Alumni pressure Dartmouth over sex-abuse claims
CONCORD, N.H. — Dartmouth College alumni have heard the allegations of misconduct in one department where professors are accused of hosting drunken parties, groping and harassing their students and, in two cases, sexually assaulting them.
Now, a growing number of former students are demanding answers from the administration and questioning how such an atmosphere apparently flourished for at least 15 years at the Ivy League school in Hanover, N.H.
Gathering in Facebook groups and other networks, alumni led by several women are pushing for withholding donations until they see changes at the school — or the ouster of President Philip Hanlon. Others want department chairs and other administrators responsible for handling the sexual misconduct allegations held accountable.
In October 2017, Dartmouth opened an investigation into the three professors. It never released the findings. But Todd Heatherton retired this summer after being told he would be fired and denied tenure. Paul Whalen and William Kelley resigned soon thereafter.
The growing anger comes in the wake of a federal lawsuit filed this month by seven female graduate and undergraduate students who were in the Department of Psychological and Brain Science, where the professors worked. They accused the three of sexual misconduct and said the college ignored their complaints.
“There is a whole of lot of alums, women in particular, out there who have had experiences that are similar enough to what these students have experienced and are horrified to know this is still going on,” said Giavanna Munafo, a lecturer in the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies program who has counseled two of the seven women who made abuse claims.
“It’s like a wake-up call to them,” she said. “Our college is still as bad as it was or worse.”
Contact information for Whalen and Kelley has not been available, and it is unclear whether they have attorneys to speak for them. Heatherton apologized for acting inappropriately at conferences but said, through a lawyer, that he never socialized or had sexual relations with students.
Archana Ramanujam, who attended Dartmouth from 2010 to 2014 and worked with a woman who alleges abuse by one of the professors, said she is putting together a letter to the administration with dozens of alumni and current students demanding greater transparency and accountability in the way the school handles sexual abuse claims.
The letter may include threats of withholding donations, she said, if change doesn’t happen.
“Getting survivors’ stories out there and holding perpetrators responsible is the most important thing. This issue keeps being swept under the rug, and the lawsuit no longer allows that,” Ramanujam said in an email.