly.

To Gill, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, the video represents how it felt to be a key player in a sexual-harassment complaint: Her story was validated by a university investigation. But, she wondered, to what end?

Michigan State U.

Last year Gill alleged that William G. Jacoby, a Michigan State University professor, had propositioned her in 2002, when she was his student. That charge led to two campus investigations. One, conducted by the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, ended in the fall. A report on the investigation, which was reviewed by The Chronicle, concluded that Jacoby, who had taught in a summer program at the university, had violated its sexual-harassment policy in his interaction with Gill.

Jacoby denies the allegations and says he rejects the investigator’s conclusion.

“The Title IX office’s determination is based upon a biased and incomplete consideration of the evidence that was presented, and the investigation itself did not proceed in a manner that was fully consistent with the University of Michigan’s own policies,” he said in an email. “But I apparently have no recourse or right of appeal. So, as far as I am concerned, the matter is closed.”

U. of Nevada at Las Vegas

The second investigation, conducted by outside investigators for Michigan State, concluded more recently. Gill and Jacoby received a report on its findings on Monday, a university spokeswoman said. In its investigation, the outside group looked into whether Jacoby had retaliated against Gill after she accused him of harassment — either by denying her allegations on the website of the journal he edited, or by participating in an alleged whisper campaign to discredit her. The investigators did not find sufficient evidence to support those claims.

They did find evidence, though, to support a claim that Jacoby had sexually harassed a different former student. The report concluded that he had propositioned the student — who, unlike Gill, has not gone public with her accusations against Jacoby — “for sexual favors in exchange for his academic guidance.”

Jacoby retired from Michigan State, effective January 1. He declined to comment on the Michigan State investigation, saying he could not do so “until the appeal rights of each side are exhausted.”

A Michigan State spokeswoman said that “the appropriate administrative offices will review the report and could impose appropriate measures and/or sanctions as needed.”

What Happened at the Bar

The case captured the attention of political scientists last January, when Gill told her story, first while speaking on a conference panel about mentorship, and then later on Twitter. Gill didn’t name Jacoby, but she included details that made him clearly identifiable, she said, so that other professors she had worked with wouldn’t face accusations.

In the summer in 2002, Gill studied at the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, a Michigan program where Jacoby was a longtime instructor. Toward the end of the summer, she said, she and others went to a bar after class. Gill and Jacoby discussed her work and the possibility that he would serve on her dissertation committee, she later told an investigator in Michigan’s Office for Institutional Equity. Jacoby then told her that he found her mysterious, and asked if she would consider having an affair with him, she said.

Last spring Jacoby posted a denial of the allegations on the website of the publication that he edited, the American Journal of Political Science. Some scholars were outraged. They felt that he was inappropriately using his platform to try to discredit his former student, and argued that he had a conflict of interest that should disqualify him from judging submissions to the journal. Several said they would withdraw their membership in the Midwest Political Science Association, which oversees the journal. Jacoby later issued an apology, and his denial was removed from the website.

Meanwhile, the investigator at Michigan contacted Gill for an interview. In October the university sent her a 22-page report describing her account, Jacoby’s response, the accounts of several witnesses, and an analysis of the investigation. The investigator determined that the evidence supported Gill’s version of the events and that Jacoby’s comment “was sufficiently severe as to create a hostile environment.” As is typical, the investigator used a “preponderance of the evidence” standard, which is lower than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard used in court.

A spokesman for Michigan said that the university has a policy of not commenting on or confirming the existence of investigations. But he said that there “are no plans” to include Jacoby in the summer program, nor did the professor participate in the 2018 program.

What’s in the Report

At the time of the alleged incident, Gill was working toward her Ph.D. at Michigan State, to which Jacoby was going to move from the University of South Carolina at Columbia.

According to the report, Jacoby recalled being at a bar with students and faculty members toward the end of the summer of 2002, though he disagreed with Gill on the exact day of the outing. He told the investigator that he remembered speaking to Gill about their experiences in Australia and that she had asked him to review a paper she’d written. But he said that he had not called her mysterious — it’s not something he would say, he told the investigator — or asked her if she would have an affair.

After the outing, he said, Gill brought him her paper for feedback. They then had almost no contact except for a meeting a few years later about her dissertation with her adviser, he said. He told the investigator that he would not have assigned Gill a grade when he taught her summer class; that task would have fallen to a teaching assistant.

Jacoby was the departing president of the organization that hosted the conference last January at which Gill told her story. He said he had learned about her allegations from someone at the meeting who was not named in the report.

The Michigan investigator interviewed a witness who was at the bar with Jacoby and Gill back in 2002. That witness saw Jacoby lean toward Gill and say something that included the word “affair,” according to the report. The witness told the investigator that Gill had responded to the effect of “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to answer that.” The witness left the bar soon after with Gill and a third person, whom the investigator was unable to contact, according to the report.

Witnesses supporting Jacoby include the person who, the accused professor said, had told him about Gill’s allegations at the conference. That person said Jacoby had reacted by shaking his head and dropping his jaw. At some point over the next few days, the witness recalled, Jacoby described the story as “fiction.” Another faculty member in Michigan State’s political-science department also spoke with the investigator, stating that Jacoby had described his 2002 conversation with Gill but had never said anything related to sex or a relationship.

Another witness reported to the Michigan investigator that she had had a sexual relationship with Jacoby when she was a graduate student and he was on her dissertation committee, in the early 1990s. According to the report, the witness and Jacoby disagreed about how involved she was in starting the relationship, but both said that Jacoby had “verbally broached the topic of a possible sexual relationship.” The report said that the witness and Jacoby had had “mutually welcomed interactions” after the relationship ended.

The investigator also interviewed 20 students who had recently participated in the summer program at Michigan. None reported any concerns about Jacoby.

There was also a third investigation. The Midwest Political Science Association hired an outside lawyer to conduct it last year, but the association’s counsel was not able to decide what to do with the information the lawyer had gathered. In April, Jacoby resigned as the journal’s editor.

Gill has mixed feelings about how the process is concluding.

“In some ways I feel vindicated that there is an institution that hears what this story is and believes me and also believes that what happened is wrong,” she said. She’s not frustrated with Michigan or Michigan State, but with the process through which colleges investigate sexual-harassment complaints under Title IX, the federal gender-equity law. Her experience has reinforced her belief that the process is cumbersome, is secretive, and deserves an overhaul.

In a sense, she won. But in the end, she said, all she has is a dirty sock.

Nell Gluckman writes about faculty issues and other topics in higher education. You can follow her on Twitter @nellgluckman, or email her at nell.gluckman@chronicle.com.