Harvard University and three doctoral students have settled a federal lawsuit against the Ivy League school for allowing a distinguished professor to harass individuals by threatening to end their jobs. According to an order from federal magistrate judge Judith Dein dated Thursday, the lawsuit filed in Boston in 2022 was dismissed without court costs and with prejudice, meaning the students ca n’t re-litigate the claims.
The settlement’s words were never made public.
The attorneys for the students praised their clients ‘ bravery for” comvenind, speaking up about their experiences and shedding light on important issues.”
” We are pleased that our customers will now be able to move on with their lives and jobs,” Sanford Heisler Sharp said in a statement.
According to the lawsuit, one of the students was allegedly the subject of repeated forced kissing and groping by John Comaroff, a professor of anthropology and American and African National studies, in 2017. Comaroff repeatedly warned the student that because she was in a same-sex relationship when the learner met with him about her plans to study in an American nation, because she was meeting with him.
Comaroff threatened to undermine their jobs after the other two plaintiffs reported his behavior to college administrators. One student at the University of Chicago accused him of giving her unintentional physical attention.
Comaroff, 79, was never named as a accused, and his attorneys said at the moment that he” unequivocally denies ever harassing or retaliating against any pupil”. According to their speech,” He persistently made every effort to help these individuals and advance their careers.”
He said his counsel was appropriate and motivated by concern for her safety if she traveled with a same-sex companion, a reminder that is similar to what the US State Department publishes.
Comaroff claimed in a statement from Harvard in July that the complaint “repeated all of the claims currently found to be untrue” during a Harvard research but “in more ludicrous, exponential terms” to make him the target of their lawsuit against the school.
” All this amazing attention, all the uproar, all the unpleasantness, arose out of two small office-hour conversations, both educational in purpose and content”, Comaroff wrote. ” An ugly, violent campaign had been waged against me at Harvard by a smaller group of protesters, people who have no knowledge of me, of my education, or of the facts of the case as established by Harvard’s complete, generally excusing research”.
A Harvard director shared a email claiming Comaroff was placed on administrative leave for the rest of the spring semester at the time the lawsuit was filed in 2022 after college authorities discovered his rhetorical behavior was against the school’s physical, gender-based, and professional conduct guidelines.
Lawyers for Harvard had argued for dismissal before the lawsuit’s mediation in November, contending that some claims had no merit and that the statute of limitations had expired.
On Friday, Comaroff’s attorneys ‘ emails to the university refused to respond directly.
