This week, three women filed a lawsuit against Harvard, claiming the university failed to protect them from a renowned anthropology scholar who allegedly sexually harassed them, then threatened to destroy their careers if they came forward. One of the accusers claims that Harvard also obtained her psychotherapy records without her consent and handed them to the professor, who used them to “gaslight” her.
On Thursday, Harvard issued a statement about the women’s harassment claims against professor John Comaroff and the university’s investigation of them. But the Ivy League school’s remarks centered on the disturbing accusations about the woman’s medical records, which were obtained by Harvard’s Office for Dispute Resolution (ODR) after she filed a complaint about Comaroff’s alleged harassment and unwanted advances.
The university even appeared to shift blame to the woman’s therapist, saying, “HIPAA privacy obligations apply to medical care providers, not the ODR” and “ODR receives information from that care provider only with the party’s consent. We scrupulously follow this practice.”
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Margaret Czerwienski, Lilia Kilburn, and Amulya Mandava—the grad students behind the suit—say Comaroff “kissed and groped students without their consent, made unwelcome sexual advances, and threatened to sabotage students’ careers if they complained.” When women did seek help from university officials, the lawsuit adds, Harvard “brushed them aside and opted to protect its star professor over vulnerable students.”
The students’ complaint, filed in Massachusetts federal court, alleges Harvard’s eventual probe into Comaroff’s alleged harassment “only exacerbated [their] nightmare” by prolonging the process, allowing the professor to “tamper with evidence” by intimidating potential student witnesses, and sharing Kilburn’s private therapy records with Comaroff.
Comaroff then used these notes to “gaslight” Kilburn during the university investigation, the lawsuit claims, and tell her “that she must have imagined that he sexually harassed her because she was experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder.” She says she developed this condition, however, as a result of his sexual misconduct.
Indeed, the lawsuit says, when Kilburn filed a complaint with Harvard’s OPR in 2020, school investigators contacted her...