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Michael Simons, a professor of cardiology at Yale University, is suing the institution over its decision to strip him of his endowed chair over a previous harassment case, the New Haven Register reported. Yale transferred the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professorship to Simons over the summer, after the family of Robert W. Berliner, the late dean of the Yale School of Medicine, expressed concern that Simons still held the professorship named after Berliner that he’d held since 2008. Their concerns stemmed from Yale’s 2013 finding that Simons harassed a postdoctoral researcher. Simons, who was suspended for the incident, has said he briefly pursued a junior but not subordinate colleague. After the transfer of chairs was announced, many students and faculty spoke out against Yale’s decision to give what seemed like a new honor to a known harasser.
Yale responded to the criticism by saying that the new chair was not supposed to be a new honor, but then it reversed course and took back the chair from Simons. Simons’s suit describes the opposition to his second chair as “activists loosely affiliated with an emerging movement galvanized by an intolerance to perceived sexual misconduct, known colloquially by the symbol ‘#MeToo.’” He also alleges that Robert Alpern, medical school dean, tried to force him to resign in September by threatening reputational harm and to take away his chair. Simons also says that Alpern told him Yale would pay him about $140,000 per year as a payout, according to the Register. Yale declined comment Tuesday.
