Nearly all of the Harvard professors who signed a letter of support for their colleague John Comaroff have removed their names, saying Wednesday that their signatures were a grievous error in light of new allegations of sexual harassment levied against him.
Comaroff is a prominent anthropologist at Harvard who is on unpaid leave following a university investigation that found he violated the school’s policies on sexual harassment and professional conduct.
On Tuesday, however, three Harvard graduate students filed a lawsuit that alleges the professor’s misconduct goes far beyond the university’s findings and blames the university for a system that failed to protect them.
As news of the lawsuit broke late Tuesday, many of the professors who had initially voiced support for Comaroff began to reverse course, telling the Globe that they no longer wished to be associated with the letter.
On Wednesday, 34 of the original 38 signatories issued a new letter retracting their names. Retractors include prominent scholars Henry Louis Gates Jr., Paul Farmer, Jamaica Kincaid, and Jill Lepore.
“We failed to appreciate the impact that this would have on our students, and we were lacking full information about the case. We are committed to all students experiencing Harvard as a safe and equitable institution for teaching and learning,” the new letter said.
The case involving Comaroff stems to August 2020, when he was first placed on leave following a report in the Harvard Crimson where three female students alleged unwanted touching, verbal sexual harassment, and professional retaliation.
The lawsuit filed on Tuesday alleges that, over a period of two years, Comaroff repeatedly kissed one student, groped her, and invited her to socialize alone with him. When she tried to avoid him, he forbade her to work with her other adviser, the suit says.
The complaint says the other two students reported Comaroff to the university and sought to warn other students about him. It alleges that Comaroff retaliated by ensuring the pair would have difficulty finding jobs in their field.
The original letter penned by the professors in support of Comaroff zeroed in on one incident where the professor is alleged to have warned one of the three students that if she were to carry out her plan to conduct research in Africa with her same-sex partner, she could put herself at risk of sexual violence.
The professors’ letter questioned why the university had disciplined Comaroff over this incident, asking what precedent it set for them and their own advisees.
“Since we the undersigned would also feel ethically compelled to offer the same advice to any student conducting research in a country with similar prohibitions, we are perplexed,” they wrote. “How can advice intended to protect an advisee from sexual violence be itself construed as sexual harassment?”
But faced with the news of the lawsuit, many professors said they regretted signing the letter without knowing more about the situation.
“I made a mistake signing this letter because I should’ve been more careful in evaluating the case and doing due diligence. What I really want to say is that I’m deeply sorry for that. And being sorry is, I know, insufficient,” Farmer wrote in an e-mail to the Globe.
Professor Carol Oja wrote: “I now recognize that signing the original letter contributed to a culture that discourages students from reporting sexual harassment and assault. It was a mistake, and I have retracted my signature. I am deeply disturbed by the revelations in yesterday’s court filings. I stand solidly behind anyone who has the courage to report sexual harassment and assault.”
Professors Randall Kennedy and Duncan Kennedy declined to remove their names from the original letter.
Randall Kennedy, reached by e-mail, said he still has concerns about advisers’ ability to give advice to their students.
“If complete knowledge was a prerequisite for voicing concern, there might well be no suitable occasion for doing so. No new information about which I am aware moots the worries that prompted me to sign the letter in the first place,” he wrote.
Attorneys representing the three women who sued Harvard have pointed to the initial letter as only another example of how a powerful institution protects its own. In response to the retraction Wednesday, attorneys said it was the least the professors could do.
“The initial knee-jerk reaction to close ranks around a prestigious colleague shows that Harvard has a long way to go to create an environment in which survivors can come forward without fear of retaliation. No doubt many other survivors have been deterred from speaking up for just this reason,” said attorney Carolin Guentert in a statement to the Globe.
Laura Krantz can be reached at laura.krantz@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @laurakrantz.
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