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U. of Iowa Settles Lawsuit Alleging Professor Sought Sexual Favors for Grades

February 1, 2012, 2:38 pm

The University of Iowa has reached an undisclosed financial settlement with a former student who filed a lawsuit after accusing a political-science professor of offering her an A in return for allowing him to fondle her breasts, the Associated Press reports. The student complied with the request and then complained to the university. Three other students later leveled similar complaints. The professor, Arthur H. Miller, a noted political scientist, committed suicide in 2008 after the police arrested him on charges of soliciting sex for grades, a felony. The former student whom the university settled with asserted that it had failed to deal with her complaint quickly enough, leaving time for Mr. Miller to allegedly make the same request of other female students.

Update (5:29 p.m.): The AP is now reporting that, after a lawyer for the university dropped a confidentiality requirement, the former student’s lawyer was able to disclose that her client had received a $130,000 payment for damages and legal fees.

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  • blisterfish

    A felony? Yikes!

  • 11122741

    How i miss the 60′s.

  • 22040743

    Yikes?   A felony!

  • panhandle

    Next you’ll be talking  about grade inflation and how in the 60′s  an A was worth a lot more.

  • Socratease2

    Wow, what a feel good story. Was she able to keep the “A” on her transcript, wasn’t she an accomplice to  this grade fraud? She complied and then went to administration?  The world is strange.

  • tdb489

    I am going to say this one more time because you boys obviously do not understand that your perverse, sexual predatory behavior is not only criminal, but has severe consequences associated with it.  Mr. Miller took the easy way out.  He could have spent the next 5 to 10 years being molested by his cell mates in prison.  Assuming he lived more than a few weeks.  For all of you who think “pushing your hands” down a students pants or annal sex with little boys is OK, you are wrong.   If  universities continue to down play these perverse actions, there are higher authorities who can arrange for the perpetrators and the bystanders to spend their days with other criminals who will do the same things to you.

    Sexual Harassment Defined:  CHE January 31, 2011

    Sexual harassment occurs when the superior/co-worker/subordinate makes sexual advances in exchange for job status, continued employment, promotion and so on.  Sexual harassment is of two types:  1) quid pro quo and 2) a  hostile environment.These individuals are NOT guilty of sexual harassment.  They are sexual perverts.

    “Sexual perversions are conditions in which sexual excitement or orgasm is associated with acts or imagery that are considered unusual within the culture….  A paraphilia is a condition in which a person’s sexual arousal and gratification depend on a fantasy theme of an unusual situation or object that becomes the principal focus of sexual behavior.”

    I think the [previous] author minimizes the actions of these men to an insignificant, mutually agreeable,  “slap and tickle” behind the water cooler.  These actions are criminal.  Perhaps caused by mental disease.   The perverse and dangerous behavior of these men warrants incarceration in a jail or a mental institution.  This is not a subject of sexual harassment.  These are stories of rape, [child molestation], perversion and criminal actions that warrant the harshest possible punishment the law allows.

    To the first five commenter’s, your words are worthy of immediate dismissal.  Further, how do you think your wife and child would feel if they came home only to find you hanging by the neck after being accused of sexual assault. 

    Get out of the business.

  • cplantin

    Wow.  Ironclad arguments there, tdb489!    First, it is true that the professor was wrong and that those who do such things should face dismissal at least and any legal consequences if the law is violated.  But your assumption that there is some kind of perversion involved is itself perverse and not covered by university regulations or laws.  Your accusations go well beyond the scope of this case and are irrelevant.  You may find success inciting responses in other settings, but in this publication you’ll more likely find that readers — including those that agree that what the professor did was despicable — will dismiss your rantings because they are so incredibly irrational.  I do not know how you found this story, but I sense you are not a regular reader of The Chronicle.  One thing is clear, though:  your college education, if you had one, failed you. 
    [To others: sorry I got so off topic.  I shouldn't have dignified tdb489's rant, but it was so hysterical I just had to respond.]

  • icedgreentea

    I’ll tell you what I don’t miss.  Being a student and knowing that students who were sleeping with their professors were getting A’s while I worked very hard for an honest A- or B+. 

  • icedgreentea

    I don’t find that strange at all.  She may have complied out of fear that he would fail her if she didn’t.  One of my grad school roommates was offered a back rub by a prof.  She declined and spent the rest of the semester in terror, avoiding him at all costs, and worrying he’d fail her.  A lot of people posting here don’t seem to realize what it can feel like to be on the receving end of this type of thing. 

  • Socratease2

    Annal sex (not sure what that is, does it happen in a library?) with little boys is wrong? Wow, good thing we found out in time. I don’t think anyone understood that up to this point. Was there a second part to this story that involved boys and this professor? Can’t something be both a perversion and harassment, I don’t get the mutual exclusion. The professor in this case, the only one being discussed here, seems to have been committing garden variety sexual harassment and no one is applauding his behavior. What perversion is he guilty of?  And if behavioral abberations are caused by mental illness, isn’t the proper response to medicalize the illness and treat it rather than criminalizing the illness and solving nothing? If all men exhibit the same “predatory sexual behaviors” then you are essentially “naturalizing” such behaviors and saying that is “normal” for men. Applying the lens of evolutionary psychology to the sexual selection strategies of males and females, there is a good point to be made in that regard. And to be clear “natural” doesn’t indicate a value judgment of good or bad, it iust means it exits naturally without learning or cultural indoctrnation. And, thanks, but what should I be dismissed from and which business should I get out of. I need a bit more guidance.

  • manoflamancha

    An A and $130K…what a deal! So much for the integrity of the silly so-called sexual harassment law, which is a national disgrace for equality under the law, and a boondoogle for predatory females and complicit lawyers. It should be repealed post haste. I have never solicited a female student, but have had offers from them more than a dozen times. “I would do anything for an A!  If I don’t get an A, I may lose my scholarship”. How many times have other male professors heard this plea? And if you are a good looking chap, the offers come in fast and furious. When will “the rest of the story” be told? And how many more suicides?

  • manoflamancha

    Is it worth death?

  • blesstayo

    Don’t they used to say “Athletics for the Alumni, Grades for the Students and Sex for Professor”?

    “Sex for the Professors” can be very expensive –deadly and legal liabilities

  • manoflamancha

    Such hysteria, it seems you are the one who needs the mental hospital treatment. Sadly, people like you have encouraged the passage of biased law that the opposite gender must abide by. Off with your bloody head :-))

  • manoflamancha

    And it was! So, you know where to put that panhandle, eh?

  • katisumas

    manoflamancha, glad to hear you’re so good looking! 

    Yes, you male profs are victims of predatory females.  And of course males are puppets unable control their own actions, like the prof in that story being propositioned by that student’s predatory breasts….. 

    As for us female profs, we never ever get propositioned by any of our students  (??????????????)

  • katisumas

    It’s called a sting operation when the cops do it.  Obviously this prof already had this kind of reputation and the student caught him out at it and she obviously had the means to prove it.  This is not just an “A for a lay” it’s an F for not compliance.  Think about it.

    And it doesn’t just apply to straight of gay male profs.  A female prof could very well demand to cop a feel down a male student pants in exchange of a grade,  It’s just that men are often even more embarrassed to report this than women do.  Even in the case under discussion several students came forward after the  first one.  Who knows how many did not. 

  • katisumas

    That’s something you’ve to ask the prof.  In the past, his behavior was acceptable but it no longer is. The female students he exploited did not cause him to take his own life, he made that  choice. 

  • katisumas

    The sex that came into the open during the sixties was mutually consensual sex.  However the practice of “an A for a lay” is actually Victorian.  It implies women are whores and but should abhor sex so they should not engage in it just for the pleasure of it, actually they should not get any pleasure from it at all (no doubt like those female students did not get any pleasure from that prof feeling their breasts).

    Most institutions allow sexual relationships between profs and students as long as it’s not the student’s prof.  The student could drop her/his class or wait till the end of the term.  The case under discussion has nothing to do with that.

    I’m afraid you’re not getting the point. 

  • Socratease2

    Clearly she did the right thing by going to administration to turn him in, I just wondered why she complied in the first place. I know, people will say she was intimidated and worried he might fail her. Maybe that is true, maybe not. He didn’t even offer the A for actual sex, I don’t know off hand what is a fair exchange for having your breasts fondled consensually but it does make me wonder how many other women either said “no, thank you” or actually complied and got the A. I still want to know how her final grade was finally determined, what a mess.

  • Socratease2

    That is awesome, I will need to remember the concept of “predatory breasts.”  Yes, indeed, I have never been in the position of being accused of any such thing with a student and would never do that. But, in my fantasy legal defense I would certainly use the “predatory breast” defense. It is hard to be a guy sometimes and make sure you keep your head tilted up, it tends to keep drifting down on its own. But that is another story I guess.

  • manoflamancha

    Sounds more like a wish, Kat. Or is it Mrs. Robinson?

  • tdb489

    Nicholas Stix, Uncensored: Academics to Florida Gov. Rick Scott …

    “nicholasstixuncensored.blogspot.com/…/academics-to-florida-gov-ric…Cached
    You +1′d this publicly. Undo
    Oct 12, 2011 – Socratease2 1 day agoin reply to davi2665 … katisumas 11 hours agoin reply to Socratease2 [katisumas is a notorious, aggressively stupid poster at CHE.”

    @Commenter Katisumas:  Please be advised that Socratease2 has resorted to libelous remarks about you on the internet.
    @Commenter Socra tease 2:  I have found hundreds and I expect perhaps thousands of your comments on the internet on numerous topics.  Are you not only unkind in your remarks, but also omnipotent as you seem to have an opinion on everything for the whole web to read?
    @CHE:  You have allowed our comments to be repeated in every corner of the earth and our names and universities are easily identifiable.  You are worse than Facebook.

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