Urton, Bestor, and Comaroff are just three among many Anthropology faculty at Harvard. Its use seemed to limit the circle of suspects to someone with intimate knowledge of anthropology. “We see your continued presence as an impediment in our efforts to move the department in a more equitable, responsive, and responsible direction.”. In a May 19 statement to The Crimson, Urton wrote that he had never violated FAS policies on sexual harassment and that, due to confidentiality rules, he could issue nothing but a blanket denial of allegations against him. Over the course of their affair, Urton sent intimate messages to the student using his Harvard email account and contacted her from his office phone, according to the affidavit and exhibits filed alongside it. Brezine said that, along with his sexual requests, Urton controlled her work, how she spent her time, and with whom she met. “As a result, the letters of apology to others in attendance at the dinner were delayed in being sent.” “They didn’t necessarily want help, because it was not like I could help them. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Thursday backed Harvard University in a lawsuit over its admissions system. “He wanted to know my whereabouts all the time, who I was with,” Brezine said. Three current students told The Crimson this month that they are in active communication with Harvard’s Title IX office regarding concerns about Comaroff’s behavior. After finding what she called a “supportive climate” away from Harvard, she decided to come forward to University officials in 2016 “to prevent [Urton] hurting other people if they should come forward.”. ’80, dean of Harvard Medical School, acclaimed writer, and father of the future Supreme Court justice—was one of the first American intellectuals to espouse eugenics. Gbemisola AbiolaResearch Interests: post (post) colonial studies, African literature, African political thought, war studies, and critical terrorism studies email … Several of them said male professors’ relationships with male students seemed more comfortable and casual than those with female students, citing examples like the informal meetings. “I also felt I had to tiptoe around Gary because of the potential retaliation.”. FAS spokesperson Rachael Dane also declined to comment on specific allegations against faculty. Of the 28 graduates admitted since 2010, female students have taken 1.5 years longer on average to complete their Ph.Ds. Degree offered: PhD The graduate program in archaeologyprovides informed, critical examinations of core issues; comprehensive training in principal methods and theories of anthropologically-oriented archaeology; and direction and support for PhD candidates preparing for research and teaching positions in a wide variety of domains of archaeological practice. She said McCavana arranged a meeting between her and then-department chair Arthur M. Kleinman in 2007, where she explained the hostile work environment created by Urton, though she did not tell him about sexual relations. In an emailed statement to The Crimson Thursday responding to Brezine and Guedes’s allegations, Gay asserted “unequivocally” that the FAS will not tolerate sexual harassment. “My condition only got worse at dinner where there was an abundance of wine, causing me to become extremely intoxicated.”, “The incident, which I deeply regret and for which I accepted full responsibility, made me finally recognize that I had a serious problem with alcohol,” he wrote. ‘A Huge Disruption’: Students Testing Positive for COVID-19 Report Confusing HUHS Communication, Local Businesses Fight for Revival of Harvard Square, Gear Up for Winter, DSO Staff Reflect on Fall Semester’s Successes, Planned Improvements for Spring, At Least Five GSAS Departments To Admit No Graduate Students Next Year, UC Passes Legislation to Increase Transparency of Community Council, HUPD. Bestor, 68, who studies modern Japan; Urton, 73, who specializes in pre-Columbian archaeology; and Comaroff, 75, who studies postcolonial Africa, are all tenured professors in the department. Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) Richard H. Meadow. “Sexual harassment constitutes a form of discrimination that is both personally damaging for those who experience it and is an assault on our faculty’s fundamental commitments to equity and academic excellence,” Gay wrote. She said she rejected those advances. “Hiring and retention practices within academia privilege the views of the senior members of a department or program,” Lockwood wrote. Subramanian and Flad also wrote that much has changed in recent years regarding how the department treats internal tenure candidates. Though four of the five junior faculty in the department this fall will be women, only four of its 22 senior faculty will be, according to Subramanian and Flad. Twenty-five members of the Harvard Anthropology faculty requested professor Gary Urton’s immediate resignation Thursday, as more former students alleged that Urton had sexually harassed them. Given the gender disparities in degree completion time and withdrawal rates, the student committee recommended that faculty establish regular office hours for their advisees and provide explicit policies for obtaining letters of recommendation. Another attendee of the dinner banquet, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential processes, said they received an apology letter from Bestor in mid-February 2019, more than a month after Bestor had returned to teaching. More than four years passed between the 2013 allegation and the ODR investigation, during which Bestor continued to advise graduate students. She said she is currently in contact with the Title IX office and exploring her options for reporting. During their conversation, according to Lockwood, Avakian said multiple students had contacted the Title IX office with concerns about Bestor, but declined to file formal complaints. She told Singer that women were given the “lion’s share of the undergrad teaching load.”. Across FAS’s social sciences division, 32 percent of tenured professors are women, according to a 2020 Harvard report. “In my 18 years as a member of the Harvard faculty, no student or former student has ever filed a complaint against me with the Office of Dispute Resolution, my Department or the Dean,” he wrote. He told me he would bring wine.”, The student wrote in the affidavit that she understood Urton’s actions as an advance requesting a sexual encounter in exchange for a “glowing” letter of reference. The two women came forward days after an investigation by The Crimson found another former student had accused Urton of sexual harassment in 2016, though that she never filed a formal charge against him. “There’s this whole idea of the lone anthropologist going out into the field and sacrificing all these things to go after whatever the grand research question is,” she said. Areas of Study Archaeology. In February 2019, the complainant wrote to Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs Kwok W. Yu to ask about the status of the apology letters. Nearly 35 years later, it is in part that very hierarchy that has allowed three of Harvard’s senior Anthropology faculty — former department chairs Theodore C. Bestor and Gary Urton and professor John L. Comaroff — to weather allegations of sexual harassment, including some leveled by students, according to people with knowledge of the matter and documents obtained by The Crimson. Those individuals — including current students, graduates, former faculty, and other affiliates — said a department dedicated to the study of human culture failed to notice that its own culture placed women at a disadvantage. Husband-and-wife Yale professors resign in the wake of Halloween costume scandal: Couple driven out of politically correct campus. Brezine said Urton first asked her to have sex with him in the summer of 2003, when she was a staff member working with Urton in Peru. Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. One current student who spoke on the condition of anonymity said she once observed a male student take his shoes off during a meeting with a male professor, and that the professor responded by taking off his own shoes. W. H. At Harvard, extraordinary court battle between Ph.D. student and prominent researcher grinds on. “Since 2013, the FAS has been using its strengthened procedures, additional reporting requirements, and updated disciplinary policies to combat sexual misconduct in our community, while also bolstering prevention and support for those who have experienced it.”. Degree offered: PhD. Chilton, Mandryk, and Kramer all said junior faculty today may have a stronger chance at earning tenure in Anthropology than they did. She spoke with Harvard Title IX officer Seth Avakian on July 18, 2017 about allegations against Bestor. One student who studied in the department during the 2010s called the decision to have a child a “lonely road,” adding that she felt no one from the department advocated on her behalf when she chose to have children. “I have spent my entire academic career working to help create a better, deeper understanding of the accomplishments and the intellectual and technological achievements of ancient Peruvians, including the Incas, as well as present-day Quechua-speaking peoples of the Andes,” Urton wrote. According to the women who filed affidavits and others, Bestor and Urton’s power in the anthropology field allowed them to sexually harass women over the past decade, sometimes without drawing attention to their conduct. Chilton — who will become provost of Washington State University in August — said she believed it was important to be a role model for female undergraduates and graduate students while she was in Harvard’s department. No specifics were given, but accusations spread like wildfire on social media. He gave her an A in the class and wrote her a recommendation letter for graduate school. In the 2015 suit, Theidon accused Urton of intentionally sabotaging her prospects for tenure when he learned of her advocacy on behalf of students who said they had experienced sexual harassment. For example, the department provided data showing that 13 of the 15 graduate students who have withdrawn from the archaeology program since 1990 have been female, Subramanian and Flad wrote. Since 1990, female archaeology students have taken longer to complete their Ph.Ds, withdrawn at higher rates, published fewer articles by graduation, and undertaken a disproportionate workload as teaching fellows, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Crimson. In 1986, a group of professors writing for the journal Current Anthropology found that the country’s most elite anthropology programs, including Harvard’s, operated based on a “hierarchy of prestige” dominated by powerful tenured faculty. In March 2016, one of Urton’s former students emailed an FAS sexual harassment officer to ask about “the process for submitting a complaint concerning a faculty member.” In both the former student’s conversations with that employee and an affidavit later filed in federal court, she alleged Urton pressured her into “unwelcome sex” before writing her a recommendation letter, though she never filed a formal charge against him. In that incident, the professor from another university reported to UCLA’s Title IX office in May 2017 that, while he was inebriated, Bestor made inappropriate statements to her at a dinner banquet for Japan studies professors at UCLA earlier that month. “We want to underscore the seriousness with which we take all such allegations and our strong commitment to addressing them using every means at our disposal to create a department climate that is free from harassment and sexual misconduct,” Subramanian and Flad wrote.