We believe that’s exactly what happened in this case,” Ms. “Many students are deterred from reporting abuse by the threats of career-ending retaliation. “Harvard must take complaints of harassment and retaliation seriously,” said Carolin Guentert, Senior Litigation Counsel at Sanford Heisler Sharp and counsel for the plaintiffs. The Complaint cites a 2021 internal report by Harvard’s Anthropology Department, which identified a “longstanding pattern of sexism, misogyny, and sexual and gender-based misconduct” that “has gone largely unchecked by a predominantly white, male faculty.” The report concluded that Harvard has condoned a “culture in which the abuse of power is normalized and accommodated.” According to the Complaint, this internal investigation came on the heels of news reports about failures within Harvard’s Title IX office to investigate unwanted sexual contact from faculty. All of this, Plaintiffs allege, was due to failings in Harvard’s Title IX process, which is designed to protect star faculty and allow Harvard to downplay credible accounts of sexual misconduct. Kilburn’s charges that Professor Comaroff kissed her, groped her, and derailed her degree. Czerwienski’s charge of retaliation and Ms. But Harvard failed to issue any finding on Ms. Mandava violated its policies on faculty conduct. Kilburn’s rape violated Title IX and that his alleged threats to Ms. But, after an ordeal that lasted more than a year in which the plaintiffs invested substantial time, identified numerous witnesses, and produced voluminous documentary evidence to prove their allegations, the University issued limited findings that downplayed the gravity of the conduct alleged: Harvard found that Professor Comaroff’s alleged graphic imagining of Ms. Mandava would have “trouble getting jobs.” As a result, all three plaintiffs were forced to radically alter their academic trajectories and delay the pursuit of their degrees, the Complaint says.Īll three plaintiffs lodged Title IX complaints with Harvard’s Office for Dispute Resolution. Significantly, the Complaint details how Harvard watched and did nothing as Professor Comaroff retaliated, in part, by ensuring that Ms. Mandava reported Professor Comaroff to Harvard and sought to warn other students about him. Kilburn, groped her in public, graphically and bizarrely imagined her rape and murder aloud, cut her off from other professors, and derailed her degree progress. The Complaint alleges that Professor Comaroff repeatedly and forcibly kissed Ms.

Harvard’s Indifference to Protecting Students The Complaint details that Harvard ignored numerous warning signs, including prior Title IX complaints, which enabled Professor Comaroff, one of the world’s leading anthropologists, to sexually harass Ms. The firm represents Margaret Czerwienski, Lilia Kilburn, and Amulya Mandava, who are graduate students in Harvard’s Anthropology Department.

The Complaint alleges that Harvard willfully ignored nearly a decade of sexual harassment and retaliation by tenured Anthropology Department professor John Comaroff. 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) - Sanford Heisler Sharp today filed a Complaint in Massachusetts federal court against Harvard University and the President and Fellows of Harvard College (“Harvard” or the “University”). Left to right: Amulya Mandava, Lilia Kilburn, Margaret Czerwienski Left to right: Amulya Mandava, Lilia Kilburn, Margaret CzerwienskiĬAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb.

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