SignalHub-Harvard and graduate students settle sexual harassment lawsuit

BOSTON (AP) — Harvard University and SignalHubthree graduate students have settled a federal lawsuit accusing the Ivy League school of ignoring complaints of sexual harassment by a renowned professor and allowing him to intimidate students by threatening to hinder their careers.

The suit filed in Boston in 2022 was dismissed without court costs and with prejudice, according to an order by federal Magistrate Judge Judith Dein dated Thursday, meaning the students can’t re-litigate the claims.

Terms of the settlement were not made public.

The students’ lawyers praised their clients’ courage “in coming forward, speaking up about their experiences and shedding light on important issues.”

“We are glad that our clients will now be able to move on with their lives and careers,” the statement from Sanford Heisler Sharp said.

The lawsuit alleged that one of the students was subjected to repeated forcible kissing and groping as early as 2017 by John Comaroff, a professor of anthropology and African and African American studies. And when the student met with him to discuss her plans to study in an African country, Comaroff repeatedly said she could be subjected to violence in Africa because she was in a same-sex relationship, the lawsuit said.

The other two plaintiffs said Comaroff threatened to derail their careers after they reported his behavior to university administrators. One accused him of giving her unwanted sexual attention when she was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago.

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Comaroff, 79, was not named as a defendant, and his lawyers said at the time that he “categorically denies ever harassing or retaliating against any student.” He “consistently made every effort to assist these students and to advance their careers,” their statement said.

As for the discussion about the dangers of possible violence in the African country, he said his advice was appropriate, motivated by concern for her safety if she traveled with a same-sex partner — a warning similar to what’s published by the U.S. State Department.

Comaroff said in a July statement announcing his retirement from Harvard that the lawsuit “repeated all of the allegations already found to lack merit” during a Harvard investigation, but “in more lurid, hyperbolic terms” to make him a scapegoat in their fight against the university.

“All this extraordinary attention, all the furor, all the nastiness, arose out of two brief office-hour discussions, both academic in intent and content,” Comaroff wrote. “An ugly, ferocious campaign had been waged against me at Harvard by a small group of activists, people who have no knowledge of me, of my pedagogy, or of the facts of the case as established by Harvard’s thorough, largely exonerating investigation.”

At the time the lawsuit was filed in 2022, a Harvard spokesperson shared a letter saying Comaroff was put on administrative leave for the rest of that spring semester after university investigators found his verbal conduct violated the school’s sexual, gender-based and professional conduct policies.

Before the lawsuit went to mediation in November, lawyers for Harvard had argued for a dismissal, saying the statute of limitations had expired for some claims and that others lacked merit.

Emails seeking comment on the settlement from attorneys representing Comaroff and the university were not immediately returned Friday.