A report that largely exonerated the University of Rochester over its handling of sexual-harassment complaints against a professor amounted to “a work of advocacy dressed in the garb of impartiality and independence,” a group of current and former researchers said on Monday.
The researchers, from the department of brain and cognitive sciences, have filed a lawsuit against the university, accusing it of disregarding longstanding complaints about T. Florian Jaeger, a professor in their department. He is on leave.
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A report that largely exonerated the University of Rochester over its handling of sexual-harassment complaints against a professor amounted to “a work of advocacy dressed in the garb of impartiality and independence,” a group of current and former researchers said on Monday.
The researchers, from the department of brain and cognitive sciences, have filed a lawsuit against the university, accusing it of disregarding longstanding complaints about T. Florian Jaeger, a professor in their department. He is on leave.
Because of the pending lawsuit, they said, they were advised by their lawyer not to cooperate in the independent investigation. As a result, and for other reasons, the report, issued last month, was skewed in favor of the university, they contend.
“The university has paid $4.5 million to one of the most sophisticated corporate defense firms in the world, with a long track record of using special investigations of this sort to get companies out of trouble, to defuse the public pressure that arose from our complaint,” the plaintiffs wrote in a lengthy rebuttal to the report’s findings.
A spokesman for the law firm that handled the investigation, Debevoise and Plimpton, issued a statement on Monday that it stood by its work and had no comment on the continuing litigation. The investigation was led by Mary Jo White, a former federal prosecutor.
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On the day the report was released, Rochester’s president, Joel Seligman, who had been sharply criticized for his handling of the matter, announced that he would resign this month.
Jaeger has denied sexually harassing anyone but conceded in a statement that he “could have shown more maturity” in his behavior around women.
The outside report went further, describing it as “inappropriate, unprofessional, and offensive.” The investigators concluded that Jaeger had demonstrated poor judgment in having consensual intimate relationships with four current, former, or prospective students. It also found that his sexual innuendo and flirtatious behavior had resulted in some graduate students’ having to endure “behavior and inappropriate remarks they shouldn’t have had to.”
However, the report found that his behavior did not violate university policies against sexual misconduct that existed from 2007 to 2011, when most of Jaeger’s disputed conduct occurred. While sexual relationships between professors and students were strongly discouraged, they weren’t banned until 2014. (The revised policy prohibits such relationships with undergraduates or graduate students whom a professor supervises.)
‘Reverse Engineered’
The report, which said some of the complaints against Jaeger were exaggerated or untrue, left the plaintiffs stinging. Their rebuttal says the report was “reverse engineered” to retain White’s credibility as an investigator while minimizing Rochester’s legal liability.
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“The clever way she ‘split the baby’ meant that a whole range of unacceptable conduct by Professor Jaeger was admitted, but the university was magically absolved of legal responsibility” for letting it occur and failing to respond effectively, the rebuttal states.
White made a point of saying that her judgment reflected a legal opinion, not a moral one.
The plaintiffs also criticized the report for suggesting that Celeste Kidd, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the university, had welcomed some of the behavior she later complained about.
Kidd, who is now an assistant professor in Jaeger’s department, was a 24-year-old graduate student when he rented a room in his apartment to her. During that time, she alleges, he made sexually inappropriate comments to her about other women, questioned her about her sex life, and ignored her personal boundaries, by walking into her room without knocking, for instance.
The report cited, as evidence that Kidd wasn’t as upset as she claimed about his behavior, that she herself sometimes talked with her colleagues about sex and sometimes responded to Jaeger in a friendly manner.
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“This is classic victim-blaming,” the rebuttal states. “One can talk about sex with one’s peers and be a generally friendly and open person and still not want to be on the receiving end of constant sexual comments from one’s research adviser.”
Sara Miller, a university spokeswoman, accused the plaintiffs’ law firm of trying to litigate the matter in the media and of repeating false allegations. “In so doing, this law firm is distracting the university from its efforts to create meaningful change, both in practice and culture,” she said in a written statement, adding that the firm should instead let the legal process it started play out through the courts. Among the steps the university has taken to respond to the report is to start a website, “Cultivating a Culture of Respect,” which will provide regular updates on Rochester’s progress in responding to the report and improving campus sexual-harassment policies.
Jaeger’s lawyer, Steven V. Modica, released a statement on Monday saying the allegations against Jaeger have been largely discredited by three investigations over the past two years. “Each investigation has shown how the complainants have distorted the record, manipulated facts, and provided selective documentation to support their allegations,” he wrote.
Early in his career, Jaeger had consensual relationships with four adult women, none of whom were under his supervision, Modica said. Two have criticized the way they were portrayed in the complaint, he added.
“The complainants claim to be on a mission to protect women in the sciences, however, their actions speak to a different agenda,” the lawyer wrote. “They demean, dismiss or outright shame any woman who chooses to work with my client.”
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White’s investigation focused on whether Jaeger had sexually harassed individual women. The plaintiffs, however, said that their primary complaint was that his “demeaning” and “threatening” acts, and the university’s failure to address them, had created a hostile environment that led more than a dozen women to alter their career plans to avoid him.
They said they were heartened, however, that some of the changes they have been recommending to strengthen Rochester’s response to sexual misconduct have been accepted by the report and endorsed by university leaders.
“These are all positive developments,” they wrote, which they hope “will strengthen the university.”
Update (2/5/2018, 6:24 p.m.): This article has been updated with a response from the university.
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.
Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, student success, and job training, as well as free speech and other topics in daily news. Follow her @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.