Albright College subject of sex harassment suit
Former student alleges ex-priest on staff made suggestive comments.
A former Albright College student is suing the Berks County school and a defrocked Catholic priest who taught English there, claiming the instructor sexually harassed her to the point she was forced to withdraw from classes.
The suit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Allentown, alleges Albright employed James Gaffney, a former Catholic priest, despite his history of being accused of improper sexual relationships with students as a faculty member at Reading Central Catholic High School.
The suit alleges the former student, Rachel M. Youse, enrolled at Albright in August 2016 and attended an English course taught by Gaffney. In December 2016, Gaffney started to contact Youse and made lewd and suggestive comments, including requests to meet her off campus at a building he owned, according to the lawsuit. Gaffney allegedly threatened Youse by reminding her he controlled her grades and allegedly made inappropriate advances that constituted serious misconduct.
Youse, who now lives in the state of Washington, enrolled at Albright under her maiden name, Rachel Plank, her lawyer Joseph Bambrick said. There was no physical contact between her and Gaffney, Bambrick said.
Carey Manzolillo, Albright's director of communications, said a complaint was filed with the college in January 2017, which triggered an investigation under Title IX, the federal law against sexual harassment in education. Gaffney resigned the following month before a full investigation could be completed.
“Albright currently requires faculty and staff to pass criminal background checks. However, background checks are meaningless if crimes go unreported,” Manzolillo said.
The recent Pennsylvania grand jury report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church details allegations against Gaffney, but notes, “the diocese never warned the college of Gaffney's history of sexually abusing children.”
The lawsuit claims that Youse and her lawyer asked to speak with Albright's dean about the harassment and that he refused to meet with them. It alleges another faculty member told the student to be quiet about the teacher's alleged misconduct because her claims would not be good for the college's reputation.
The college refused the student's request to pay for counseling, the suit alleges, and as a result of the psychological trauma she suffered, Youse was unable to attend most of her classes, forcing her to withdraw.
Youse seeks more than $100,000 in damages including more than $20,000 in tuition and fees for courses she was not able to attend. She also seeks damages for pain, suffering and humiliation and punitive damages to punish the college and Gaffney for deliberate, malicious, negligent and outrageous conduct.
Gaffney is one of more than 300 clergy members named in a report on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church that resulted from a two-year investigation by a statewide investigating grand jury. It was released in August by the Pennsylvania attorney general's office.
The report describes accusations that Gaffney engaged in improper and sexual relationships with women through the 1980s and 1990s. He was twice placed on sick leave at the Servants of The Paraclete, a New Mexico treatment center for priests, according to the report.
The report details accusations by women who told Allentown Diocese officials that Gaffney had sexual contact with them as teenagers when he was assigned to St. Ursula's Church in Fountain Hill, Reading Central Catholic High School and St. Catherine of Siena in Mount Penn, Berks County. The woman who accused Gaffney of abusing her at Reading Central Catholic filed a civil lawsuit against the diocese in 2004, but it was dismissed because it was filed too long after the alleged misconduct.
Gaffney abandoned his ministry in 2002, the report says, and landed a teaching job at Albright. The diocese did not warn the college of his background, it said. Gaffney resigned his teaching position in February 2017, a college spokeswoman said after the grand jury report was released. Gaffney was dismissed from the priesthood in 2015.
Called to testify in the investigation, Gaffney told the grand jury he had sexual contact with at least one girl and said it was possible he had sexual contact with others, though he “blamed a faulty memory for lack of specifics.”
In addition to Reading Central Catholic, the lawsuit says Gaffney was a faculty member at Penn State University's Berks County campus and Reading Area Community College. A Penn State spokeswoman said Gaffney was employed as a composition instructor from 2011 until 2016 and no longer works for the university. A spokesperson at the community college did not respond to an email Friday.