A Lawsuit Accuses Harvard of Ignoring Sexual Harassment by a Professor
The controversy surrounding John Comaroff, an anthropologist, has divided the faculty, with scholars like Jill Lepore and Henry Louis Gates Jr. supporting their colleague.
Hasnain says:
Leaving the gory details out of the summary here because they are extremely triggering. But the case here is absolutely nuts. I don’t get how 38 professors were comfortable enough writing a letter of support for this person.
What’s much more damning is how Harvard ran the investigation here though. From the legal complaints it came out that they got confidential therapy notes from the victim’s therapist (!) and handed them over to the abuser (!!). This crosses so many lines I don’t even know where to begin.
“On Monday night, as the lawsuit was about to be filed, another 50 or so Harvard scholars — most of them tenured, according to Walter Johnson, a history professor — replied in an open letter, criticizing Dr. Comaroff’s defenders for being too quick to accept the facts as presented by his lawyers.
“As evident from the letters written in his support, Professor Comaroff is a scholar with a powerful network of friends and colleagues,” who could discourage other students from coming forward, the latest letter said.”
Posted on 2022-02-09T07:05:07+0000