More Women Come Forward to Report Sexual Harassment by Harvard Professor

Women in Harvard University’s development office learned to stay away from Jorge Domínguez. It wasn’t just the kisses on the cheeks and the hugs. It was also the requests to get drinks after work, the flirtatious emails, his asking one of them to sit next to him during a meeting. He could be “handsy in a creepy-old-man kind of way,” said one woman. His behavior was troubling enough that three women spoke to human resources about Domínguez, who was at the time vice provost for international affairs.

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The allegations of sexual harassment against Domínguez, a government professor, span decades. In 1983 he was found guilty of “serious misconduct” by Harvard after Terry Karl, a junior professor in the department, reported that he had repeatedly groped, kissed, and propositioned her. Other women at Harvard say that Domínguez also touched them inappropriately, and that they had dropped classes and abandoned projects in order to avoid him.

In the wake of a Chronicle investigation that found 10 women who say Domínguez made them uncomfortable, more have come forward. The number is now 18, including women from all areas of university life: graduate students, undergraduates, fellow professors, and staff members.

The first allegation is from 1979. The latest is from 2015.

After The Chronicle informed Harvard officials about the latest women to come forward, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Michael D. Smith, announced in an email on Sunday night that Domínguez had been placed “on administrative leave, pending a full and fair review of the facts and circumstances regarding allegations that have come to light.”

The women tell similar stories. First, Domínguez presents himself as a mentor, praising their work and offering his guidance. But what begins as cheerful encouragement, they say, then turns uncomfortable, or worse. In many cases, the women informed higher-ups at the university, even if they stopped short of filing formal complaints.

Rebekah, one of those who came forward, worked in Harvard’s development office as an international-advancement coordinator supporting administrators and faculty members in their relationships with donors all over the world. (Rebekah and two other women in the office asked that only their first names be used.) One of those administrators was Domínguez.

She Left Harvard. He Got to Stay

Terry Karl lost count of how many times he tried to kiss her. In his office, in her office, at a hotel during a conference. She remembers the night in her car when he confided that he would be the next department chairman, and that he would review the book she was writing. It was unfortunate, he said, that he had to decide the fates of people he liked. He moved his hand to her thigh, beneath her skirt, and leaned in for a kiss.

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In 2006, Domínguez was named vice provost for international affairs, a wide-ranging position that included promoting the university’s research programs abroad as well as meeting with donors and alumni. Rebekah said Domínguez had made an effort to show his appreciation for her work. When she applied to Harvard’s Graduate School of Education to pursue a master’s degree part time, he wrote her a glowing recommendation. “If there was a Jorge Domínguez fan club, I would have been president from 2012 to 2015,” Rebekah said.

When she graduated from the master’s program, in May 2015, Domínguez suggested they get a drink after work to celebrate. Over a glass of wine at the Russell House Tavern, in Harvard Square, he told Rebekah that he was worried about her: She’d gained weight, he said, and he thought successful fund raisers should be beautiful and thin. When he noticed she was angry, he apologized profusely and reached in for a hug. “I was trying to pull away and then he cupped my ass,” she wrote soon afterward in an online chat with a Harvard colleague.

She also felt his hand against the skin of her back, trying to get down her pants.

The next day she told a supervisor at Harvard that Domínguez had grabbed her. The supervisor confirmed the conversation with The Chronicle and said he and Rebekah had spoken with the human-resources department. Rebekah remembers being told how to file a formal complaint, but she said the process sounded clunky and intimidating, and she worried about retaliation. In the end, she decided not to make a formal complaint.

Rebekah warned another colleague, Kathryn, who regularly worked with Domínguez. In an online chat they discussed the incident. “VOMIT,” Rebekah wrote. “I can’t focus today.”

Kathryn had learned about Domínguez’s past after looking up Harvard Crimson articles from the 1980s, and she was wary of him. She thought it odd when he asked her to sit next to him in a meeting, and she found some of his emails weirdly flirtatious. When she heard that a third colleague, Alice, had been invited for a glass of wine with Domínguez to talk about her career, she and Rebekah told her about Rebekah’s experience. Alice stopped responding to his emails.

Alice and Kathryn also met with the human-resources department. They answered questions but decided not to make formal complaints. The possible repercussions of alienating a powerful administrator seemed too severe.

‘I’d Be Perceived as a Troublemaker’

Other women who had uncomfortable interactions with Domínguez made that same calculation. One former graduate student, who spoke with The Chronicle on the condition of anonymity, said that after reading about Karl’s case and knowing that Domínguez was still widely celebrated at the university, she decided against reporting his behavior. “There would have been tremendous career repercussions for me,” she said. “I’d be perceived as a troublemaker within the department.”

That former student also saw Domínguez as an adviser and mentor. He offered to help find an apartment when she arrived in Cambridge, and later he helped fund her research. Soon she started noticing that when they hugged he would slip his hand down near her butt. Then, at a reception in February 2008, she says, he slapped her behind in front of other scholars. Mortified, she told a classmate about it that night in an online chat. Two other people she told at the time confirmed her account.

Charna Sherman also saw Domínguez as a mentor and as a possible reader on her honors thesis. In 1979, Sherman was a junior majoring in government and history at Harvard and was taking a class taught by Domínguez. He would pat her on the butt and touch her elsewhere “in an overly friendly manner,” she remembers. Then, one day in his office, she says, he kissed her on the lips. “I was stunned,” she says.

She told her boyfriend at the time and another friend, both of whom remember the incident. She also told her assigned tutor, who was a graduate student in the department, because she wanted to make sure that Domínguez wouldn’t be a reader on her thesis. (He wasn’t.) The tutor “assured me it was taken care of,” Sherman says, which she took as confirmation that he had informed the department.

Other women also spoke with The Chronicle. One former undergraduate said Domínguez had come up behind her while she was in his office and grabbed her behind. A former professor was made uneasy by his comments and two long hugs. Another undergraduate said that when he went in for a hug, he reached inside her jacket and rubbed her lower back. That student also told an adviser associated with her residential house, but decided not to file a formal complaint. From then on, she scheduled meetings with Domínguez only when another male student was there, too.

Domínguez did not return a request for comment on Sunday, and his lawyer declined to comment. When previously confronted about his behavior, he said that there may have been a “terrible misunderstanding,” and that “I do not go around making sexual advances.”

On Friday, Alan M. Garber, the provost, wrote a letter to the Harvard community assuring others who might be considering coming forward that they would be supported. “It was heartbreaking to read the accounts of former students and faculty who report having suffered inappropriate and unwelcome behavior,” he wrote. “Harvard takes seriously the concerns recently brought to our attention by former students.”

Garber also wrote that the university had begun contacting students and postdocs in the government department when they learned of former students’ concerns.

A statement on the website of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, where Domínguez is a faculty associate, said that the center “is unambiguously committed to the policy and practice of zero tolerance of sexual harassment or gendered disparity of treatment.” Michèle Lamont, director of the center, said in an email to The Chronicle on Friday that the community is “under shock” and “working on addressing the implications for moving forward.”

Tom Bartlett is a senior writer who covers science and other things. Follow him on Twitter @tebartl.

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.