UChicago Sexual Misconduct Investigation Leads To Professor's Resignation

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Feb 3, 2016 4:54AM

A University of Chicago professor found by school officials to have violated the university's sexual misconduct policy has resigned, the New York Times is reporting.

University officials who investigated the conduct of the professor, molecular biologist Dr. Jason Lieb, found that he engaged in sexual activity with a student who was at the time "incapacitated due to alcohol and therefore could not consent," and that he made "unwelcome" sexual advances to molecular biology students during a retreat in Galena, Illinois, according to a letter the NYTimes obtained from the school.

The university received multiple harassment complains against Lieb after he attended an off-campus party with a large group of graduate students and faculty members, according to the NYTimes:

“In light of the severity and pervasiveness of Professor Lieb’s conduct, and the broad, negative impact the conduct has had on the educational and work environment of students, faculty and staff, I recommend that the university terminate Professor Lieb’s academic appointment,” reads the letter, signed by Sarah Wake, assistant provost and director of the office for equal opportunity programs.

Lieb apparently resigned last month.

According to the NYTimes, Lieb raised red flags even before he was hired by the Hyde Park university. Lieb previously faced sexual harassment allegations at Princeton University and the University of North Carolina, and Lieb resigned from his post at Princeton in 2014, only seven months after he was recruited there.

A University of Chicago molecular biologist, Dr. Yoav Gilad, told the NYTimes that efforts to determine why Lieb resigned from Princeton, where he was hired to run a genomics institute, were fruitless. Lieb told Chicago's hiring committee that a complaint of unwanted contact had been filed against him at North Carolina, where he taught previously, but the university's investigation found no evidence to support the claim. But, Gilad said, the hiring committee learned that Lieb had a "monthslong affair" with a graduate student in his North Carolina lab. Nonetheless, his department unanimously voted to hire him.

Lieb's resignation and the sexual miscondunct investigation come at a time when an increasing number of universities, including the University of Chicago, are under intense local and federal scrutiny for the ways they handle claims of sexual misconduct.