The #MeToo movement has ignited a conversation about sexual harassment on campuses, as people have come forward to level new accusations, and to challenge colleges for mishandling previous reports. What will happen as a result?
The Chronicle looked beyond the recent wave of allegations, to trace the outcomes of 15 prior cases. The names of the academics who stood accused may be familiar. Our goal was not to be comprehensive, but to examine or re-examine some prominent cases and relate what has happened so far.
It’s worth noting that all these allegations became public. In all cases, at least one person had come forward — to an institution, to the news media, or both. That attention often created pressure for action.
The most common action in these high-profile cases was for the accused person to resign. That frequently happened before an investigation by the college or university, or afterward, but before the institution went through its disciplinary proceedings. If there was an investigation, the person accused was generally on some sort of paid leave during the time of that inquiry. Those who stayed afterward were cleared or dismissed. Others stuck around, with restrictions, after some finding of responsibility. Here are brief summaries of the cases.
Resigned
Colin McGinn: A philosopher at the University of Miami, Mr. McGinn was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a graduate student, who has said that he sent her a series of sexually explicit email and text messages starting in 2012. After the university’s Office of Equality Administration and the vice provost for faculty affairs conducted an investigation, Mr. McGinn was given the option of resigning or having an inquiry into the allegations against him continue in a public setting, according to several of the philosopher’s colleagues at the time. He announced his resignation in June 2013, effective the following December. “I find the entire affair tragic and absurd, and unfortunate for all involved,” he said. In 2015, the graduate student filed a Title IX lawsuit against the university which was settled in 2016. All parties are prohibited from talking about it, according to Inside Higher Ed.
Jason Fruth: An education professor at Wright State University, Mr. Fruth was accused of raping a graduate student at a New Year’s Eve party in December 2016 and sexually harassing others, according to university records obtained by the Dayton Daily News. He was placed on paid leave following the allegations in February, and he resigned in May, two weeks before the university completed an investigation. It found him responsible for violating three university policies. Mr. Fruth denied the allegations against him, and a criminal investigation by local law-enforcement authorities did not lead to any charges.
Andrew Escobedo: Mr. Escobedo, an English professor at Ohio University, was found to have sexually touched two graduate students without their consent at a party in 2015, according to a campus investigation, and to have harassed other students a decade before. He went on leave in March 2016, when the investigation began, and reportedly received his salary of $86,000 for eight months, The Athens News reported. In August 2017, two weeks before a Faculty Senate hearing on retracting his tenure, he submitted his resignation, effective in November. Mr. Escobedo has said that the claims against him are “not fair or true,” according to the local newspaper. The two graduate students have sued him and the university.
Eric Dannenmaier: A law-school dean at Northern Illinois University, Mr. Dannenmaier was found to have engaged in improper conduct “by using comments and language of a sexual nature” with two former employees, according to a confidential memo obtained by the legal-news website Above the Law. Mr. Dannenmaier went on voluntary administrative leave in February 2017, and an investigation by the university found that he had violated its policy. He resigned in June. “I will likely never understand how they could interpret any of my words or actions as creating a hostile work environment,” he said in his resignation letter. He has since held a temporary position at the university.
Jason Lieb: A molecular biologist at the University of Chicago, Mr. Lieb was found to have made unwelcome sexual advances toward several female graduate students at a retreat, and engaged in sexual activity with a student who was incapacitated by alcohol, according to university documents obtained by The New York Times. As a result of the investigation, the university recommended that Mr. Lieb be fired; he resigned in January 2016.
Geoff Marcy: An astronomer at the University of California at Berkeley, Mr. Marcy was found to have violated campus policy by groping and kissing students and engaging in other inappropriate behavior between 2001 and 2010. The university gave Mr. Marcy “a strict set of behavioral standards” to follow with the risk of suspension or termination if he faced another complaint, BuzzFeed News reported in October 2015. “While I do not agree with each complaint that was made, it is clear that my behavior was unwelcomed by some women,” Mr. Marcy wrote in an open letter. Amid public pressure, including a petition, he resigned shortly thereafter.
Christian Ott: The California Institute of Technology placed Mr. Ott, a professor of theoretical physics, on leave in 2016 after an investigation found “unambiguous gender-based harassment” of two graduate students (BuzzFeed reported that he fell in love with one, fired her, and confessed his actions to another). He was required, among other things, to undergo “professional coaching and training in how to mentor students” and restricted from the campus, according to a statement by Caltech. After a committee determined that he had “made significant progress” but “remained a divisive element on campus,” he announced his resignation in August 2017, effective at the end of the year. “It was the best decision to make for myself, Caltech, and the community of students and postdocs,” he said.
Peter Ludlow: Northwestern University found Mr. Ludlow, a philosopher, responsible for sexual harassment of an undergraduate in 2012 and of a graduate student in 2014. As a result of the first case, Northwestern docked his pay, withdrew his endowed chair, and required him to go to sensitivity training. After the second investigation, amid campus protests, the university scheduled hearings on his employment there. He maintained that his relationships with the students were consensual — and filed lawsuits for defamation — but resigned in 2015, after the university started a process to dismiss him.
Fired
Samuel Bradley: The University of South Florida put Mr. Bradley, director of its Zimmerman School of Advertising and Mass Communications, on paid administrative leave in the spring of 2016, after learning that an investigation by Texas Tech University, his previous employer, found that he had intimate relationships with three students he advised and “engaged in generally unprofessional behavior on numerous occasions,” the Tampa Bay Times reported. Mr. Bradley had resigned from Texas Tech, and neither he nor the university had disclosed the investigation to USF. That university fired him in June 2016. Mr. Bradley said he had disclosed all relevant information during the hiring process and indicated that an independent review had “many key factual errors and omissions,” according to the Times.
Michael Katze: The University of Washington determined in January 2016 that Michael Katze, a microbiologist, had sexually harassed women working in his lab. The university received several previous complaints about Mr. Katze dating back to 2006, BuzzFeed News reported, and a second investigation in 2016 found that he had misused funds, including by directing an employee to solicit a prostitute for him. Mr. Katze was on “home assignment,” collecting his $120,000 annual salary, with his lab projects discontinued or transferred to others, until the university fired him in August 2017 on the recommendation of a faculty adjudication panel. In a lawsuit against the university, Mr. Katze had said he was “shocked” by the allegations against him.
Restricted From Teaching
Erick Guerrero: An investigation by the University of Southern California found that Mr. Guerrero, a social-work professor, had sexually harassed a graduate student in January 2017 at an academic conference, the Daily Trojan reported. The university said that he would be suspended without pay for one semester and suspended from teaching or supervising students, and that his office would be relocated away from students. The graduate student who accused Mr. Guerrero filed a lawsuit against the university for failing to dismiss him. Mr. Guerrero has denied what he says are false allegations.
T. Florian Jaeger: A professor in the department of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, Mr. Jaeger was accused of sexually harassing colleagues and students but cleared by the university in 2016 of violating its policies, Mother Jones reported. Several current and former graduate students and professors filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in August, and amid much publicity and public pressure, Mr. Jaeger decided to stop teaching his course this semester and is now on administrative leave, The Washington Post reported.
John Searle: A lawsuit in March 2017 by a former student and research assistant accused Mr. Searle, an emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, of groping her and later firing her for declining his advances, BuzzFeed News reported. The plaintiff asserted that the university took no action. Mr. Searle was teaching an undergraduate philosophy course at Berkeley in March when his students learned abruptly that he would no longer be their instructor. He still has a campus office, according to a Berkeley spokesman.
Gabriel Piterberg: Two graduate students accused Mr. Piterberg, a history professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, of sexual harassment, and the university imposed several penalties in 2014. It suspended him without pay for one quarter, imposed a $3,000 fine, required him to attend sexual-harassment training, and barred him from meeting one on one with students in closed-door meetings for three years, the Los Angeles Times reported. Campus protests have canceled his classes. Mr. Piterberg, who has not admitted any wrongdoing, is now on leave.
Cleared
Thomas Pogge: In 2010 a recent graduate accused Mr. Pogge, a philosopher at Yale University, of sexual harassment. Despite other allegations, Yale found insufficient evidence of harassment, BuzzFeed News reported. “None of the alleged misconduct ever took place,” Mr. Pogge said in a statement. More than 200 philosophers across the country have signed an open letter criticizing him. He remains a professor and director of the global-justice program at Yale.
