ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A renowned University of Rochester professor who has worked here for a decade has been accused in a federal complaint of having sexual relationships and using illegal drugs with students; making inappropriate, humiliating or condescending comments to and about female students and faculty; and pressuring them to meet with him alone.

Since the allegations surfaced publicly in early September against psycholinguistics professor T. Florian Jaeger, 41, the number of alleged victims has grown to 14, according to managing partner Jef McAllister of McAllister Olivarius law firm, the complainants’ legal team.

Psycholinguistics is the study of the psychological and neuroscientific processes that allow people to use and understand language, and Jaeger was at the forefront of that research.

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The private university itself is accused of protecting Jaeger, even going so far as to retaliate against those who complained about his behavior before relief was sought from the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The two who wrote a letter to the university Board of Trustees have been past department chairpersons who have worked a total of 57 years for the University of Rochester.

This is a crisis," university President Joel Seligman recently acknowledged in a closed session with faculty. "And it is different in kind than any of us have faced."

Fallout from the scandal has shown that what is alleged to have occurred in the University of Rochester's prestigious Brain and Cognitive Sciences department is not unique. Rather, it is symptomatic of a system that puts graduate students in a subservient position to faculty empowered as teacher, adviser, boss, examiner, research supervisor and singularly powerful reference for future employment.

Jaeger, who came highly recommended in 2007 from Stanford and the University of California-San Diego, also conditioned access to him and his social circle on whether victims complied with his demands, according to the complainants.

"Jaeger slept with so many students at UR or other institutions and made passes at so many others that his penchant for having sex with graduate students became well known among Ph.D.s and post-docs," the complaint states.

Richard Aslin, former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences who helped create the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department, first raised a red flag in 2016.

The university investigated, promoted Jaeger to full professor over Aslin's objections, cleared Jaeger of any wrongdoing, then allegedly retaliated against Aslin and the complainants when they appealed.

"In light of recent events, both students and colleagues are telling many of us that they have come to expect sexual harassment to be a ‘normal’ and unavoidable part of academic life," read an open letter to the Linguistic Society of America.

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The letter was in response to the Jaeger case but not limited to it, said the society's executive director, Alyson Reed. Signers include 1,100 academics and professionals from across the USA — and at least two dozen other countries.

An estimated 1 in 10 female graduate students at 27 large U.S. universities reported that faculty had sexually harassed them, Association of American Universities researchers found in 2015.

The harassment tends to be not just verbal but physical, and offenders often are serial harassers, according to the survey in which more than 150,000 students responded. Public attention has focused most intently on impacts in scientific disciplines.

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"The lives and careers of BCS (Brain and Cognitive Sciences) graduate students became Jaeger's personal playground," reads a 111-page federal Equal Employment Opportunity Complaint filed by Aslin and seven other current and former faculty and students.

Jaeger sent the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle email Friday afternoon in response to several inquiries:

As soon as I became aware of the EEOC complaint, I let my students know that I will continue to support them financially in the same way as I have previously, even if they choose to work with an other adviser.



I made them aware that (there) will likely be a strong public reaction based on the allegations before I would even have a chance to reply to those allegations in a venue that respects due process, and where I can defend myself without violating the need for confidentiality that protects alleged victims and witnesses.

University of Rochester officials found the initial harassment claims without merit. But its early response raised claims of retaliation and contributed to departures that threaten to decimate a prestigious science department.

Trustees appointed a special committee of its members Sept. 19 and hired special investigator Mary Jo White, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and past chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The university president largely has been sidelined, a move he said was mutually agreed upon with trustees "given concerns raised about a potential lack of objectivity in any administration-sponsored effort."

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Seligman has pledged an investigation free from interference from the administration or university trustees.

On Thursday, the special committee announced it would add a faculty and graduate student members and that the investigative findings report would be made public, unedited, the same day it is received.

In Seligman’s meeting with the Faculty Senate, also Sept. 19, he said the forthcoming investigation would be "highly unbounded," opening the door to also taking on a separate sexual harassment and retaliation complaint emanating from the university's Eastman School of Music.

In the room during that faculty meeting were at least two of Jaeger's alleged victims, Celeste Kidd and Jessica Cantlon. At one point, Seligman addressed them directly.

"I apologize to you," he said, according to confidential draft meeting minutes obtained and verified by the Democrat and Chronicle. "It is the case that we have a ways to go, but if your claims are totally vindicated in the review that Mary Jo White conducts, I’ll be the first to fully support that."

Faculty Senate meetings are closed to the public. When the Democrat and Chronicle offered Seligman the chance to confirm, correct or amend his remarks, he responded via email: "I will not comment on a confidential document. I regret that the regular order of our Faculty Senate appears to have been violated by the public release of these minutes."

As Becca Canale, a third-year undergraduate student in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences program, walked into her psycholinguistics seminar on the first day of class in August, she prepared herself for the semester ahead.

The course, taught by Jaeger, was a general requirement for her degree, and she was excited to learn what the semester had to offer.

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"I didn't actually know Jaeger too much before this year, but I do have multiple friends who were his advisees. He's very much a part of our department," Canale said. "I had heard that he was a professor known for sleeping with grad students through friends in the department, but nothing to the same extent of what's come out since."

Canale described Jaeger's demeanor on that first day as "a little forward," alluding to his use of crude comments and foul language.

"I think it was probably just him trying to be a cool professor," she said. "But it was a little weird, especially on the first day."

Rebecca Handsman, another student in the class, echoed Canale's description of Jaeger's demeanor.

That day marked the only appearance Jaeger would make in front of a class before the allegations against him were made public, forcing him to step down from teaching and resulting in administrative leave until the investigation is completed.

The decision on administrative leave was made jointly, after a series of institutional choices that critics say compromised the safety and comfort of students and staff, the university’s standing, and an entire field of research.

"Decisions were made without regard for science," Kidd said.

At the height of its success, the University of Rochester Brain and Cognitive Sciences department was regarded as one of the top sites in the country. The National Research Council ranked it fourth in the country.

The department differed from those at other universities because of its multidisciplinary makeup. Faculty and students with backgrounds not only in cognitive science and psychology but also neuroscience were recruited.

It provided a collaborative home for seasoned experts and rising stars whose interests danced the line of the two fields. University leaders believe keeping that together is important.

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"The department is broken, and the question of how it is revitalized is of urgent consequence," Seligman said.

Three of the seven complainants have left, and four others are considering following suit.

"We had everything going for us. We had great labs, great students and great colleagues," said Cantlon, who said that she, too, is looking for faculty positions at other universities. "It was special. Our labs were thriving. Now we have to shut it all down and build it up somewhere else."

Kidd remains, for now, but is unable to complete portions of her research because of departures, she said.

Students choose a graduate program based on its prestige and the ability to work with supporting expertise in their field. In the science, technology, engineering and math fields particularly, students look at individual faculty and what research they are doing.

"I invested 33 years in the university and had many collaborations and friends," said Aslin, a National Academy of Sciences member who resigned in December and now works at Yale. "I wasn’t looking to leave. We weren’t planning on leaving. Someday we might have, but that day came earlier than expected."

When Ben Hayden left for the University of Minnesota this past summer, lab technicians, students and post-docs, followed, including Priyanka Mehta, a second-year graduate student in his lab.

"I applied for Ben’s research," Mehta said. "And there’s nobody else in the department who does what he does." Hayden's work provides a link between basic cognitive and neuroscience research.

Research papers are currency in academia. Getting published increases stature and advances a career.

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In the early going, a faculty adviser helps students submit their research and build contacts. Should that relationship sour, the switch to someone else could mean changing the direction of study, dumping years of research, forgoing publishing work or losing a prominent reference from a résumé.

Kidd alleged sexual harassment from Jaeger, her superior for years, that she said continued because of the substantial power differential that existed between them, according to the federal complaint filed Aug. 30.

That vulnerability arises because doctoral candidates, particularly those in scientific fields, spend years working in close proximity and under the supervision of one primary faculty member, according to a study published in May in the Journal of Legal Education titled "Mapping the Title IX Iceberg: Sexual Harassment (Mostly) in Graduate School by College Faculty.”

"You're working with a professor that really determines everything about your graduate career," said Stephen Ferrigno, a fourth-year grad student in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department at the University of Rochester. "They determine whether you pass your classes, your qualifying exams and the fate of your progression through the program."

Cantlon, one of the complainants to come forward with Kidd, is Ferrigno's adviser.

The complaint draws on others’ experiences at the university, specifically that of a former graduate piano student at Eastman School of Music.

In the Eastman case, a federal appellate court in June affirmed dismissal of Joseph Irrera’s claim of sexual harassment, largely on the basis that it was brought after the statute of limitations had expired. But the court cleared the way for him to proceed with an allegation of retaliation.

Irrera claimed that while pursuing his doctorate in music arts from 2009 to 2014 he rejected unwanted advances from teacher Douglas Humphreys, chairman of the piano department. Humphreys allegedly retaliated, failing him on back-to-back recitals just months before he won the America Protégé International Competition and performed at Carnegie Hall for the second time.

In a recorded conversation, Humphreys threatened Irrera that he would never get a job.

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A college dean warned Irrera that prospective employers would seek out Humphreys for a reference and school officials couldn’t protect him, Irrera said.

He applied to 28 colleges and universities after graduation, court papers show. None called back.

He sued, naming Humphreys and the University of Rochester.

The federal district court ruled it was speculative to blame Humphreys, but the appellate court found it sufficiently plausible, noting that Irrera “is a graduate of one of the nation’s most highly regarded schools of music."

University of Rochester undertakes 50 or 60 investigations each year of employees accused of discrimination and harassment. Between 30% and 50% of those relate to sex or gender as the protected class, as opposed to race, national origin or other areas, according to the university's general counsel, Gail Norris.

It was not known how many involve graduate students.

The terms upon which a candidate receives a doctorate are vague from the beginning. The incredibly loose structure can be beneficial and allow students to pursue the research they are most interested in, said Wednesday Bushong, a third-year grad student and member of Jaeger's lab.

But life can get complicated if the adviser starts abusing his or her power.

Bushong said that was not her experience with Jaeger.

"One of the biggest struggles is that you never really know how well you're doing, and it's not clear what happens if you're deemed to not be making good progress," she said.

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In his email Friday, Jaeger addressed his continued commitment to his students: "I will try my best to continue to support my students/post-docs research and careers, and to help them navigate the uncertainties of the current situation. I feel that this is at least one small part that I can do for them."

Whatever the outcome, the research of Bushong and others is forever connected to Jaeger. What becomes of his career going forward is unclear.

But faculty at other institutions have been reaching out and publicly voicing support for the affected students, Bushong said.

All this started with concerns that a man wasn’t valuing women based on their work. Wouldn’t it be ironic if people in the field didn’t value their work based on the man? she asked.

Meredith Hastings, an associate professor at Brown University, has concerns about the effect on students considering reporting sexual harassment and assault. She also is co-principal investigator on a $1.1 million National Science Foundation grant to combat sexual harassment on college campuses and in her field of earth and environmental science.

"The issue is society wide. There's a tendency to question the motives of the victims instead of the validity of the accusations," Hastings said. "There's a lot of discussion about why people don't come forward or why they take so long to do so.

"If as a victim you're going to be victimized by the public, why would you?" she asked.

In the case at the University of Rochester, Kidd said it took her nearly a decade — until she was a tenured faculty member with the support of colleagues — to be in a position where she felt safe enough to come forward. But she said students still hold the same risks in doing so that she had years ago.

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"Right after this happened, I was very scared," said Handsman, one of Jaeger's students this year. "Celeste is so accomplished and so young, and she does a lot of what I want to do.

"My sister is in grad school right now (at a different university), and she said that the same stuff happens," Handsman said.

Follow Lauren Peace and Brian Sharp on Twitter: @LaurenMPeace and @SharpRoc