3 Revelations From the Lawrence Krauss Sexual-Harassment Report

Isaiah Trickey, FilmMagic

Disturbing details emerged this week about the behavior of a prominent professor of theoretical physics at Arizona State University who announced on Sunday that he has agreed to retire at the end of the academic year.

Lawrence M. Krauss, who teaches in the university’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, was placed on paid leave in March and banned from the campus after a BuzzFeed News investigation uncovered evidence that he had groped and made sexually charged remarks to women over a period of about a decade.

Documents obtained and published by BuzzFeed News on Monday described a slew of reported incidents, including one in which Krauss suggested that a job prospect engage in a threesome. In another, he told a female employee she should “take one for the team” and date a donor.

The investigation also found that he had grabbed the breast of a woman posing with him for a selfie at a convention where he was an invited speaker.

In his public statement on Sunday, Krauss denied harassing or assaulting anyone but said he had agreed to retire in May, when he turns 65. “Onward and hopefully upward to new and different challenges,” he wrote on Twitter.

He complained that the review process had not allowed him complete access to the evidence and the accusations against him, and that he had been unable to cross-examine witnesses or be represented by a lawyer. Krauss said he was confident that he would have been exonerated had he appealed his case, but that even so, the working environment would no longer be “conducive to continuing my active teaching, research, and service activities.”

He has explained some of his behavior as harmless joking, but the administration disagreed. The provost, Mark Searle, wrote in a July 31 letter to Krauss that his behavior was “unprofessional, reflects a failure of leadership, and is extremely disappointing.” The professor’s behavior was found to have violated the university’s anti-harassment policy and its code of ethics.

Here are three patterns of behavior that emerged in the investigation:

Krauss was prone to making sexist comments, later saying he was joking.

At one point, he suggested to a woman who was interested in working with the Origins Project, a research effort that he founded and directed at Arizona State, that she engage with him in a threesome. Krauss admitted that he’d made the suggestion but said he was kidding. The woman, who later took a job with Arizona State, told her supervisor about the conversation, saying she was “aghast, that it was weird, said no, and that was that.”

He also admitted that in 2012 he told a female employee she should “take one for the team” and date a donor who found her attractive. She said she didn’t remember Krauss saying that, but another staff member told investigators that she was offended by the comment.

Sometimes Krauss’s behavior crossed the line into groping.

In 2016 he grabbed the breast of a woman who asked to take a selfie with him during a reception at a convention in Australia where he had been invited to speak, the investigatory report said. When the woman objected, she said, he responded by telling her not to post the photo on Facebook.

The photo reportedly shows Krauss with his hand raised, about to grope her, according to the woman and witnesses who saw it happen. Krauss said that he’d never grabbed her, and that he might have been raising his hand to steady the woman or shield his eyes from the camera’s anticipated flash.

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In 2011 he intentionally touched the thigh of a woman attending an academic conference, the report said. She posted a description of the incident on YouTube, saying that as she waited in line with Krauss to get a drink, he “reaches down and grabs the bottom of my minidress, which, by the way was short.” The black dress had a pattern that included a depiction of galaxies. The woman said Krauss put his palm on her upper thigh. When he saw her angry post on YouTube, he sent her a written response saying that if he had inadvertently touched her while pointing to a galaxy on her dress, he was sorry.

Some of his behavior simply struck colleagues as creepy.

In 2016 he drew and showed staff members a cartoon of a person bent over with pants pulled down, revealing bare buttocks.

He discussed strip clubs with his employees and encouraged them to view “fan mail” he had received, some of which included nude photos and fans propositioning him.

He and an unnamed staff person hugged, touched, and kissed each other in the presence of co-workers, who had the impression that they were intimately involved. He and the staff member said it was just their way of greeting each other.

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.