Sociology department Chairman Don Grant stepped down from his position Thursday in the wake of harassment allegations plaguing the department.

An email written by Grant to University of Colorado Boulder sociology faculty and graduate students was obtained by the Daily Camera and relayed Grant’s resignation.

“While I had planned to finish out my four year term, I am no longer able or willing to stay on another year given present circumstances and believe I can more effectively advance the department’s interests in other capacities,” the email said. “Therefore, I will be stepping away from my position effective July 1. The department is responsible for finding my replacement and following its bylaws in selecting a successor. I will do my utmost to facilitate a smooth transition in leadership.”

In an email to the Daily Camera, Grant confirmed his resignation and added that it had nothing to do with “recent false harassment allegations.”

“I have thought of doing this for the past several months, long before any of these false rumors of harassment within the department were spread and published in the Camera,” Grant wrote. “The reason I have been considering this is that I want to focus my time on creating six new dual degree programs and two undergraduate certificate programs. Working on these important projects while also serving as chair has been time-consuming and slowed down that process…And no one asked me to resign. I’m doing this because I want to have the most positive impact possible for the department and I believe my best role will be as a professor designing these new academic programs.”

Grant said this is a common time of year to inform deans of chairs’ resignation plans.

Campus spokesman Ryan Huff also confirmed Grant’s resignation, adding that the decision was entirely Grant’s without any influence from superiors.

“As we’ve said before, we take all allegations of harassment very seriously, and we’ve looked into the allegation related to the Sociology Department,” Huff said in an email. “To date, we have not found evidence of harassment.”

The allegations surfaced after one woman brought her complaints to local union Colorado Workers for Innovative and New Solutions last year, and the union went public with the allegations earlier this month.

The alleged harassment included yelling, verbal abuse, intimidation and bullying that could be largely traced back to “one bad actor,” according to the union. Although the union was working with one woman on this case, Executive Director Tim Markham said he had collected around 10 names of people from the sociology department throughout the years who have reported similar issues. Markham called the harassment a “systemic, ongoing problem.”

“This is becoming a pattern at CU and in the sociology department,” he said. “Clearly, something is broken.”

Shortly after Colorado WINS posted publicly about the allegations on its Facebook page, Grant sent an email to sociology faculty and graduate students within the department claiming that the post was a “larger tactic” being used to unionize workers.

The email said if the Daily Camera got wind of the allegations, the university “is prepared to go public and call out WINS for its use of this tactic.” The email advised anyone contacted about the matter to direct inquiries to Huff.

According to Grant’s biography on the CU website, he started at CU in 2014 and is a professor of sociology and affiliate of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute.

Elizabeth Hernandez: 303-473-1106, hernandeze@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/ehernandez