A student at Bellarmine University sued the institution on Thursday, accusing it of retaliating against him for complaining that a faculty member had begun an inappropriate relationship with him.
The assistant professor of chemistry involved in the dispute, Francis J. Barrios, left the university in December, according to the lawsuit. A campus spokesman would only confirm that the faculty member is no longer at Bellarmine, a Roman Catholic institution in Louisville, Ky.
He said he could not comment on the lawsuit.
Barrios did not respond to a request for comment. The student, John Noakes, and Barrios had been in a relationship that included visits to the professor’s apartment, where they frequently had sexually explicit conversations, according to the lawsuit, filed in federal district court.
Last summer, after teaching Noakes in an organic-chemistry class, Barrios agreed to advise the student’s independent research project.
[[relatedcontent align="left” size="half-width”]] The relationship deteriorated in September, when Barrios told the Bellarmine junior that he couldn’t use a study-abroad trip to get credit for his foreign-language requirement, according to the lawsuit. Barrios alleged that Noakes, who was already upset about how Barrios was overseeing his research project, became enraged and threatened to kill him. Noakes denied making such a threat. His professor, he contended, was retaliating against him because Noakes had said he wanted to end their relationship.
Based on the reported threat, the lawsuit states, the university ended Noakes’s position as a resident adviser and put a note in his file that said he had threatened to physically harm his professor. He was later placed on probation.
In October, Noakes filed a sexual-misconduct complaint against Barrios.
A Bellarmine investigator concluded, based in part on months of visits and friendly and sexually explicit text messages, that Noakes had consented to the relationship with his professor. “It is difficult to interpret” the interactions between the two as sexual harassment, the investigator wrote, because the sexual comments by Barrios were “often countered with a sexual comment from” Noakes.
Even if the relationship could be described as consensual, which the lawsuit says is questionable given the power imbalance between the two, the faculty handbook prohibits “inappropriate conduct” by faculty members, the lawsuit states.
In addition to monetary damages, Noakes wants his probation lifted so he’ll have a better chance of getting admitted to medical school.
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.
