When she started her own center at the University of Pennsylvania, star scholar Marybeth Gasman had an unusual requirement for her employees: Everyone had to sign a blanket nondisclosure agreement.

Graduate students, administrators and anyone else who worked in the university’s Center for Minority Serving Institutions were told to sign a document stating they would never publicly discuss anything that happened in the office on the Ivy League campus. If they did, they could be sued.

“Basically what is said or done at the center stays within the walls of the center!” the agreement said in bold at the bottom, according to a report by Inside Higher Ed, an industry publication.

The nondisclosure agreement, highly unusual as a requirement for a job at a college, became an issue in 2017 when a group of Gasman’s assistants filed a formal sexual harassment complaint with the university, according to the Inside Higher Ed report. They accused Gasman of making inappropriate sexual comments and creating a “culture of sexual harassment” at the center.

Marybeth Gasman is accused of fostering a hypersexualized and racially insensitive climate in her research center https://t.co/wpOJSH04dO Story by @ColleenFlahert1 — Scott Jaschik (@ScottJaschik) August 27, 2019

Gasman left the University of Pennsylvania this summer and started a new $250,000-a-year job at Rutgers University earlier this week.

She brought along her Center for Minority Serving Institutions and more than $4 million in grants from various foundations. She was appointed executive director of Rutgers’ new Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute for Leadership, Equity & Justice, which will house the center.

However, Rutgers officials said Gasman’s employees, researchers and graduate student workers will not be required to sign the same nondisclosure agreement her staff had at the University of Pennsylvania.

“Rutgers University would not allow any professor to implement a nondisclosure agreement of the nature described in the news report,” said Neal Buccino, a Rutgers spokesman.

Gasman did not respond to a request to comment or the previous allegations against her.

The scholar, who is well-known in her field as an expert on historically black colleges and universities, announced late last year that she was moving to Rutgers. She started her new job in New Brunswick Sept. 1.

The institute’s staff includes at least 15 administrators, visiting scholars and research assistants, according to its website.

Rutgers announced it was hiring Gasman in December. The Inside Higher Ed report detailing the 2017 sexual harassment complaint filed against her was published Aug. 27, a few days before her move to New Jersey’s state university.

Rutgers officials did not comment directly on whether they knew the details of the previous sexual harassment complaint, but said Gasman has been properly vetted for her new job.

"Rutgers is committed to maintaining an educational climate in which all members of the university community are valued, respected and treated with dignity,” Rutgers officials said in a statement. “The Graduate School of Education vetted Dr. Gasman before her appointment and eagerly looks forward to her joining the faculty as an internationally recognized expert in U.S. higher education.”

Gasman’s former assistants at the University of Pennsylvania accused her of making repeated references to her body and sex life, commenting on co-workers’ sex lives, rubbing the arms and chests of Hispanic and black co-workers and encouraging her staff to have sex with each other, the Inside Higher Ed report said. Many of the sexually explicit conversations took place in group texts for graduate students and other scholars working at the center that would have been covered by the nondisclosure agreement.

The NDA kept people from talking about the alleged sexual harassment in the center, the report said. "I thought if I spoke out, Penn would sue me,” one former assistant, who was not named, told Inside Higher Ed.

After the Ivy League university hired an outside investigator to look into the allegations, some sanctions were put in place to change the culture of the center, master’s students were moved to another part of the campus and some people were required to undergo training, the Inside Higher Ed report said.

Penn officials declined to comment on its investigation of Gasman and the center or the use of nondisclosure agreements, telling Inside Higher Ed the scholar “got an excellent offer from Rutgers and chose to take it.”

Gasman is slated to host a launch event celebrating Rutgers’ new Proctor Institute for Leadership, Equity & Justice at 4 p.m. Wednesday at the university’s Graduate School of Education in New Brunswick.

“Rutgers-New Brunswick is the ideal location to begin this work and I am excited to get started," Gasman said in a statement.

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

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