After a Title IX Investigation, This Professor Did Something Unusual: He Owned Up to His Misconduct

An Indiana University professor who recently faced a Title IX investigation posted a remorseful resignation letter online on Friday — a rare display of public confession in academe’s #MeToo era.

Ian Samuel, who began teaching last fall in Indiana’s Maurer School of Law, in Bloomington, as an associate professor, circulated the letter on Twitter. Samuel is well known in legal circles for helping to touch off a wave of law-student activism on how law firms handle sexual-harassment cases.

Samuel said he had decided to resign because “being sorry isn’t enough,” according to the letter. “Accepting responsibility means actually doing something, if you can, to spare the people you hurt from any more harm,” he wrote. “My sense is that the people most affected by all of this would prefer it if I didn’t remain at the university, and I understand why.

“If I were in their shoes,” he continued, “I think I’d want to live my life in Bloomington without worrying about crossing paths with a person I’d rather forget, no matter what sweet song of reform he’s singing now.”

Samuel, who’s 35, didn’t go into detail about what he was accused of having done, but he said it involved “drinking to excess in a public place I shouldn’t have been, in company I shouldn’t have kept, and treating the people present in ways they didn’t deserve.”

He provided no further specifics in an interview with The Chronicle, saying he wanted to respect the confidentiality of the university’s process. Title IX investigations often involve allegations of sexual misconduct, such as sexual harassment, but can also cover other forms of gender-based discrimination.

The alleged behavior occurred “during the course of an evening after a law-school event,” wrote Chuck Carney, a university spokesman, in an email. In November, after complaints against Samuel were filed, the university opened an investigation, placed him on paid leave, removed him from teaching duties, and told him to avoid Indiana’s campus, Carney said.

The dean of the law school told students at the time that Samuel had checked himself into the hospital.

In his letter, Samuel expressed “admiration and gratitude for the complainants’ integrity” in coming forward. “The truth is that the university’s investigation, in addition to doing justice, probably had the side effect of saving my life,” he wrote.

The investigation had concluded before Samuel resigned, Carney wrote, but he wouldn’t say what its outcome was. The university, Carney added, “appreciates Professor Samuel’s cooperation and acknowledgment of his misconduct.”

Samuel told The Chronicle that the university hadn’t asked him to resign, though he suggested in the letter that he expected to be fired if he had continued through the university’s process.

Actions and Consequences

Samuel said he had been working on the resignation letter for six months. He wrote many drafts and asked a few people for feedback.

“The first thing that I had to conquer was a desire — which was very hard to get rid of — to try to justify, excuse, or explain things,” he said. He wanted to be authentic and personal, instead of relying on the clinical language that lawyers often use. His goal was to write in a way that would make the people he had hurt “feel respected and heard and understood.”

Samuel said that because of his public presence — he has a large Twitter following and used to co-host a popular podcast about the U.S. Supreme Court, called First Mondays — and because a few news outlets had reported on his case when Indiana’s investigation began, he felt he should speak up and acknowledge that he was at fault.

“For me to just kind of slink away and then come back one day like nothing had ever happened — it just didn’t feel right,” he said. He didn’t think he deserved praise for expressing remorse, and he wasn’t sure whether his decision to resign so publicly would actually help his career.

There have been many documented cases in academe of the “pass the harasser” phenomenon, in which a professor who is accused of misconduct is allowed to resign quietly and take a job at another institution without any punishment. “The thing that scares me about that is, well, if you don’t fix what is in your character that led you to do these things, you’re guaranteeing that you’re going to keep doing the same thing down the line,” Samuel said.

He said he had been “trapped in this prison of selfishness” for a long time, which he described as “an obsession with self-will, self-promotion, glorifying oneself.”

The letter doesn’t specifically apologize to people Samuel has harmed. Asked whether he considered his letter to be an apology, he said, “I mean, I am sorry. There’s no conflict in my heart about whether or not I’m sorry for things that have happened.” He said he hadn’t communicated with the people who filed complaints against him because the university had imposed a no-contact order during the investigation.

Jess Davidson, executive director of End Rape on Campus, a victim-advocacy organization, said she was glad to see Samuel admit that actions should have consequences. “The fact that he’s talking about accountability is better than most of the public remorse that we see around sexual assault and harassment,” Davidson said.

She said it was notable that he had focused on his experience and not on anyone he had victimized. She stressed that she didn’t know the specifics of the case and that victims often want to remain out of the public eye.

But in general, she said, people who make public apologies should seek to strike a balance between holding themselves accountable and recognizing the experiences of their victims. Her question is: “Who is he really addressing this letter to?”

‘The Wrong Stuff’

Last year Samuel posted on Twitter to call out major law firms that use mandatory arbitration clauses to prevent summer associates who experience harassment at the firms from taking their cases to court. By publicly posting information about one firm’s clause, he prompted law students nationwide to advocate for firms to drop the requirements.

Samuel also participated in a panel discussion, convened last year by Vice, about sexual harassment in the legal industry. According to a video of the conversation, Samuel said he had often been reluctant to speak up about the #MeToo movement because he didn’t want to be criticized.

“I feel like I say the wrong stuff a lot of the time and it’s painful to then experience negative reactions to stuff,” he said. On Friday he said he had tried to change his approach.

Before moving to Indiana, Samuel worked as a law clerk for the Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia and as a lecturer at Harvard Law School for two years, according to his LinkedIn profile. He said he now plans to leave Bloomington and return to the East Coast. And he’s continuing to reflect on what else he should do to make amends.

Samuel is Roman Catholic, and the letter includes many religious terms, like “confession,” “contrition,” and “sin.” “I was causing harm to other people,” he said. “That’s a real spiritual sickness.”

Sarah Brown writes about a range of higher-education topics, including sexual assault, race on campus, and Greek life. Follow her on Twitter @Brown_e_Points, or email her at sarah.brown@chronicle.com.