You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
A former junior professor at Stanford University says the institution retaliated against her for filing a sexual harassment complaint against a senior professor, which resulted in a finding that he had made an “unwanted sexual advance” but did not harass her, The Guardian reported. Michelle Karnes, who is now an associate professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, says Stephen Hinton, Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities at Stanford, told her he had a “crush” on her and that he was “tormented” by his feelings, once kissed her on the lips, and continually tried to talk to her at the gym even after she said she wanted no further contact.
Karnes says she confided in a fellow professor who was also the wife of her dean but was told to try to appease Hinton based on his position within the university. The dean’s office approved soon Karnes’s tenure but did not renew the position of her husband, Shane Duarte, a lecturer in philosophy for fall of this year. Karnes says that she and her husband had been hired as a “dual-career” academic couple, and the move to not rehire him after years of service and positive reviews was retaliatory. Instead of targeting her, she believes, administrators went after her husband because he was off the tenure track.
Hinton denied the allegations, saying the two had a “platonic, reciprocal relationship.”
Lisa Lapin, a university spokesperson, said the university conducted a “thorough and objective review” of Karnes’s allegations, but declined further comment on what she called personnel matters.
