A prominent government professor at Harvard who has been accused of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior by as many as 18 women over several decades resigned on Tuesday following a decision by the university to place him on leave, reports The Guardian.
The professor, Jorge I. Domínguez, 72, was the subject of a Feb. 27 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education that reported that at least 10 women had accused him of sexual harassment.
A subsequent article, published on Sunday, reported that additional women - including Harvard professors, students and staff members - had come forward alleging inappropriate behavior by Dr. Domínguez, bringing the total to 18.
The reaction to disclosures about Dr. Domínguez - many just now coming to light despite occurring years ago - reflects a marked shift in the type of behavior tolerated in the workplace since the reports last year regarding inappropriate sexual behavior by high-profile men like Bill O’Reilly and Harvey Weinstein.
Those disclosures led to a string of forced resignations and firings in entertainment, the media and beyond. Academia has not been immune, with a number of universities forced to confront fallout from the #MeToo movement as professors, students and graduates have come forward with allegations of past abuses.
Late Sunday evening, Michael D. Smith, the dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, sent an email to the university community announcing that Dr. Domínguez had been placed on leave while Harvard investigated the allegations. In a brief email to colleagues on Tuesday, Dr. Domínguez announced his resignation, which he described as his retirement, effective at the end of the semester.
Jennifer Hochschild, the chairwoman of the government department, then announced the resignation to students and alumni in her own email.
“His forthcoming retirement does not change the active review of the facts and circumstance that have recently come to light,” she wrote.
Dr. Domínguez did not respond to email and telephone messages seeking comment on Tuesday, but he told The Chronicle that he had tried to “behave honorably” in all his relationships. “I do not go around making sexual advances,” he said. “Any behavior like that, I would regret it under any circumstances.”
The Chronicle article told the story of Terry L. Karl, an assistant government professor at Harvard during the early 1980s, who said Dr. Domínguez, regarded as the university’s leading authority on Latin American politics, had made repeated attempts to kiss her, attempted to run his hand up her dress and, at another point, made a reference to raping her. As she rebuffed his advances, Dr. Karl said, Dr. Domínguez reminded her of how powerful he was.
In one letter to Dr. Domínguez at the time, she warned that she found his overtures uncomfortable. “I must reiterate what I have said before: for me, any type of sexual involvement with you can only be destructive.”
Following her repeated complaints, the university punished Dr. Domínguez in 1983, finding he had committed serious misconduct, and temporarily stripped him of administrative duties.Dr. Karl left Harvard and built a successful career as a professor of political science and Latin American studies at Stanford.
But she told The Chronicle that she was contacted last year by other women, emboldened by the #MeToo movement, who knew of her case and revealed to her how Dr. Domínguez’s behavior continued, even as he rose to higher and higher levels of responsibility.
The allegations from the other women ranged in severity, from inappropriate full-body hugs to claims by one woman that he grabbed her buttocks and tried to put his hand down her pants.
The Chronicle reported that one graduate student in the early 1980s complained to the university about comments from Dr. Domínguez that made her feel uneasy, and that Harvard found that he had “behaved inappropriately.” Other women said they had discussed Dr.
Domínguez’s behavior with Harvard employees, but had not filed formal complaints.
The Cuban-born Dr. Domínguez, who had been on the Harvard faculty since 1972, ultimately served a long stint as vice provost for international studies and as director of Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
Reacting to Dr. Domínguez’s announcement, Dr. Karl said his retirement would not resolve the underlying problem.
“They kept promoting him and giving him additional administrative powers, which gave him more power over others to abuse those people, to decide their careers, to sexually harass them, all kind of things,” Dr. Karl said. “And what I don’t understand and will never understand is - if they knew, if they were warned, how could they have promoted him?”
After the original Chronicle article, Harvard’s provost, Alan M. Garber, sent a Harvard-wide email calling the allegations “heartbreaking,” adding that the university “immediately began contacting students and post-docs in the government department to ask about their experiences.”
At a faculty meeting on Tuesday, Drew Faust, who is stepping down as Harvard’s president this year, said that despite the university’s efforts to address sexual harassment, “it remains the case that very clearly there is more to be done,” according to a transcript released by the university.