Update: Rutgers University announces it will revamp sexual harassment policy

By Susan K. Livio and Kelly Heyboer

NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

It was Kristy King's first day as a political science graduate student at Rutgers University. After an orientation meeting with fellow students, a professor invited the 23-year-old doctoral student back to his office for a chat.

Then the professor shut the door, she said.

And what King says happened next would stay with her for two decades.

“He sat across from me in a chair, too close,” King said. “As we talked, he ran his hand all the way up the inside of my thigh.”

She said the behavior of Stephen Eric Bronner, one of Rutgers’ top political science professors, infuriated her.

“He looked at me and saw a hot body he wanted to grab. So he did,” she said, recounting her memory of their encounter.

King says she left Bronner’s office as soon as she could. As she worked on her Ph.D. and tried to avoid the professor, she said other female students confided they had also been targeted by him.

King did not file a complaint and never spoke to Bronner about the incident. But then the #MeToo movement exploded onto the national scene last fall and she watched as woman after woman came forward to tell their stories of harassment, misconduct or outright abuse. Emboldened, she filed a formal complaint against Bronner with Rutgers in February.

The response was swift and, in her view, dismissive and insulting. Rutgers would not investigate.

Rutgers said the incidents, which took place between 1999 and 2009, were, in essence, ancient history. The university usually doesn’t investigate sexual misconduct complaints that are more than two years old, the head of Rutgers’ Office of Employment Equity stated in a letter written to King.

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Two women walk by Old Queens, Rutgers University's administration building. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Bronner, a nationally-known political theorist who has worked with generations of graduate students at Rutgers, told NJ Advance Media he didn’t even know King had filed a complaint. No one at the university ever asked him about it or showed him the document, he said.

The professor said he has no memory of the incident with King in his office nearly 20 years ago and he doesn’t believe he did anything wrong. However, he said he understands some of his comments to women on campus over the years may have caused offense.

“I admit I am not always super tactful. Some of my jokes miss the mark. But there was never any harm,” said Bronner, 69.

“Certainly, this is not a Harvey Weinstein situation,” he added.

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Two-year time limit

As women around the world have galvanized around the #MeToo movement, a spotlight has been placed on several high-profile fields – including the entertainment industry and politics.

Academia has not received the same level of attention. Only the military has a higher rate of sexual harassment than academia, according to a first-of-its-kind report released earlier this year.

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More than half of women working on college campuses – 58 percent of female faculty and staff at universities across the nation – say they have been the target of unwanted advances or outright sexual misconduct, according to the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine study.

Last week, the U.S. Senate was confronted with an allegation of sexual misconduct by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh 36 years ago, sparking a national debate over imperfect memories, the burden of proof and how to handle accusations about events from the distant past.

Similarly, college campuses have been presented with a flood of sexual harassment claims since the start of the #MeToo movement that often date back years or even decades.

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Rutgers students at The Yard on the New Brunswick campus watch the live Supreme Court confirmation hearings as Christine Blasey Ford recounts an alleged sexual assault by nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 1982. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

At Rutgers, King is one of several women who say they have recently accused Rutgers professors of past sexual harassment. But, they say, the state university has refused to investigate many of their claims – citing a policy that the school will typically only look into allegations of sexual harassment that happened less than two years ago.

The policy is consistent with the two-year statute of limitations under New Jersey’s sexual harassment law, said Vivian Fernandez, Rutgers’ senior vice president for human resources.

University rules allow the Office of Employment Equity to be flexible, Fernandez said. In some cases, Rutgers has investigated sexual harassment and misconduct complaints between three and six years old when investigators believed there were witnesses and evidence to support a case.

We believe all complaints reported to the university . . . should be investigated.

— a letter written to Rutgers by 6 senior female professors

“I think we’re thoughtful about that,” Fernandez said, adding that some other universities have similar policies.

However, a survey of New Jersey’s other public, four-year universities showed Rutgers appears to be the only state school putting any kind of time limitation on sexual harassment complaints.

Rowan, Montclair State, Kean, The College of New Jersey, Ramapo, New Jersey City University and William Paterson were among the colleges and universities that said they would investigate sexual harassment and misconduct complaints, no matter how long ago the incidents occurred, according to their spokespeople.

Rutgers encourages anyone who has been a victim to come forward, said Dory Devlin, a university spokeswoman.

“Our policy regarding investigations of sexual harassment complaints is guided by state law, but our practice is to investigate all complaints when witnesses are available and evidence is obtainable. The university takes all complaints seriously, maintains confidentiality, and prohibits retaliation against those who bring complaints,” Devlin said.

Six senior female professors in Rutgers’ political science department sent the university a letter last spring calling for major changes to the university’s sexual harassment policy, including the two-year rule on investigating some allegations. Though they have met with campus officials, so far they have not forced any changes, they said.

“We believe all complaints reported to the university – regardless of time limitations – should be investigated, as well as they can be, so that our students (past or present) can be confident that their safety is our highest priority,” the professors wrote in their letter. “Past reports may be an indicator that others may have been or will be abused by the harasser.”

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A new professor with a complicated past

W

hen she heard one of her old colleagues was newly hired in a high-profile job at Rutgers University and up for tenure, she knew she couldn’t keep silent anymore. Someone had to know.

The woman, a professor at an out-of-state university who asked that her name not be used because she fears retaliation, was still haunted by an incident years earlier at a Chicago hotel.

A fellow professor had invited her out to dinner while they were both at the same academic conference in Illinois in 2010. According to her complaint, the professor first put his hand on her knee as they ate in a hotel restaurant. Then, he asked her to come to his hotel room to have sex, she said.

When she said she was married and walked out, he chased her out the door and said, “I am sorry. Now I feel like I did something wrong,” according to a copy of her complaint given to NJ Advance Media.

The professor was later the only one on a committee to vote against the woman when she came up for tenure in her department, a move she believed was in retaliation for her turning down his sexual advances, she said.

In February, the female professor filed a complaint at both her current college and Rutgers, where the professor has just been hired. Both schools refused to investigate.

The woman’s current school said they would not look into the case because the professor no longer worked there. Rutgers officials said they would not investigate because the alleged sexual harassment took place before the professor began working on the New Brunswick campus.

“I am sorry that we cannot be of assistance to you,” Lisa Grosskreutz, director of Rutgers’ Office of Employment Equity, said in an email to the alleged victim.

Exasperated, the alleged victim abandoned her complaints at both schools and watched as the professor received tenure at Rutgers.

“I honestly don’t know if he knows if I filed a report,” the alleged victim said.

The professor did not respond to emails to comment and declined to speak to an NJ Advance Media reporter on campus. He also declined when asked if he wanted to hear the details of the complaint filed against him.

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A man walks in front of Old Queens, the main administration building at Rutgers University. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Two other former Rutgers students said they also filed complaints at the university about the same professor, but are unsure if the university investigated them.

Meredith Staples, a former Rutgers doctoral student, said she sent the university a letter last year recounting a 2008 incident with the professor, who was then a graduate student. During a study session, he made sexually suggestive comments and propositioned the female student to have sex while his wife was in the house in another room, her complaint said.

Though she realized the incident was not as dire as cases where professors sexually proposition students, she contacted Rutgers in March 2017 after she heard her former classmate was hired at Rutgers and was up for tenure.

How could they brush this off?

— Meredith Staples, one of three woman who filed complaints against the same Rutgers professor

In the second case, a former Rutgers graduate student said she filed a complaint against the same professor in March 2017 after he sent her about two dozen sexually suggestive electronic messages, she said.

According to her complaint, the professor contacted her while she was a Rutgers student and he was working at an out-of-state university but had just accepted an offer to move to Rutgers’ political science department. He offered to use his university credit card to pay her way so she could join him at a conference and share his hotel room, according to her complaint. She declined and eventually blocked him from communicating with her online.

The former student – who shared her complaint with NJ Advance Media but asked for anonymity because she feared retaliation – said she never heard what happened with the complaint. She said she doesn’t know how hard Rutgers tried to verify her claims.

Staples, now working as a policy researcher in California, said she was “outraged” when the professor got tenure even after hearing Rutgers had received multiple complaints from women about him.

“Despite the accusations they offered him the job. They should have taken it a lot more seriously. How could they brush this off?” Staples said.

Rutgers officials would not comment on the cases, except to say the professor is still actively employed on campus.

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‘He said eat some ice cream.’

Stephen Eric Bronner, the same political science professor Kristy King accused of groping her, was the subject of another university complaint filed by a former graduate student at Rutgers.

The former student, now an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts who asked that her name not be used because she feared it would hurt her career, said Bronner went to a bar with a group of graduate students at the end of the spring semester in 2008.

“He was sitting next to me, touching my hair. I have longish hair, he was touching my face and putting my hair behind my ear. I told him he didn’t have to do that,” said the woman.

Concerned about how the incident might affect her future as a graduate student in his program, she said she contacted the professor on Facebook to say his actions made her uncomfortable.

“I told him it left a bad taste in my mouth,” she said. “He said eat some ice cream … He gave me a signed copy of (his) books.”

She said she later changed her field of study to avoid having to work with the professor and filed a complaint with the university about his behavior. She was interviewed by a university official.

“I never heard anything about the outcome. I didn’t know if he was disciplined. That was that. It was a return to business as usual,” she said.

Inspired by the rise of the #MeToo movement and efforts by Rutgers women to reform the sexual misconduct investigation process, she sent a letter to Rutgers officials in April recounting her decade-old experience with Bronner.

She didn’t get a response, she said.

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A student sits in front of Hickman Hall, home of Rutgers' political science department on the New Brunswick campus. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Bronner, who is on a paid sabbatical this semester to write and do research, told NJ Advance Media that he was unaware his former student had filed a complaint. He said he never had contact with the student after that night in the bar, but he remembered talking to her about his behavior.

“I had a drink or two, which technically you’re not supposed to do (with students),” Bronner said. “I said if I had done anything improper, I was sorry.”

He does not remember her saying he touched her face and hair. However, he said he may have made jokes or said things that could be considered offensive.

“It was a different climate,” Bronner said of attitudes about sexual comments on campus before the #MeToo movement, echoing the statements of other men who have been accused of past misconduct.

(Rutgers’ current sexual harassment policy, which was updated in 2016, “strongly discourages,” but does not ban, sexual relationships between students and professors.)

Bronner added that he has served as a doctoral thesis adviser to at least 50 graduate students in his years at Rutgers, won numerous teaching awards and has a graduate student teaching award named after him.

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At least $177,500 in payouts

In some cases, Rutgers' alleged failure to properly investigate sexual harassment and sexual misconduct claims has resulted in lawsuits and costly payouts for the publicly funded university.

In 2016, Rutgers reached a $37,500 settlement with a former dispatcher in the university’s Department of Public Safety on the Newark campus, according to a copy of the settlement obtained through the state’s Open Public Records Act.

The woman sued after she said her supervisor repeatedly touched her, made flirtatious comments and demanded she do push-ups while he watched, according to her lawsuit. She said she was retaliated against after she complained to officials at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, which was merging with Rutgers at the time.

In another case, Rutgers paid $140,000 in August 2017 to a woman who filed a sexual harassment lawsuit on the Camden campus, according to a copy of the settlement obtained through the state’s Open Public Records Act.

But, the details of her complaint were redacted by campus officials. Rutgers did not admit any wrongdoing in either case and the settlements contained confidentiality or non-disparagement clauses limiting what both sides could say about the cases.

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An inconclusive investigation and a lawsuit

Even when Rutgers does investigate sexual harassment claims, the results are not always conclusive.

In November 2017, a graduate student at the Rutgers Business School in Newark filed a sexual harassment claim against her mentor and a longtime administrator, Professor Nabil Adam. The student, who requested that her name not be used, alleged her 75-year-old adviser forced her into a sexual relationship that left her unstable and suicidal.

While Rutgers investigated, she claimed the school did not assign a new adviser and cut off her access to her research.

Adam, through his attorney, denied the allegations and claimed the student had stalked him. He refused a cheek-swab DNA test to determine whether a semen stain on her pants belonged to him, according to a university report about the incident obtained by NJ Advance Media.

It should not be so complicated for a student.

— Rutgers graduate students who filed a complaint against a professor

After a five-month probe, the investigator found, "neither party can be believed.” Adam lost an administrative title and remains barred from campus because the “investigation in this matter raised concerns that are serious and significant,” university officials said.

Bruce Atkins, Adam's attorney, said the professor denied he had anything other than a professional relationship with the student and told the investigator he felt "terrorized" by the woman.

The woman said it took hiring a lawyer to gain even limited access to her research, despite her repeated requests for the university’s help.

In August, she filed a federal civil rights claim as “Jane Doe” against the university and Adam for harassment, assault and retaliation. She also names a professor who disseminated “derogatory comments about her to fellow faculty and staff,” the lawsuit said.

“As a student…I could not navigate all of this by myself. I had to hire a lawyer. It should not be so complicated for a student,” the student said.

A case at Rutgers-Camden also led to a lawsuit against Rutgers. In that case, a student-athlete filed a lawsuit against the university after she said she was coerced into having a sexual relationship with her volleyball coach starting in 2010. She eventually quit the team and said she repressed the memory of the alleged abuse for years.

The student said Rutgers did not investigate her reports of the coach’s inappropriate behavior in a timely manner, her lawsuit said.

A federal judge ruled last year the woman could not sue Rutgers because she had missed the two-year statute of limitations. The coach, whose contract with Rutgers expired, no longer works at the university, according to court documents.

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Professors call for a change

Interviews with about two dozen legal experts, employment law specialists, state lawmakers and veteran professors say Rutgers' policy of not investigating some sexual harassment allegations it deems too old is woefully outdated and in desperate need of a rewrite.

Six senior female professors in Rutgers’ political science department, alarmed about stories from former students who described years-old allegations of sexual harassment against male faculty, are spearheading an effort to force the university to change its policy.

The group, lead by Cynthia Daniels, a veteran professor and former chairwoman of the political science department, sent a letter to university officials last spring calling for five major changes to the university’s sexual harassment policy.

Their most urgent demand was simple: Eliminate the two-year rule to file complaints.

The message is women who report these sorts of complaints take a lot of risk.

— Cynthia Daniels, Rutgers professor

In addition to repealing the two-year policy, the professor’s letter said Rutgers should make other policy changes that would make the university safer: Consider a history of complaints before hiring and promoting a faculty member. Take a tougher stand against romantic relationships between students and faculty. Inform every victim the outcome of an investigation.

But after meetings with the executive dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, human resources officials and the university’s lawyers, the female professors who authored the letter said Rutgers has declined to make any changes to its sexual harassment policies.

The female professors said they remain concerned about their students – especially female graduate students working under male professors. Not only are their grades and dissertations at stake, but so are their job prospects for the foreseeable future, said Beth Leech, vice chairwoman for Rutgers’ political science graduate studies program, who also signed the letter.

“The relationship is constant and close. Sometimes you see the person every day,” Leech said. “If there is a bad apple who wants to be a harasser and make advances on a student, the student has relatively few options.”

Though Rutgers adheres to its two-year policy in many cases, critics acknowledged the university is actively looking into many cases.

The university has received 34 formal sexual and gender harassment complaints since the start of the #MeToo movement last October, a university spokeswoman said. Many of those cases are still under investigation.

Rutgers has placed 14 employees on paid administrative leave since October, including several in cases involving accusations of sexual harassment, the spokeswoman said.

But Daniels – who in 2007 was part of a group of female professors at Rutgers who successfully led a campaign for pay equality for male and female faculty – said she is concerned that many complaints at Rutgers are not being investigated even after alleged victims summon up the courage to come forward.

“I do worry about my students,” Daniels said. “The message is women who report these sorts of complaints take a lot of risk when they come forward. These complaints often trigger questions of their credibility and accusations they made false claims. This can be extremely damaging to a graduate student and especially a junior professor.”

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Students walk in front of Hickman Hall, home of Rutgers' political science department on the New Brunswick campus. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Richard Lau, chairman of Rutgers’ political science department, said he was pleased to see the senior female professors on campus wrote their letter highlighting problems with the university’s sexual misconduct policies.

“This is an ongoing problem. (#MeToo) is sort of like a focusing event,” Lau said. “Maybe we can make some progress right now.”

The timing is right for a reckoning on college campuses, and Rutgers — the state’s largest university — should lead the way, said Nancy Ericka Smith, a prominent employment law attorney in Montclair.

Rethinking the rigid two-year time limit is key, she added. If the Catholic Church had not been forced to do so, “there would be a whole lot more pedophile priests preying on children. (Rutgers) should want to know and should encourage students to come forward.”

For Kristy King, the former Rutgers graduate student who said she was groped by a professor on her first day on campus, her time at Rutgers has left a permanent mark on her life and her career.

Still, King, who is now on the faculty of Arizona State University, said she is hopeful that the #MeToo movement will lead to a culture change.

“As someone well accustomed to handling sexual violence on an analytic level, I mostly have been inspired and amazed by all the women brave enough to come forward,” King said.

“And for the willingness of other people to listen,” she added.

Tell us your experiences with allegations of sexual harassment in New Jersey: Here's how to share your story.

Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio.

Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find her at KellyHeyboerReporter on Facebook.