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Female Dartmouth College Psychology Students Seek $70 Million for Sexual Harassment, Sex Discrimination

November 15, 2018

Seven female students are asking a federal court to award them $70 million from Dartmouth College for harassment and unwanted sexual aggression from three psychology professors that they say the college did nothing to stop.

The students describe inappropriate banter, pressure to binge drink, sexual touching, and coerced sexual activity as part of the atmosphere of the Department of Psychology and Brain Sciences at the Ivy League school in Hanover, New Hampshire.

“Dartmouth College has knowingly permitted three of its prominent (and well-funded) professors to turn a human behavior research department into a 21st Century Animal House,” the plaintiffs say in a complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Concord, New Hampshire.

News outlets report that one of the professors denies wrongdoing and notes that the other two appear far more frequently in the 72-page complaint. The other two professors had not commented publicly as of Thursday night.

A spokesman for Dartmouth College has said the college took the unusual step of revoking tenure for two of the professors and forcing them to resign. The other professor retired under pressure.

According to the complaint, the boozy sex-saturated atmosphere of the department persisted for years, victimizing mostly graduate students but also at least one undergraduate.

“These professors ensured the young women in the Department were vulnerable to this sexual harassment by conditioning faculty mentorship and support on students’ participation in the alcohol-saturated ‘party culture’ they perpetuated. Among other things, these professors conducted professional lab meetings at bars, invited students to late-night ‘hot tub parties’ in their personal homes, and invited undergraduate students to use real cocaine during classes related to addiction as part of a ‘demonstration’,” the complaint states.

When female students notified Dartmouth officials, nothing happened, according to the complaint.

“Dartmouth has known about bad behavior by these professors for more than sixteen years,” the complaint states, saying they occurred “at least since 2002.”

“But Dartmouth did nothing and ignored these complaints, thereby ratifying the violent and criminal acts of its professors,” the complaint states.

Female students who went along with the professors’ demands were treated well, but female students who didn’t were ignored or had their academic progress stunted, the complaint states.

The lawsuit claims sex discrimination and sexual harassment. It names Trustees of Dartmouth College as a defendant, but not any of the three professors.