Of all the accusations that have come out in the era of #MeToo, the case of Avital Ronell may be the messiest and most difficult to digest. That messiness—or, rather, the discussion that has resulted from it—is its unlikely silver lining.

Ronell, who is sixty-six, is a literary scholar and philosopher at New York University and, by all accounts, one of the great academic minds of our time. Her accuser is Nimrod Reitman, her former doctoral student, who is thirty-two years her junior. Their relationship, as documented in numerous e-mails, was the subject of an eleven-month university investigation, which found the sexual-harassment claims against Ronell credible and cleared her of more serious charges. N.Y.U. has suspended Ronell for a year without pay; Reitman is suing Ronell and the university.

We all know, or claim to know, that anyone—regardless of gender, age, social position, or power of intellect—can be an abuser, and anyone can be a victim. But this doesn’t mean that the many complicating details in this case don’t matter. It matters that the alleged perpetrator is a woman and the alleged victim is a man. It matters, too, that he is young and handsome and she is older: her apparently desperate neediness is part of what makes the case documents such cringeworthy reading. It matters that he identifies as gay and she as a lesbian, because it makes us question how important the sexual really is in sexual harassment. It matters that the investigation was conducted by a private university under conditions of confidentiality, and that the accuser is now suing that university, because it raises questions about the underlying purpose of the investigation: Is it to determine the facts, or to avoid liability? It also matters a great deal that the latest fallen star is an academic and a feminist, because this means that the complexities of the #MeToo era are being tackled, painfully and publicly, by people who are arguably well equipped for the task.

The conversation began badly, however. The case first came to public attention because of a letter dated May 11th, signed by fifty-one prominent academics, many of them feminist scholars—or, rather, what came to public attention was the draft of a letter, leaked through a philosophy blog. It was a terrible letter. Some, if not most, of the people who signed it had no part in drafting it. It was based not just on flawed information but on practically no information at all: the university’s investigation of Ronell’s alleged abuse of Reitman was entirely confidential, as is normal for Title IX investigations. The letter was designed to impress the university administrators to whom it was addressed, so its arguments stressed Ronell’s fame and influence and focussed on the potential loss to N.Y.U.’s reputation if she were fired. The letter could be read as a cynical project that betrayed not just the ideas that many of the signatories have worked on—ideas that challenge entrenched systems of power—but their very intelligence.

On August 13th, the Times published an article titled “What Happens to #MeToo When a Feminist Is the Accused?,” detailing Reitman’s allegations against Ronell. In response, Ronell released the materials and counterarguments she had shared with the Title IX investigators—she has sent them to the Times and to me. Meanwhile, Reitman went ahead with a lawsuit against Ronell and the university. Reitman’s complaint, filed with the New York Supreme Court on August 16th, reads like a tawdry romance novel. The story it tells is broken up into chapters: “Ronell Sexually Assaults Reitman in Paris.” (In the summer of 2012, before starting graduate school, Reitman stayed in the same apartment as Ronell, and he alleges that she repeatedly manipulated him into lying on her bed and then kissed his face and body.) “Ronell Demands ‘Rhetorical Cushioning’ From Reitman.” (This section quotes e-mail and voice messages composed in the immediate aftermath of the Paris visit. In them, Ronell uses florid language and demands the same of Reitman: “I’m calling to say that ‘I love you, too’ doesn’t cut it, darling.”) “Reitman Moves to New York, Ronell Begins Their ‘Work Sessions.’ ” Then “Ronell Moves In—Uninvited—to Reitman’s Apartment.” (After Hurricane Sandy, in October of 2012, Ronell’s N.Y.U. apartment was left without power, and Reitman alleges that she moved herself for five days into his Upper East Side bed, against his will.)

After he finished his degree (this chapter is titled “Ronell Punishes Reitman for Leaving”), Reitman alleges, Ronell actively sabotaged his job search, in one case even calling a colleague at Princeton to advise against hiring him. In July, 2017, two years after finishing his studies at N.Y.U., Reitman finally filed a complaint with the university against Ronell, accusing her of sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking, and retaliation.

A single paragraph on page 26 of the lawsuit may help explain why Reitman waited so long to file a complaint. According to the lawsuit, another student had filed a Title IX complaint against Ronell for racial discrimination; Ronell allegedly “admitted to Reitman of having spread untruths about the complainant at other universities in an effort to sabotage the student’s career. Ronell refused to speak the complainant’s name and instead referred to her as ‘the skunk’ to other students and faculty, and openly stated to Reitman and others (in Reitman’s presence) that she would ruin the student’s career for having reported her.” (Ronell denies these allegations.)

In the course of the ensuing investigation, Ronell’s lawyer, Mary D. Dorman, submitted a response to N.Y.U., which Ronell has made available to me. In it, she denies any physical contact with Reitman. She points out that Reitman was free, and even encouraged by department policy, to change advisers during his time at N.Y.U., but never did. (Chris Kraus, the author of the novel “I Love Dick,” echoed this point in her own, widely circulated defense of Ronell: “Avital’s style of pedagogy was no secret. No one prevented him from changing advisors.” Kraus also called out what she called Reitman’s “feigned helplessness after the fact.”) The filing by Ronell’s lawyer mocks Reitman’s narrative of the week after Hurricane Sandy: “So, in spite of Professor Ronell ‘ . . . touching his waist, chest and buttocks’ every night for the ‘approximate week’ that she stayed in his apartment, Mr. Reitman allegedly remained in the same bed with her rather than moving to the couch to sleep.” According to Ronell, she spent only two nights in Reitman’s apartment, and they slept at different times. Ronell quotes Reitman’s flowery e-mail messages to her: