UR sexual abuse complaint moves to federal court

The professors who filed a complaint of sexual harassment and retaliation against the University of Rochester in August have now filed a federal lawsuit pursuing the same claims.

The suit, filed Friday, Dec. 8, and the original Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint center on alleged sexual advances Professor T. Florian Jaeger made toward graduate students, a hostile environment caused by those actions, and the additional alleged efforts the university made to discredit and retaliate against the people who complained about Jaeger’s behavior.

The suit names the University of Rochester, UR President Joel Seligman and UR Provost Robert Clark as defendants. Plaintiffs are all current or former students or faculty in the university’s department of Brain and Cognitive Science: Richard Aslin, Keturah Bixby, Jessica Cantlon, Benjamin Hayden, Sarah Heilbronner, Celeste Kidd, Bradford Mahon, Elissa Newport, and Steven Piantadosi.

The suit describes Jaeger’s sexual behaviors as so pervasive and coercive that graduate students avoided him as much as they could and some potential recruits to the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department either declined invitations to study at UR or came with stipulations that they would not have to work with Jaeger, even to their professional detriment.

It also paints a picture of a school where the highest administrators looked the other way when Jaeger’s sexual relationships with graduate students was brought to their attention because both the president and provost were also engaged in intimate relationships with subordinates.

Sara Miller, a spokeswoman for the university, issued this statement: “The filing of this lawsuit was not unexpected. We will not comment on any matter that we have not had a chance to review, and we currently plan to withhold comment until the completion of the independent investigation commissioned by a special committee of the University of Rochester’s Board of Trustees.”

The special committee hired Mary Jo White, a former US attorney, to conduct an independent investigation and she recently told the group that she expects to conclude the investigation early in January and issue a report by Jan. 12.  The university’s previous internal investigation concluded by saying the charges could not be supported; Jaeger was promoted to full professor while the university was investigating his behavior.

According to the suit, “Jaeger had slept with graduate students, pressed others for sex, took them to hot tub retreats where drugs were used, asked graduate students to procure sexual partners for him, and made frequent overtly sexual remarks in professional settings. Jaeger made the environment for women at BCS threatening and hostile. As a result at least 16 women altered their academic course to avoid Jaeger… .”

After a number of students complained to the head of the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department, the suit says, university officials searched the phone records and emails of complainants without their knowledge or consent, a legal though unusual step.

Additionally, the suit says, department chairman Greg DeAngelis “denounced Plaintiffs, falsely, at a BCS faculty meeting as liars and schemers. For raising well-founded concerns about a colleague’s serious misconduct, plaintiffs were excluded from departmental meetings, denied the chance to interview or vote on new personnel, excluded from department committees, given burdensome and unusual workloads, excluded from faculty dinners, generally shunned by colleagues and made to feel so unwelcome that” two faculty members who are plaintiffs in the suit have left UR for other jobs and others are trying to leave.

Though Jaeger is on paid leave, he continues to visit the department often, the suit says, continuing the hostile environment. “The professors who complained about his campaign of sexual harassment are still being retaliated against,” the suit continues. “On top of the 11 students described in the EEOC complaint as having altered their education at UR to their detriment to deal with Jaeger’s harassment, five more women have come forward with similar accounts.”

The wife of one of the faculty members who was among the original eight EEOC complainants has joined them in them in the lawsuit.

Two related events happened earlier this week. The suit says members of the EEOC complaint were denied the ability to act as ombudsmen in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department because they were deemed “biased.”

Additionally, professors Celeste Kidd and Jessica Cantlon were among the people described as the “Silence Breakers” named Time Magazine’s 2017 Person of the Year.

No specific damages are sought in the suit, though it asks for legal fees and other relief “considered just and proper.”