The New York Times published a report this week on a group of feminist professors that are defending a female colleague who was accused of sexual misconduct by a male student.
Breitbart News covered the investigation into New York University Professor Avita Ronell, who was accused by former student Nimrod Reitman of sexual misconduct. Reitman alleges in a Title IX report that Ronell sexually harassed him for three years, both physically and verbally. He claims that she required him to lay in her bed, hold her hand, and repeatedly kissed and touched him without his consent. Reitman is gay and married to a man. Ronell claims to be a lesbian.
After the Title IX report was filed, Professor Ronell’s feminist allies in academia came swooping in to her defense. In a published statement, they echoed the language of rape apologists, arguing that the person they know could not possibly be responsible for the sexual misconduct alleged in the report. The same feminists that break down into hysterics when a sexual misconduct accusation is questioned are perhaps realizing that all accusations must be vetted.
We have all seen her relationship with students, and some of us know the individual who has waged this malicious campaign against her. We wish to communicate first in the clearest terms our profound an enduring admiration for Professor Ronell whose mentorship of students has been no less than remarkable over many years. We deplore the damage that this legal proceeding causes her, and seek to register in clear terms our objection to any judgment against her. We hold that the allegations against her do not constitute actual evidence, but rather support the view that malicious intention has animated and sustained this legal nightmare.
Reitman filed a Title IX complaint two weeks after he received his Ph.D. from New York University, where Ronell was his advisor. In one encounter, he recalls Ronell forcing his hands onto her breasts, and buttocks.
“She put my hands onto her breasts, and was pressing herself — her buttocks — onto my crotch,” he said. “She was kissing me, kissing my hands, kissing my torso.” That evening, a similar scene played out again, he said.
Professor Ronell denies all of the allegations against her.
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