Professor accused of aiding sexually abusive PhD student

A US professor has been accused of aiding a PhD student found by a university to have sexually assaulted a classmate, while advising the victim to switch careers so she avoids him in future.

Lorin Maletsky, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Kansas, has made extensive efforts to help the attacker complete his doctoral degree during a campus ban, the victim claimed in a civil case filed against the institution.

The case, affirmed in its key details as against the attacker in university investigative reports and police records, is reaching federal courts as the Biden administration begins what it envisions as a comprehensive overhaul of Title IX regulations.

The case was a sign of the “mess” the administration faces with Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education settings, said Terry Karl, emeritus professor of political science at Stanford University.

Professor Karl was herself forced from Harvard University in the 1980s after the institution stood behind a renowned professor who repeatedly assaulted her.

In the Kansas case, the perpetrator and victim worked together in Professor Maletsky’s biomechanics laboratory and began a relationship in 2011 that the perpetrator turned increasingly violent, both on and off campus.

Another postgraduate who worked with them, Max Eboch, reported the abuse to Professor Maletsky in November 2015, while explaining to the professor why he no longer wanted to work in the laboratory.

“His response to me was: ‘Why is that a problem to you?’” claimed Mr Eboch.

Professor Maletsky told Mr Eboch that the news legally required him to report it to the university, Mr Eboch recalled. The action also upset the victim, who said she feared further angering her attacker.

But the university took no action at the time beyond sending the victim an “outreach email”, and Professor Maletsky told the victim he believed Mr Eboch fabricated the allegations, she said in her federal court filing.

The abuse continued after that, with the attacker physically confining the victim in locations that included Professor Maletsky’s laboratory, and then breaking into her residence in August 2016, she told the court.

The break-in led to the attacker’s arrest and his acceptance of a plea bargain arrangement on criminal charges of illegal threats and restraint, in return for having the prosecution dropped.

The university also began its own investigation that affirmed a list of attacks and abuse, including verbal threats, acts of physical harm and stalking.

That investigation ended with the university banning the attacker from campus while the victim finished her doctorate. Professor Maletsky, however, told the victim he would keep working with the attacker and asked the victim to take a leave of absence to let the attacker finish his degree, she said in the court filing.

She said that other university personnel, including Professor Maletsky, suggested she change her career path.

Professor Maletsky declined to comment, citing ongoing legal action. A university spokeswoman also declined to respond, but the institution has filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, which is yet to be determined by the court.

Professor Karl said that enforcement of Title IX violations suffered under the Trump administration, which introduced new rules that let representatives of the accused question complainants. US university leaders criticised that shift as being likely to discourage victims from reporting abuse.

Victims have an especially difficult time when facing mistreatment from a professor rather than confronting only a fellow student, Professor Karl said. There’s been “very little change” on that front, she argued, in the decades since she left Harvard rather than keep enduring the senior colleague abusing her, Jorge Domínguez.

“Universities protect their professors or their coaches or whomever they believe they need – even after civil and criminal investigations,” she said.

The victim in the Kansas case asked that neither she nor the perpetrator be identified by name, citing the possibility of further angering him.

“She is absolutely right to be afraid,” Professor Karl said. “The university is like the church.”

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com