Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    An AI-Driven Work Force
    University Transformation
Sign In
News

Avital Ronell is Returning to the Classroom. Some Grad Students Want Her Gone.

By Emma Pettit September 5, 2019
Avital Ronell (left) will be back in the classroom at NYU after a yearlong suspension that resulted from an investigation that found her responsible for harassing a grad student, Nimrod Reitman (right).
Avital Ronell (left) will be back in the classroom at NYU after a yearlong suspension that resulted from an investigation that found her responsible for harassing a grad student, Nimrod Reitman (right).Avital Ronell: European Graduate School; Nimrod Reitman: Redux

Avital Ronell, a high-profile New York University professor who was suspended after the university found she sexually harassed a graduate student, is returning to the classroom. But the graduate worker union wants to keep her out.

In an open letter circulated this week, the union and NYUtoo, a campus advocacy group, called for Ronell’s termination, as well as for broader reforms to the Title IX reporting process and to the student-professor power hierarchy.

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

Avital Ronell (left) will be back in the classroom at NYU after a yearlong suspension that resulted from an investigation that found her responsible for harassing a grad student, Nimrod Reitman (right).
Avital Ronell (left) will be back in the classroom at NYU after a yearlong suspension that resulted from an investigation that found her responsible for harassing a grad student, Nimrod Reitman (right).Avital Ronell: European Graduate School; Nimrod Reitman: Redux

Avital Ronell, a high-profile New York University professor who was suspended after the university found she sexually harassed a graduate student, is returning to the classroom. But the graduate worker union wants to keep her out.

In an open letter circulated this week, the union and NYUtoo, a campus advocacy group, called for Ronell’s termination, as well as for broader reforms to the Title IX reporting process and to the student-professor power hierarchy.

For someone to return after being found guilty of this type of behavior, there is a trust that’s broken. The level of feeling safe in your workspace is gone.

The university’s decision to continue employing Ronell, a professor of German and comparative literature, is “an attack on survivors of sexual abuse,” the letter says, “and contributes to a hostile learning and working environment.”

In 2018, Ronell was found responsible for sexually harassing her former advisee, Nimrod Reitman. Reitman, who is now a visiting fellow at Harvard University, filed a Title IX complaint claiming that his adviser repeatedly kissed and touched him, and called him pet names such as “baby love angel,” “cock-er spaniel,” and “awesome warrior angel,” The Chronicle previously reported.

The investigation found Ronell responsible for verbal and physical harassment. Her conduct was “sufficiently pervasive to alter the terms and conditions of Mr. Reitman’s learning environment.” She was suspended for a year without pay. (Ronell, who did not respond to an email seeking comment, has denied that she harassed Reitman. “I’m heartbroken that my fast and loose and exuberant and stupid and childish use of language can somehow be gathered up to be a viable weapon against me,” she previously told The Chronicle.)

In April, Andrea Long Chu, a graduate student in comparative literature who wrote an essay for The Chronicle about her experience working with Ronell, posted a flier on Twitter that advertised a graduate course Ronell would teach in the fall. It’s called Unsettled Scores.

News of her return was reason to mobilize, said Kate Storey-Fisher, a graduate student in physics and union representative. “It’s a labor issue,” she said. Graduate students are workers, and “it’s violating our rights as workers to be forced to work in environments with people found guilty of sexual harassment.”

Ronell’s interactions with students will be monitored to ensure that “she has absorbed the lessons of her misconduct” and that “she has rectified her behavior and that her interactions with students are in line with NYU’s professional expectations,” John Beckman, senior vice president for public affairs and strategic communication, wrote in a letter to the graduate union, which he provided to The Chronicle. (Beckman did not respond to a follow up email asking for clarification on how Ronell would be monitored.)

ADVERTISEMENT

Ronell or any other faculty member who could not conduct classroom duties professionally would not be allowed in the classroom, Beckman wrote.

There are some graduate students who don’t think Ronell should be fired, said Zach Rivers, a graduate student in comparative literature and a union representative. But there’s a sense of “exhaustion” around the whole ordeal. Speaking for himself, Rivers said Ronell’s return “creates a toxic atmosphere, because for someone to return after being found guilty of this type of behavior, there is a trust that’s broken. The level of feeling safe in your workspace is gone.”

The letter also listed eight broader reforms intended to right the power imbalance between advisers and graduate students, as well as erode barriers that prevent people from coming forward to report misconduct. Among other things, the union demanded an annual report on all Title IX complaints, including the university’s response to them, restorative-justice options for sexual misconduct, and in-person, rigorous trainings for faculty, staff, and students on “anti-harassment, sexual respect, racial sensitivity, and bystander intervention.”

“We wanted this petition to be not solely focused on Avital,” said Rivers, “because Avital is a symptom of a larger structure.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Beckman’s letter says that the graduate students’ letter overlooks “a number of important steps” the university has already taken. University employees already complete online training annually on sexual-harassment prevention, he said.

And the university responded promptly to Reitman’s original complaint, investigated it thoroughly, and imposed a “substantial sanction and ongoing supervision,” Beckman said.

Contacted by The Chronicle, Reitman’s lawyer, Alexandra Harwin, rebuffed that notion.

For years, the university failed to take the action necessary to protect Reitman from “egregious discrimination and retaliation from senior professor Avital Ronell,” she said in a statement. The campus community “is right to be outraged about the university’s conduct.”

“Institutional reform is necessary and overdue.”

Emma Pettit is a staff reporter at The Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @EmmaJanePettit, or email her at emma.pettit@chronicle.com.

A version of this article appeared in the September 20, 2019, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Tags
Graduate Education
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
Emma-Pettit.png
About the Author
Emma Pettit
Emma Pettit is a senior reporter at The Chronicle who covers the ways people within higher ed work and live — whether strange, funny, harmful, or hopeful. She’s also interested in political interference on campus, as well as overlooked crevices of academe, such as a scrappy puppetry program at an R1 university and a charmed football team at a Kansas community college. Follow her on Twitter at @EmmaJanePettit, or email her at emma.pettit@chronicle.com.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Related Content

I Worked With Avital Ronell. I Believe Her Accuser.
NYU Scholar Accused of Harassment Assails Rush to Judgment as Sign of ‘Sexual Paranoia’
Scholars’ Defense of an Accused Colleague Feels Eerily Familiar Except for One Thing: Her Gender

More News

Illustration showing the logos of Instragram, X, and TikTok being watch by a large digital eyeball
Race against the clock
Could New Social-Media Screening Create a Student-Visa Bottleneck?
Mangan-Censorship-0610.jpg
Academic Freedom
‘A Banner Year for Censorship’: More States Are Restricting Classroom Discussions on Race and Gender
On the day of his retirement party, Bob Morse poses for a portrait in the Washington, D.C., offices of U.S. News and World Report in June 2025. Morse led the magazine's influential and controversial college rankings efforts since its inception in 1988. Michael Theis, The Chronicle.
List Legacy
‘U.S. News’ Rankings Guru, Soon to Retire, Reflects on the Role He’s Played in Higher Ed
Black and white photo of the Morrill Hall building on the University of Minnesota campus with red covering one side.
Finance & operations
U. of Minnesota Tries to Soften the Blow of Tuition Hikes, Budget Cuts With Faculty Benefits

From The Review

A stack of coins falling over. Motion blur. Falling economy concept. Isolated on white.
The Review | Opinion
Will We Get a More Moderate Endowment Tax?
By Phillip Levine
Photo illustration of a classical column built of paper, with colored wires overtaking it like vines of ivy
The Review | Essay
The Latest Awful Ed-Tech Buzzword: “Learnings”
By Kit Nicholls
William F. Buckley, Jr.
The Review | Interview
William F. Buckley Jr. and the Origins of the Battle Against ‘Woke’
By Evan Goldstein

Upcoming Events

07-16-Advising-InsideTrack - forum assets v1_Plain.png
The Evolving Work of College Advising
Plain_Acuity_DurableSkills_VF.png
Why Employers Value ‘Durable’ Skills
Lead With Insight
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin