He’s been featured on “Good Morning America” and other national news shows, dancing in his medical scrubs. He’s garnered millions of social media views for making people smile with his viral dance videos and has been dubbed the TikTok Doc.
Now Jason Campbell is named as a defendant in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, accused of sexually abusing a former co-worker at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Portland, where he sometimes worked as an anesthesia resident.
A lawsuit filed late Friday in federal court in Portland alleges Campbell harassed a woman social worker from January through March last year, sending a pornographic photo of himself through social media and sexually charged text messages.
Then on March 12, the suit alleges, Campbell went into the woman’s office area at the medical center, crept up behind her and forcibly pressed against her so she could feel his erection.
“Plaintiff was terrified and yelled at Dr. Campbell to leave,” the suit says. “Plaintiff followed up with a written message, ‘Don’t EVER surprise me by getting in my physical space.’”
Campbell responded by text message, “I should’ve asked. I’m sorry,” according to the suit and a screenshot of the text exchange.
The woman complained to Oregon Health & Science University in early April about the alleged sexual harassment and nonconsensual touching.
The suit also names OHSU, where Campbell worked as a second-year resident and was given a pass to access the premises of the VA center, located next to OHSU on Marquam Hill.
An OHSU investigation concluded in August that Campbell had violated its harassment policy and code of conduct with unwanted touching and sending inappropriate electronic and text messages, including an unsolicited picture of his erection through his scrub pants.
The investigative report obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive describes Campbell entering the woman’s office during work hours, walking up behind her while she reached into a cupboard with her back turned and then pushing against her “including pushing his penis into her backside.”
Campbell’s actions continued despite the woman’s repeated admonishments that she wasn’t interested in him beyond being friends and that his inappropriate comments and behavior were unwelcome, according to the report.
The investigators recommended “appropriate” discipline but didn’t identify what that would be.
Campbell is no longer an OHSU resident, according to the suit, but living and working in Florida.
Campbell, 32, and his lawyer Kristin L. Olson didn’t return phone, text and email messages seeking comment.
The woman, who is not named in the suit, reported the allegations to Veterans Affairs police. A detective conducted a separate criminal inquiry and forwarded the case to Oregon’s U.S. Attorney’s Office for review on a potential harassment charge. No prosecution was pursued.
The suit also claims that OHSU leaders “bury” sexual misconduct complaints by shaming and retaliating against people who report harassment while protecting those accused.
The university doctors, faculty and supervisors haven’t routinely reported sexual misconduct allegations to the OHSU human resources office, equal employment office or Title IX coordinator, as required by its policy, the suit says.
In Campbell’s case, OHSU and its leaders continued to glorify the resident and his viral dance videos despite knowing of the woman’s sexual harassment complaint against him, according to the suit.
The woman shared details of her allegations against Campbell with at least 13 OHSU employees, including six in leadership positions, the suit says.
One assistant professor of medicine divulged to the woman that he had received a “strikingly similar” allegation about Campbell more than a year earlier, telling her: “I would say unwanted physical contact is the common denominator,” according to the OHSU investigative report.
OHSU spokeswoman Tamara Hargens-Bradley said the university couldn’t comment on the suit’s specific allegations but she issued a statement.
“OHSU does not condone behavior as described in the lawsuit. We are continuously working to evolve our culture, policies and practices to provide an environment where all learners, employees, patients and visitors feel safe and welcome,” Hargens-Bradley said by email.
“We take our role seriously in being part of the change that needs to happen across our country to end discrimination and power dynamics that allow for harassment,” she said. “We remain committed to these ideals and will continue to prioritize them as a public leader in health care, education and research.”
Campbell, according to the suit, told another doctor that he was under investigation for having “fallen into a woman” at the Veteran Affairs Medical Center.
In interviews with the OHSU investigators, though, he gave a different account, according to OHSU’s report.
He said he went to visit the woman in her office and was seated when the woman turned around and was trying to reach something high up in a cupboard. He said he reached over her “as a gentleman” to help her grab the item and the woman immediately motioned to him to move away from her, the report says.
Campbell told investigators he believed that any text messages he exchanged with the woman were of a “mutual” nature and he never intended any sexual innuendo, according to the report.
His “shifting’' denials weren’t credible, the investigators noted.
He told OHSU investigators that he had no records of his electronic messages with the woman.
The woman presented investigators with 160 pages of electronic messages between the two via text, Instagram and Facebook.
In one sent Jan. 28, 2020, she wrote, “Hugs are organic” and Campbell replied, “They are. But I’m fit. You’re….fit….there’s the orgasm.”
He followed up, “I mean organic (stupid autocorrect)”
Investigators attempted to duplicate the alleged autocorrect error on iPhones using “orgasn,” “orgassm,” and “organi” but couldn’t, according to the report.
In this text exchange with the plaintiff, Dr. Jason Campbell blamed "stupid autocorrect" for writing "orgasm" to her.
In another message, Campbell wrote to her, “...my place is close to campus cough…”
Another time he wrote, “I just wanna hug from behind without you yelling at me. No neck biting! Mishuuu,” according to the OHSU report.
“No hugs from behind ever,” the woman wrote back.
Again, Campbell blamed autocorrect. “Rightttt(.) Clearly that was my autocorrect. Smh.”
On Jan. 24, 2020, Campbell sent a self-deleting photo on Instagram to her that showed a picture of his groin with an erection visible through his scrub pants, the suit alleges.
She responded, “Don’t you have a girlfriend?”
He wrote back, “Oh that last picture somehow snapped while I was trying to send you a video explaining this crazy case I have,” according to the OHSU report.
That same day, he sent her a video message on Instagram that said, “you look tasty,” the suit says.
“The totality of the messages leaves the reader with a firm feeling that Campbell intentionally pushed the envelope of sexual innuendo despite multiple warnings” from the woman, the OHSU investigators wrote.
Jason Campbell sent a self-deleting photo on Instagram to the woman that showed a picture of his groin with an erection visible through his scrub pants, according to the suit and an OHSU investigation. She immediately responded, "Don't you have a girlfriend?"
The suit faults OHSU medical personnel for failing to formally report the woman’s complaint of alleged sexual misconduct involving Campbell.
OHSU’s report, for example, describes Dr. Esther Choo offering to “sit down” and discuss the matter with Campbell or his program director when she received text messages from the plaintiff disclosing the allegations against Campbell, according to OHSU’s report. Choo is an emergency medicine doctor who is a founding member of the national Times Up Healthcare program that aims to promote workplaces free of gender discrimination.
The suit cites a 2019 survey that OHSU conducted of its staff and students, in which 26% of respondents said they had been the victim of sexual misconduct within the prior three months, while 22% said it had happened a year or two prior to the study.
The woman’s lawyers Michael R. Fuller and Kim A. Sordyl are asking the court for an order that would require OHSU to adopt “adequate safety procedures and policies” to ensure no other women are exposed to sexual harassment on its premises.
The suit alleges sexual assault, battery, intentional emotional distress, invasion of privacy and negligence against Campbell and OHSU.
It seeks up to $4.5 million in damages against Campbell and OHSU and punitive damages of up to $40.5 million against Campbell.
The woman asked OHSU to cover mental health therapy for her. OHSU agreed on Sept. 9 to pay about $6,000 directly to her health care provider but 21 days later told the provider that it wouldn’t pay for the therapy “because OHSU’s sexual misconduct fund had run out of money,” the suit says.
OHSU’s attorney later told the woman, according to the suit, the school would pay for medical treatment on the condition that she sign a full release of claims.
-- Maxine Bernstein
Email mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212
Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
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TikTok Doc harassed Portland colleague with texts, photos, unwanted sexual advances, $45 million lawsuit alle - oregonlive.com
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