Over a hundred Harvard students walked out of Professor John Comaroff’s first class of the spring 2023 semester on January 24. The action was in solidarity with grad students who filed a lawsuit against the university over what they allege is 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 categorically denies.
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 flyering the 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,” Harvard 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, tweeted her support of the action: “As someone who experienced Comaroff’s misconduct first hand, 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 2022, the original lawsuit was amended with additional accusations of misconduct, which Comaroff denies. (Comaroff himself is not named as a defendant in the suit.) Also over the summer, Harvard then attempted to have 9 of the 10 counts thrown out, arguing they shouldn’t be liable for the retaliatory acts of their faculty members. Following two years of administrative leave related to the accusations, Comaroff returned to teaching in the fall of 2022, which was also met with critical editorials from the Harvard Crimson and a walkout led by Harvard’s grad student union, per the Chronicle of Higher Education. In September, the U.S. 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 statement in the fall, pushing for the university to delist Comaroff’s courses and “make public its guidelines for imposing different levels of sanctions on professors found responsible for sexual misconduct.”
