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Parsing ‘Sexual Paranoia’

April 6, 2015

To the Editor:

I disagree with the basic premises in Laura Kipnis’s opinion piece “Sexual Paranoia” (The Chronicle Review, March 6).

But I’m writing to point out that her narrative of the ongoing sexual-harassment case at Northwestern University involving a philosophy professor is simply off-base and misleading. I’m in the midst of researching this case and others for a book about professor-on-student sexual harassment and assault. In the process, I’ve learned a great deal about the graduate student to whom Kipnis only passingly refers in her discussion of an undergraduate’s complaint against the professor for sexual assault.

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To the Editor:

I disagree with the basic premises in Laura Kipnis’s opinion piece “Sexual Paranoia” (The Chronicle Review, March 6).

But I’m writing to point out that her narrative of the ongoing sexual-harassment case at Northwestern University involving a philosophy professor is simply off-base and misleading. I’m in the midst of researching this case and others for a book about professor-on-student sexual harassment and assault. In the process, I’ve learned a great deal about the graduate student to whom Kipnis only passingly refers in her discussion of an undergraduate’s complaint against the professor for sexual assault.

Specifically, in her synopsis of the undergraduate’s complaint, Kipnis fuses what are actually two sexual-assault complaints, both of which center on the same philosophy professor. She lists the lawsuits the undergraduate student has brought against Northwestern and the professor and then jumps to writing this: “The professor sued various colleagues, administrators, and a former grad student he previously dated, for defamation. …" All of these lawsuits — against the graduate student, colleagues, and administrators — pertain to a completely different charge of sexual assault against the professor. As Kipnis ought to know and acknowledge, the graduate student filed a separate complaint.

In turn, the professor sued the undergraduate for libel/slander and the graduate student for defamation, false-light invasion of privacy, and civil conspiracy. He has also sued Northwestern under Title IX for gender discrimination in its handling of the graduate student’s complaint.

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Kipnis’s conflation of the two cases serves her agenda — to argue that professor-student relationships are relatively harmless and to insinuate, by the way, that the undergraduate at Northwestern is hysterical and entitled. But to acknowledge the actual situation — that two complaints from two different students have been lodged against the philosophy professor — seriously undermines her overall argument.

Referring to the slew of lawsuits Kipnis traces to the undergraduate’s complaint, she writes, “What a mess.” But because most of those lawsuits stem from the graduate student’s complaint, Kipnis ironically misidentifies the source of the messiness: the professor’s tendency to get into trouble and his subsequent efforts at damage control.

Kipnis concedes that “professors can be sleazebags” and, with characteristic gusto, asserts, “I strongly believe that bona fide harassers should be chemically castrated.” If she means what she says, she should take another look at this professor’s bona fides.

Cynthia Lewis
Professor of English
Davidson College
Davidson, N.C.

Laura Kipnis responds:

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Professor Lewis may have access to more information than I did on the case concerning the philosophy professor at Northwestern, as I was relying solely on what’s available in the public record. As far as any complaints filed by the graduate student, if these are Title IX complaints, they’re certainly not made public. Indeed, she’s referred to only as “PHD STUDENT” in the court documents available online, so I don’t even know her name. She’s passingly referred to in my article because I wasn’t actually writing about her.

As far as conflating two different cases, that wasn’t my intent. I was trying to summarize conflicting assertions and multiple lawsuits down to two paragraphs, because the cases themselves weren’t the main focus of my essay.

There is indeed a “mess” of charges and counterclaims, according to the public record and other news articles. But, having said this, I’d like to add that I’m not trying to defend this professor’s dating career. My own opinion is that any professor who dates students these days is risking professional suicide, though that doesn’t change my critique of consensual-relations codes.

But I had bigger targets in mind than who dates whom or this particular professor: I was writing about an academic culture that misunderstands power, inflates vulnerability, and infantilizes students.

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
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