Harvard University says lawsuit accusing them of ‘deliberate indifference’ to allegations of sexual harassment by professor is ‘unfair’

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Harvard University disputes complaints made by three graduate students accusing the school of “deliberate indifference” to accusations of sexual harassment and retaliation by Professor John Comaroff, saying that it is not a fair or accurate representation of the steps taken in response to concerns that were brought forward.

Anthropology students Margaret Czerwienski, Lilia Kilburn and Amulya Mandava filed a lawsuit against the school this week, claiming that Comaroff repeatedly and forcibly kissed Kilburn, groped her in public, spoke aloud about her rape and murder, cut her off from other professors and derailed her academic trajectory.

Students also claimed that when they tried reporting Comaroff to the university and warned their peers about him, Harvard watched as he retaliated by making it difficult to find jobs.

“This is a case about Harvard’s decade-long failure to protect students from sexual abuse and career-ending retaliation,” court documents read. “For years, he has used that power and his perch at Harvard to exploit aspiring scholars: he kissed and groped students without their consent, made unwelcome sexual advances, and threatened to sabotage students’ careers if they complained.”

On Thursday, Harvard acknowledged the lawsuit noting that Comaroff was recently put on unpaid leave after the school conducted an investigation and found that he violated conduct. However, they said that the allegations that they ignored the students were not fair.

Nicole Merhill, the director of the Office for Gender Equity and Title IX Coordinator said she is deeply familiar with the university’s processes and practices and commitment to the Title IX processes, including materials and people involved in investigations.

“Representations that do not describe fairly or accurately the University’s processes with regard to obtaining and maintaining material during an investigatory process are extremely troubling to me because they may have a potential chilling effect on our community members’ confidence in the investigatory process and their ability to access counseling and other resources,” Merhill said.

Additionally, in the lawsuit, Kilburn accused Harvard of obtaining her private therapy records without her consent and disclosing them to Professor Comaroff.

In their response, the university said that their Office for Dispute Resolution “does not contact a party’s medical care provider except when a party has indicated that the provider has relevant information that the party wants ODR to consider.” In that case, they said they receive information with the party’s consent.

“If either party has documents that it does not wish the other party to see, ODR will not require a party to submit those documents. Rather, ODR will simply not obtain or consider those documents,” the university said.

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