U. of Nebraska Professor Accused of Sexual Harassment Is Fired

The University of Nebraska Board of Regents has fired a tenured professor who was accused of sexually harassing one student and of posting on the Internet a personal essay written by another.

The student who wrote the essay said it had been a class assignment, and that she had not given the professor permission to publish it.

David J. Hibler, a professor of English on the university’s Lincoln campus, was fired based on “unprofessional conduct, sexual harassment, and an inability to comply with departmental and university policies,” said Nancy L. O’Brien, a regent who reviewed the recommendation of a faculty panel that he be dismissed. She said the university had been dissatisfied with Mr. Hibler for years. He started teaching at the university in 1965 but still held the rank of assistant professor when he was fired.

Mr. Hibler could not be reached for comment.

A panel of faculty members held hearings in June on students’ complaints against the professor. One student said he had come to her apartment in 1996 and forced her to lie on the floor while he touched her inappropriately. She has sued him for sexual harassment.

Rania K. Shlien, the student who accused Mr. Hibler of posting her paper on the Internet last fall, said the essay contained personal information that she had not wanted revealed. She sued in U.S. District Court in Lincoln, Neb., charging that Mr. Hibler had violated her copyright and humiliated her.

In January, Mr. Hibler also caused a stir by sending people on a university mailing list a series of electronic messages that some said contained racial slurs. He has told university officials that the messages were part of his literature course’s study of rap music, but Ms. O’Brien, the regent, said he was teaching no such material.

Mr. Hibler was placed on a paid leave of absence in February, after sending the e-mail messages. But although people on the campus had condemned the language he used, the messages had not influenced the regents’ decision to fire him, Ms. O’Brien said. Sending them was his free-speech right, she said.

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Section: The Faculty
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