December 31, 2007

Indiana U. of Pennsylvania Settles With Doctoral Student

An Indiana University of Pennsylvania doctoral student who said his professor had tried to sabotage his doctoral thesis when he rejected her sexual advances has “amicably” settled a lawsuit against her and the university, the Associated Press reported.

The AP said terms of the settlement were not described in documents filed in the U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh, but apparently the student, Shane Sandridge, can remain in the university’s doctoral program.

The suit, filed in June, drew attention because the professor, Jennifer Gossett, had published several articles about faculty-student romances. —Jennifer Ruark

Comments

1. I hope taxpayer money was not used to settle this case.

   — andrew andreyko    Jan 1, 07:52 AM    #

2. Yes I agree – no tax payer money. Money for student abuse (I suffered repeated abuse from the department chair and wish I could have sued – but it is hard to find a lawyer a grad student can afford, not to mention all the state protection of state employees) needs to come personally out of the paycheck of the faculty member!!

   — anon    Jan 2, 04:45 PM    #

3. To number 1: of course university money, some of which comes from taxpayers, is used in such settlements. Why not?

   A more important concern is the context in which such suits often are handled at public universities. I know of cases where the office of the state’s attorney general gets so bogged down in litigation that the attorneys who are supposed to defend the university persuade the university to settle out of court. The kind of faculty, staff and students who would exploit such a condition eventually learn that they can receive a financial settlement even while bringing an action based on spurious charges. Perhaps that happened in this case.

   — /case hardened    Jan 2, 04:54 PM    #

4. I hope the CHE informs us if
   (1) the candidate gets his doctorate?
   (2) the professor keeps her job?

   — richard    Jan 2, 08:00 PM    #

5. The details of the settlement have not been reported. It would be premature to presume the professor guilty. As for getting her job back, she had been dean of Health and Human Services; she is no longer dean. She is one of the very few profs who has done empirical research in the area of student consensual sexual relationships. Doing research in this area almost always leads to being stigmatized as well as being targeted by others for a myriad of reasons. This case will make it even more difficult to do research on student professor sexual relationships.

   — dankprofessor    Jan 3, 12:38 AM    #

6. After reading the comments, it’s obvious that most of the folks posting have never been through a graduate program (or weren’t paying attending during the critical thinking portions). It is entirely possible that inappropriate behavior occurred on the part of the faculty member, AND that the settlement was a way to bring closure to a distraught student without the rigors of a trial. It is also possible that nothing that was actually a violation of the law occurred. Either way, the financial calculation is often balanced not only by legal costs, but in costs to the institution’s reputation and therefore their recruitment efforts.

   Having worked at a major university as well as smaller ones, I’ve seen inappropriate faculty behavior more often than many in academia would like to admit. I have also seen many students misinterpret faculty behavior as well.

   Unfortunately, even if a settlement or a judgement is reached AND the faculty member did act inappropriately, it is often the student who suffers the larger consequence as they are shunned by the larger academic community in hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions.

   — JS    Jan 3, 04:37 PM    #

7. more critical thinking…

   even IF the faculty member made sexual advances

   —regardless of whether they were appropriate or inappropriate—

   and the faculty member opposed or disrupted thesis or dissertation work somehow

   it does not necessarily follow that one was because of the other

   that said… let’s move on.

   — DB    Jan 3, 05:08 PM    #

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