An independent report released Friday morning found extensive evidence of sexual harassment by the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s former provost, Martin Philbert, during his 25-year career.
“Over the course of his employment by the University — while he was an assistant professor, an associate dean, Dean of SPH (School of Public Health), and Provost — Philbert sexually harassed multiple members of the university community, including both graduate students who worked in his research lab and University employees,” reads the report, written by the WilmerHale, a law firm.
Investigators found that only some allegations and information about Philbert’s conduct reached top university officials, but he was promoted multiple times over the course of the 17 years his harassment was found to have occurred.
Philbert was removed as provost earlier this year after allegations came to light, and he retired from the university last month. He declined to be interviewed by the investigators, the report said.
Here are three key findings in the report:
1. The harassment stretched back decades.
Philbert was hired in the University of Michigan School of Public Health as an assistant professor in 1995, where he earned a reputation for inappropriate comments toward women, the report found. Before women accepted positions working for Philbert, they were warned of his reputation and told not to be alone with him, and, in 2003, a male employee in Philbert’s lab alleged the researcher was in an intimate relationship with a female employee, according to the report.
Philbert told the male employee he was being laid off due to lack of grant funding, though the male employee believed he was let go rather than the female employee because of the pair’s relationship. The man filed a lawsuit against the university. The lawsuit didn’t include claims of an improper relationship, but the report notes that Philbert denied that he was in a relationship with the female employee.
In 2005, after Philbert was promoted to associate dean for research at the School of Public Health, two women told a professor in the school that Philbert had kissed their necks, the report found. One woman told the professor Philbert “propositioned her for sex, asked her to marry him, to run away together,” and to “have caramel colored babies” with him, and that he had talked to her about “chocolate syrup sex,” according to the report.
The professor reported the information to several university officials, including the director of the Office of Institutional Equity. Two other individuals made statements to the director, Anthony Walesby, suggesting there was an issue with Philbert’s conduct toward women, but Walesby did not investigate further after the two women declined to speak with him and declined to file reports, the report says.
Philbert’s harassment continued, as did his promotions.
2. As Philbert climbed the ranks, his harassment continued.
In 2010, Philbert was a candidate for dean of the School of Public Health. The university provost and chair of the dean’s search committee learned of the 2005 allegations, but were told they did not result in substantial findings, the report found. In addition to the 2005 reports, a graduate student on the committee recalled instances in 2006 and 2007 in which Philbert made a “crude joke in class,” stating women “have high rates of urinary tract infections because ‘the playground and the trash heap are too close together,’” according to the report.
The committee also noted Philbert had made women uncomfortable through behavior that was perceived to be “overly flirtatious and inappropriate,” through various interactions with female students, including comments about their bodies and showing up to a student’s house unannounced, the report found. The committee also had access to survey feedback on Philbert after he had participated in a campus visit; one survey response detailed Philbert’s “inappropriate comments and behaviors with respect to female students, staff, and faculty,” including the respondent’s experience being “subject to [his] inappropriate and unwanted sexual comments and suggestions,” the report said.
Nonetheless, Philbert was promoted to dean and eventually provost.
3. Fear of retaliation kept the allegations from seeing the light of day.
The two women from 2005 — a graduate student and a research assistant who had recently graduated from the School of Public Health — both declined to speak directly with the Office of Institutional Equity out of fear of retaliation, the report states.
A former dean of the School of Public Health, Ken Warner, told investigators that he confronted Philbert about the 2005 allegations after he heard about them, and that Philbert acted “bewildered” at first and said he did not know what the dean was referring to. But, in that conversation, he eventually stopped denying the allegations.
That fear or retaliation didn’t end with Philbert’s ouster from Michigan. According to the report, investigators from WilmerHale tried to contact several students — the report does not say exactly how many — and “at least one” chose not to respond due to fear of retaliation from Philbert.