By Elizabeth Chuck
Three graduate students have sued Harvard University, alleging the institution repeatedly failed to act in the face of sexual harassment by a prominent anthropologist on their faculty.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Massachusetts, focuses on John Comaroff, a professor of African, African American and anthropology studies who was placed on administrative leave without pay by Harvard last month.
He had previously been placed on paid leave in August 2020, according to The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper.
The move came nearly five years after the three graduate students in his department, Lilia Kilburn, Margaret Czerwienski and Amulya Mandava, began reporting harassment from him.
From left to right: Amulya Mandava, Lilia Kilburn and Margaret Czerwienski.Lena Warnke Photography
But even by putting Comaroff on unpaid leave, the university failed to acknowledge Comaroff's most egregious offenses, attorneys for the students say.
In an investigation, Harvard concluded that Comaroff
"engaged in verbal conduct that violated the College of Arts and Sciences' policies to prevent gender-based sexual harassment
and the College of Arts and Sciences' professional conduct policy," it said. College of Arts and Sciences dean Claudine Gay in an email, according to The Crimson.
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The findings come from reviews conducted by the Harvard Office for Dispute Resolution and an outside researcher.
The university did not find Comaroff responsible for the unwanted sexual contact, which is described as "rampant" in the lawsuit filed on behalf of the three women: "He kissed and groped female students without their consent, made unwelcome sexual advances on them, and He threatened to sabotage their careers if they complained,” the text reads.
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Comaroff's attorneys said in a statement that he "categorically denies harassing or retaliating against any student."
Harvard, which has not made public most of its research findings, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Lawyers for the three students say Comaroff's inappropriate behavior toward Kilburn began before she had even enrolled at Harvard,
when she went on a campus visit in 2017 and he kissed her on the mouth.
Czerwienski and Mandava, according to the lawsuit, told the university about Comaroff's pattern of misconduct with other students, and it threatened their future job prospects.
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The three students said they filed complaints against Comaroff with Harvard Title IX officials, who handle sex discrimination complaints, Czerwienski and Mandava in 2017 and Kilburn in 2019.
Harvard showed a "deliberate disregard" to the complaints, the suit says, and did not launch an investigation until 2020. The investigation dragged on for more than a year, it adds.
a key exchange
Much of the focus stems from an incident on Kilburn's first day of graduate study, when he met Comaroff, who had then become his adviser, and told him he wanted to study in Central Africa.
“During the meeting, Professor Comaroff repeatedly described various ways in which Ms Kilburn would be raped and killed in South Africa, some 5,000 kilometers away from Central Africa, for having a same-sex relationship,” the statement says. demand.
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Comaroff's lawyers acknowledged the conversation he had with Kilburn about overseas fieldwork while traveling with his same-sex partner, but said going over the risk of sexual violence was a "necessary conversation for his safety."
Students walk on the campus of Harvard University. Bloomberg via Getty Images file
His lawyers criticized Harvard's Title IX investigation for finding the advice constituted sexual harassment when, they said, it came from a place of concern for his well-being.
"Professor Comaroff vehemently disputes this conclusion, which would cripple the ability of faculty members to use their best academic judgment in advising students on essential security issues," they said in their statement.
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Initially, some faculty members agreed.
The day after Comaroff was placed on unpaid leave, 38 professors signed an open letter calling him an "excellent colleague" and expressing their dismay at Harvard's decision, adding that they would feel "ethically obligated to offer the same advice” to a student considering studying in a country with such prohibitions.
But on Tuesday, after the lawsuit provided more information, many said they wanted to withdraw their signatures, The Boston Globe reported.
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The suit accuses Harvard of allowing Comaroff's behavior toward Kilburn to go unchecked for two years,
"subjecting Ms. Kilburn to an ongoing nightmare that included more forced kissing, groping, persistent invitations to socialize alone off campus, and coercive control." ”.
When she tried to prevent him, she continues the lawsuit, he forbade her to work with other advisers.
Comaroff denied through his attorneys that he did not allow Kilburn to work with anyone else and said he did not kiss or touch her inappropriately at any time.
When Kilburn filed a complaint in May 2019, the office "took no significant action except to admit that Harvard had known about Professor Comaroff's behavior for years," the suit continues.
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Carolin Guentert, one of the attorneys for the three graduate students, said the lawsuit is intended to show the extent of Comaroff's alleged abuse, which she says the Harvard investigation failed to do.
Regarding Kilburn, focusing only on verbal sex discrimination, she said, is "really a pretty narrow conclusion."
"The much larger context of kissing and groping and bullying was really ignored," he said.
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He added that Harvard also placed an undue burden on students to report bullying.
The lawsuit claims that the university took no action to take disciplinary action or even launch its investigation until 2020, when The Harvard Crimson and The Chronicle of Higher Education began reporting on the allegations.
Even then, the investigation initially allowed Comaroff to continue teaching "after a slap on the wrist," according to the suit.
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The university also stalled Czerwienski and Mandava, the other two plaintiffs, in their efforts to stop Comaroff, the suit says.
In 2017, they became aware of a sophomore graduate student who was allegedly being made unwanted sexual advances by Comaroff;
when they reported him, Comaroff told them they "would have trouble getting jobs" if they kept making those reports, the suit says.
They want to make sure that when students make complaints of sexual harassment, schools take them seriously and don't put them through an unduly onerous process."
Carolin Guentert student advocate
Comaroff's attorneys say he never threatened the students.
Guentert said he hoped the lawsuit would change the complaint processes at colleges and universities.
"This lawsuit highlights how much power graduate advisors have over graduate students. Some use it for good, others don't, and that's been a problem for years," he said.
"Our customers hope this comes out. They want to make sure that when students make sexual harassment claims, schools take them seriously and don't put them through an unduly burdensome process."