On January 24, over a hundred Harvard students walked out of Professor John Comaroff’s first class of the spring 2023 semester. The action was in solidarity with grad students who filed a lawsuit against the university for what they allege is the mishandling of harassment cases against the academic. Comaroff, a tenured anthropology professor, was found to have violated the university’s sexual harassment and professional conduct policies in January 2022, accusations he has categorically denied.
The protest was organized by a group of concerned students, Our Harvard Can Do Better, and the grad union’s Feminist Working Group, according to campus paper The Crimson, as well as students from Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard and the Harvard Student Labor Action Movement. Photos from the action, published by The Crimson, show several students plastering a classroom with critical signs and weaving through the campus in protest.
“For the good of the university community and Harvard’s academic mission, it’s past time for Harvard to act,” freshman Rosie Couture said in a statement, accusing Comaroff of “undermining Harvard’s value of creating an equitable, safe learning environment for all.”
Lilia Kilburn, one of the three original complainants in the suit, tweeted her support for the action: “As someone who experienced Comaroff’s misconduct firsthand, I am so grateful to see others spreading the word. This direct action is essential because Harvard only announced its sanctions against Comaroff to two departments. But everyone needs information and safety.”
In June, the original lawsuit was amended with additional accusations of misconduct, which Comaroff has denied. (Comaroff himself is not named as a defendant in the suit.) Also over the summer, Harvard attempted to have 9 of the 10 counts thrown out, arguing it shouldn’t be liable for the retaliatory acts of faculty members.
After two years of administrative leave related to the accusations, Comaroff returned to teaching in the fall, a move that was met with critical editorials from The Crimson and a walkout led by Harvard’s grad student union, per the Chronicle of Higher Education. In September, the US Department of Justice filed in support of the lawsuit, on Title IX grounds, in response.
“We reject the widespread norm in which senior academic figures who jeopardize or end the careers of their junior colleagues through misconduct and retaliation are themselves subject to only mild and brief professional consequences, and are indeed supported by their peers,” the grad union wrote in a fall statement, pushing for Harvard to delist Comaroff’s courses and “make public its guidelines for imposing different levels of sanctions on professors found responsible for sexual misconduct.”
