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Anna Stubblefield, former chair of philosophy at Rutgers University at Newark, must pay $4 million to the family of a disabled man she was found guilty of sexually assaulting, a New Jersey judge decided this week, according to NJ.com. Stubblefield is already serving 12 years in prison following a related criminal trial. Stubblefield alleges that she and the man in question, known as D.J. in court records, were in a consensual relationship. But the man’s brother and mother say he suffers from severe cerebral palsy, has the intellectual capacity of an 18-month-old and was incapable of giving consent. Stubblefield began working with the man around 2008 via a disputed method called facilitated communication; eventually they traveled together to out-of-town conferences and published an academic paper in 2011. Stubblefield informed the family that year that the relationship had become romantic, and D.J.'s family members eventually took legal action against her.
