Last year, there was an extraordinary public, Internet campaign against the University of Rochester and a faculty member in Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS), Florian Jaeger, accused of various forms of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. The University of Rochester President, who recently stepped down, had defended the University's handling of the case; after the public campaign, the University hired Mary Jo White, a former federal prosecutor and a partner at a major New York law firm, Debevoise & Plimpton, to investigate both the allegations against Jaeger and the University's handling of the matter. That report is now public. From the introduction:
Despite [Jaeger] being labeled as a 'sexual predator' by his accusers, there have never been allegations of sexual assault, unwanted groping, any use of force, or exhibitionism outside of consensual relationships, and we have found no evidence of such behavior ever occurring.
Unfortunately, this is typical of the careless use of language that has become familiar in these kinds of cases. From the conclusion of the report:
Over the past three and a half months, we have conducted a thorough and objective independent investigation. Our investigation has substantiated a number of allegations in the complaints, not substantiated others and refuted some. This Report gives a full accounting of our work, findings and recommendations. It was a very difficult, and at times wrenching, undertaking. We credit that some BCS students were negatively impacted by the professor's conduct earlier in his career at the University. Partly as a result of that conduct, but also because of the broad dissemination of the often exaggerated descriptions of that conduct, the esteemed BCS faculty has been fractured and the University's reputation has been harmed. This case illustrates once again that a community can be damaged when public discourse on important issues fails to separate rumor from fact, to distinguish between different levels of wrongful conduct, and to apply a sense of proportionality in the consideration of how prior conduct should be remediated.
This will obviously remind philosophy readers of some of the issues that arose regarding the Peter Ludlow case at Northwestern.
Meanwhile, Professor Jaeger has issued a statement through his lawyer.
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