After walkout, hundreds email Harvard to fire Harvard professor Comaroff over harassment allegations | News

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More than 240 people emailed top Harvard administrators Thursday night demanding that the University fire John L. Comaroff, the embattled Harvard professor who returned to teaching this academic year after the school fired him. furloughed for violating its sexual harassment and professional conduct policies. .

The emails come after more than 100 students staged a class strike Tuesday at Comaroffs, African and African-American Studies 172X: Colonialism and its Postcolonial/Decolonial Afterlives: Critical Readings. As students gathered at the Barker Center, which houses his office, organizers encouraged everyone to pull out their phones and send the email.

Comaroff, a professor of African and African-American studies and anthropology, has been the subject of national controversy since an eight-month investigation by The Crimson in 2020 found that at least three female graduate students had filed complaints to Harvard’s Title IX office, alleging that he engaged in verbal and physical harassment and professional retaliation.

Following the allegations, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and president-elect of the university, Claudine Gay, placed Comaroff on paid administrative leave in August 2020. After two internal investigations, it was found that the behavior Comaroff’s verbal violation violated Harvard’s policies on sexual and gender-based and professional harassment. conduct, Gay placed him on unpaid administrative leave for the spring 2022 semester.

Upon returning to campus in the fall of 2022, Comaroff’s first class also caused a student walkout and protest.

Emails sent through an EveryAction form created by Rosalie P. Couture 26, an organizer with the student activist group Our Harvard Can Do Better, label Comaroff a known sex abuser and demand her immediate termination.

According to Couture, the emails are addressed to a slew of high-level Harvard administrators, including Gay, university president Lawrence S. Bacow, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Emma Dench and the dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana as well as Comaroff himself.

He is a danger to students, the email script says. Her employment creates a culture that accepts sexual violence on Harvard’s campus and around the world. Harvard has a responsibility to protect its students and use its influence to create a more equitable, just, and safe world for all. We demand that Comaroff be fired.

The email script also indicates that Comaroff has several well-documented allegations of sexual abuse by UChicago and Harvard students.

In February 2022, graduate anthropology students Margaret G. Czerwienski, Lilia M. Kilburn, and Amulya Mandava filed a federal lawsuit against Harvard, alleging that the school had repeatedly and continuously mishandled their complaints of harassment and retaliation. assumed by the teacher. Plaintiffs filed an amended lawsuit in June 2022 detailing three other allegations of sexual harassment during Comaroff’s time as a professor at the University of Chicago.

In an emailed statement, Comaroff’s attorneys Janet E. Halley, Ruth K. OMeara-Costello 02 and Norman S. Zalkind wrote that the claim that Comaroff was a sex offender was simply untrue.

The attorneys said the amended 2022 lawsuit’s sexual misconduct allegations were completely untested, anonymous and second-hand at best and that no request was ever made to investigate the alleged misconduct at UChicago.

Comaroff’s legal team has always denied the sexual harassment allegations against the professor and continues to point out that the results of Harvard’s investigations did not confirm that Comaroff engaged in physical sexual harassment.

The idea that Harvard would fire him on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations, ignoring the results of its own very thorough investigation, is worryingly inconsistent with core values ​​of fairness and due process, they wrote.

Everyone in the Harvard community should find this disturbing, they added.

Annabelle JL Finlayson, 23, organizer of Our Harvard Can Do Better, said she was optimistic about the number of people who used the form to send emails.

The purpose of the email form was to help put pressure on the administration because clearly they are not doing enough, she said. We are delighted with the number of interested people.

University spokesman Jason A. Newton declined to comment on the email campaign.

Our Harvard Can Do Better is planning another protest for next week.

Editor Darley AC Boit can be reached at [email protected].

Editor Charlotte P. Ritz-Jack can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @charrittzjack.

Writer Elias J. Schisgall can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @eschisgall.

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