Ivy League Dartmouth sued over ‘predatory’ professors

NEW YORK: America’s Ivy League elite Dartmouth College has been slapped with a US$70 million lawsuit by seven women accusing trustees of ignoring years of sexual abuse, harassment and rape of female students.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in New Hampshire, alleged that three professors from the university’s department of psychology and brain sciences perpetrated more than a decade of gender discrimination, sexual assault and harassment, despite trustees being aware of complaints.

The suit is expected to revive debate about sexual boundaries at universities across the United States, which has come under renewed scrutiny in the wake of the #MeToo reckoning with sexual harassment.

On Friday, President Donald Trump’s education secretary proposed to change the way in which sexual assault is investigated at US universities, giving more rights to the accused and narrowing the definition of harassment.

Survivors’ advocates criticised the new measures from Betsy DeVos, which also seek to restrict the notion of sexual assault, limit evidence that is admissible and allow accusers to be crossexamined.

The lawsuit said Dartmouth “knowingly permitted three of its prominent (and well-funded) professors to turn a human behaviour research department into a 21st Century Animal House,” — AFP