Prominent Creative-Writing Professor at UVa Is Accused of Sexually Harassing Students

U. of Virginia

A graduate of the University of Virginia’s M.F.A. program has filed a complaint against a prominent professor and award-winning author, John Casey, accusing him of sexually harassing her and other female students from 2012 to 2014.

Emma C. Eisenberg, who graduated from the program in 2014 with a concentration in fiction writing, summarized her case in a post on Twitter on November 10, the same day she filed the complaint with the university’s Title IX office.

Mr. Casey, whose book Spartina won the National Book Award for fiction in 1989, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.

When I was at #UVA in MFA program, professor John Casey sexually harassed me & other female students: touching inappropriately at social functions, sexually-inappropriate comments, referred to women as “cunts,” passed us over in class & thesis advising. Complaint filed today

— Emma C. Eisenberg (@emmaeisenberg) November 10, 2017

The university described him, in a 2007 profile, as a professor who went out of his way to identify and support budding writers, reading manuscripts and helping them find agents and editors.

“I am most proud of sniffing out talent,” Mr. Casey, who is now in his late 70s, was quoted as saying. “It’s like the dogs and pigs who find truffles. You’ve got to get that little whiff.”

A second former M.F.A. student filed a similar complaint anonymously this month against Mr. Casey for alleged sexual and gender harassment from 2009 to 2010, according to a letter Virginia’s Title IX office sent to Ms. Eisenberg on Monday.

It notified her that the university had opened an investigation into the two complaints.

Ms. Eisenberg said the harassment started right after she entered the master’s program, in 2012.

“Professor Casey repeatedly touched me and other M.F.A. fiction female students at departmental social functions on our shoulders, lower backs, and butts, as well as making routine comments on our appearance in class, such as when female students looked particularly attractive, remarking that one female student was wearing a low-cut top, and remarking that another female student ‘looked like a streetwalker,’” Ms. Eisenberg wrote in her complaint.

“Professor Casey also once referred to women as ‘cunts’ during one class held in his home, and would pick up the backs of books which he had been sent for review and remark on the sexual attractiveness of women authors in their author photos in the presence of us, his students,” she wrote.

Such treatment, she said, violates the university’s sexual-harassment policy, which defines such conduct as “any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favors, or other unwanted conduct of a sexual nature, whether verbal, non-verbal, graphic, physical, or otherwise.”

‘Repeatedly Recoiled’

A university spokesman, Anthony P. de Bruyn, wrote in an email on Wednesday that UVa “takes seriously any report of sexual harassment and is investigating this matter in accordance with its applicable policy and procedures.”

Ms. Eisenberg said she had “repeatedly recoiled” from Mr. Casey’s touch. When she and two other female classmates objected to how he was speaking about a prominent female author, she said he accused the women of being “hysterical” and asked the women in the room to stop talking.

Ms. Eisenberg also accused Mr. Casey of gender-based harassment. She said he favored male students for additional mentoring and thesis advising, spending more time with them by inviting them to do tasks around his house and giving them extra time at conferences. Often, when women raised their hands in class to speak, he called instead on male students who weren’t raising their hands, Ms. Eisenberg said.

“This hostile environment contributed a great deal of stress and anxiety to my life and limited my ability to learn and grow as a writer,” Ms. Eisenberg wrote. “I felt stressed and uncomfortable in Professor Casey’s presence and began to skip departmental functions in order to avoid him. His intimidation and the way he demeaned and objectified women stuck with me in a way that I carried with me through my time at UVa, even outside his classroom.”

She said that while she was “confused and intimidated” by the treatment at the time, she discussed her concerns with two female professors, as well as with her therapist. She asked that the university reconsider assigning Mr. Casey to any undergraduate or graduate students, adding that “I hope he does not do this to even one more woman writer.”

Asked why she had waited several years to report the alleged harassment, Ms. Eisenberg said that while her professor’s behavior seemed wrong, it was so openly talked about that she thought she might be overreacting.

“Seeing this recent flood of women coming forward confirmed what I had always known — his behavior was problematic and inappropriate,” she wrote in an email.

Several former Virginia students weighed in on her Twitter post, some saying they had experienced or witnessed similar behavior.

Thank you for saying something. I knew about his behavior with others, but I was 24 and intimidated and didn’t know if it was my place to speak up.

— Jazzy Danziger (@JazzyLoyal) November 11, 2017

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.