By Nate Raymond
BOSTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday threw its support behind a lawsuit by three graduate students accusing Harvard University of ignoring sexual harassment by a professor who they said threatened their academic careers if they reported him.
The department in a court filing urged a federal judge in Boston to reject Harvard’s claim that it could only be held liable for retaliation by the Ivy League school itself, not by any of its faculty members.
Harvard had made that argument in seeking to dismiss a lawsuit filed in February that claimed John Comaroff, an anthropology professor, for years kissed and groped students and threatened to sabotage students’ careers if they complained.
The Justice Department, in a rare filing in such a case, argued that Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, protects students’ ability to report sex discrimination without fear of reprisal.
“For that to happen, schools must protect students who participate in the Title IX process from retaliation and respond effectively to known retaliatory acts of their employees,” the department said.
Harvard and lawyers for Comaroff, who is not a defendant, did not respond to requests for comment. Comaroff has denied harassing or retaliating against anyone.
In the lawsuit, Margaret Czerwienski, Lilia Kilburn and Amulya Mandava said they were among the students who reported Comaroff to Harvard officials.
Yet despite those warnings, Harvard watched as he retaliated by ensuring the students would have “trouble getting jobs,” the lawsuit said.
“We’re glad to see the government affirm that Harvard cannot skirt responsibility for the retaliatory actions of its faculty,” Russell Kornblith, the three students’ lawyer, said in statement.
The Justice Department’s filing came after student newspaper the Harvard Crimson reported that Comaroff returned to the classroom Tuesday to teach his first course since being put on administrative leave in January.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Richard Chang)
