Czerwienski Et Al. v. Harvard University

Case 1:22-cv-10202 Document 1 Filed 02/08/22 Page 1 of 65
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
MARGARET CZERWIENSKI,
LILIA KILBURN, and AMULYA
MANDAVA
Plaintiffs,
v. CASE NO. ________________________
HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND THE JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF
HARVARD COLLEGE
Defendants.
COMPLAINT AND DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL
1. This is a case about Harvard’s decade-long failure to protect students from sexual
abuse and career-ending retaliation. Harvard Anthropology Professor John Comaroff1 is a
renowned scholar and a gatekeeper in his field. For years, he has used that power and his perch at
Harvard to exploit aspiring scholars: he kissed and groped students without their consent, made
unwelcome sexual advances, and threatened to sabotage students’ careers if they complained.
When students reported him to Harvard and sought to warn their peers about him, Harvard watched
as he retaliated by foreclosing career paths and ensuring that those students would have “trouble
getting jobs.” Harvard even allowed its investigatory process to be used in service of Professor
Comaroff’s campaign of professional blacklisting. The results have been devastating: Professor
Comaroff and his enablers have destroyed the educational opportunities and careers of countless
students. Among them are the plaintiffs in this case: Margaret Czerwienski, Lilia Kilburn, and
1
Any reference to “Professor Comaroff” or “Professor John Comaroff” refers to Professor John Comaroff.
Any reference to “Professor Jean Comaroff” refers to his wife, Professor Jean Comaroff.
1
Amulya Mandava, three graduate students in Harvard’s Anthropology Department (the
“Department”).
2. Harvard’s deliberate indifference allowed Professor Comaroff to repeatedly and
forcibly kiss Ms. Kilburn, grope her in public, imagine aloud her rape and murder, cut her off from
other professors, and derail her academic trajectory. It also allowed Professor Comaroff to threaten
Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski, poison their reputations in their fields of study, and upend
their careers. All three Plaintiffs repeatedly complained to Harvard administrators. But the
University brushed them aside and opted to protect its star professor over vulnerable students.
3. Plaintiffs are far from alone. A Harvard committee tasked with examining the
climate within Harvard’s Anthropology Department recently concluded that the Department is
plagued by a “longstanding pattern of sexism, misogyny, and sexual and gender-based
misconduct” that “has gone largely unchecked by a predominantly white, male faculty.”2 In a
survey, about a third of the graduate students in the Department reported harassment.3 Students
rarely speak out about harassment or sexual misconduct, because when they do, they risk their
education and their careers. In short, the report concluded, Harvard has condoned a “culture in
which the abuse of power is normalized and accommodated.”4
4. This lawsuit targets that abuse of power. Plaintiffs Margaret Czerwienski, Lilia
Kilburn, and Amulya Mandava (“Plaintiffs”), by and through their undersigned counsel, Sanford
Heisler Sharp, LLP, bring this action against Defendant Harvard University and the President and
2
Harvard University Anthropology Department, Standing Committee for a Supportive Departmental
Community Final Report 10 (2021).
3
Id. at 18.
4
Id. at 10.
2
Fellows of Harvard College (“Harvard” or the “University”) under Title IX5 and Massachusetts
law to remedy the gender discrimination, sexual harassment, hostile environment, and retaliation
that has defined their time at Harvard.6
I. INTRODUCTION
5. Harvard is one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. It has
maintained that reputation by recruiting the world’s foremost scholars.
6. John Comaroff, Harvard Professor of Anthropology and of African and African
American Studies, is one such scholar. He is one of the world’s leading experts on Africa and the
Global South, legal and political anthropology, crime and policing, the anthropology of
colonialism and postcolonialism, and historical anthropology. He wields extraordinary power
through a sprawling professional network, having mentored generations of tenured professors
placed at nearly every major anthropology department and having held visiting professorships all
over the world. To Harvard, Professor Comaroff’s worldwide reputation and influence make him
a valuable asset.
7. Harvard has protected that asset despite a decades-long pattern of harassment and
retaliation by Professor Comaroff—a pattern that was known to Harvard when it hired him in
2012. From 1979 to 2012, Professor Comaroff worked at the University of Chicago (“UChicago”).
Graduate students and faculty there considered Professor Comaroff a “predator” and a “groomer.”
At least one of them warned Harvard about Professor Comaroff while the University was
considering Professor Comaroff’s candidacy. But Harvard welcomed him anyway.
5
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. (“Title IX”).
6
Plaintiffs allege upon knowledge concerning their own acts and upon information and belief as to all other
matters.
3
8. The result was predictable. Shortly after he arrived at Harvard, the University7
received repeated complaints of sexual harassment, including forced kissing, groping, and
offensive—even violent—sexual comments by Professor Comaroff.
9. Plaintiffs were among those complainants. In spring 2017, Plaintiffs Margaret
Czerwienski and Amulya Mandava learned that Professor Comaroff was making ongoing sexual
advances on his advisee, a second-year graduate student: he forcibly kissed her, groped her
buttocks, and, upon information and belief, sent her early-morning texts demanding to know with
whom she had slept. Ms. Czerwienski and Ms. Mandava reported this sexual harassment to faculty,
including the soon-to-be Chair of the Anthropology Department. The advisee herself also reported
the harassment to the University’s Title IX Office.8 Yet, on information and belief, Harvard chose
not to investigate these reports. The University instead stood by while the abuse continued
unchecked.
10. Harvard’s deliberate indifference to these complaints enabled retaliation by
Professor Comaroff. In October 2017, Professor Comaroff summoned Ms. Mandava to his office
and told her that he knew she and Ms. Czerwienski were warning others of his sexual misconduct.
He threatened that if they continued to do so, they would have “trouble getting jobs,” as his
detractors had in the past. Ms. Czerwienski reported this retaliation to Harvard’s Title IX Office.
But, still, Harvard took no apparent steps to stop Professor Comaroff from following through on
his threats or targeting others.
11. Because of Harvard’s inaction, Professor Comaroff abused Lilia Kilburn. In 2017,
before Ms. Kilburn even enrolled at Harvard, Professor Comaroff kissed her on the mouth without
7
“Harvard” or “the University” herein means Harvard and University officials with supervisory authority
and the power to institute corrective measures on Harvard’s behalf.
8
Upon information and belief, Harvard’s Title IX Office is located within its Office for Gender Equity.
4
her consent during a campus visit. That fall, after she matriculated, he graphically described
varying ways in which she “would” be raped, murdered, or “left for dead” in South Africa—a
country thousands of miles away from the country she studied. Harvard allowed Professor
Comaroff’s behavior to continue for two years—subjecting Ms. Kilburn to a continuing nightmare
that included more forced kissing, groping, persistent invitations to socialize alone off-campus,
and coercive control. When Ms. Kilburn tried to avoid Professor Comaroff, he forbade her to work
with her other advisor.
12. Ms. Kilburn complained to Harvard’s Title IX Office in May 2019. Again,
however, the Title IX Office took no meaningful action—except to admit that Harvard had known
about Professor Comaroff’s behavior for years. In fact, a Harvard Title IX Resource Coordinator
referred Ms. Kilburn to one of Professor Comaroff’s other victims: the graduate student who
reported similar abuse two years earlier. Professor Comaroff, meanwhile, continued teaching and
mentoring students.
13. In 2020, The Harvard Crimson (the “Crimson”) and The Chronicle of Higher
Education (the “Chronicle”) publicly exposed Professor Comaroff’s misconduct. Only then, with
its reputation to protect, did Harvard launch an investigation.
14. But Harvard’s investigation only exacerbated Plaintiffs’ nightmare. Harvard
dragged the process out for over a year, foisted inordinate burdens on Plaintiffs, then willfully
ignored the overwhelming evidence they marshalled. During the process, Harvard obtained Ms.
Kilburn’s private therapy records without her consent and disclosed them to Professor Comaroff.
The investigatory process that unfolded was neither “prompt” nor “equitable”; nor was it designed
to “stop discrimination, remedy any harm,” or “prevent its recurrence,” as Harvard’s written
5
policies promise.9 In the end, Harvard denied that Professor Comaroff engaged in repeated sexual
harassment or retaliation and allowed him to continue teaching after a slap on the wrist.
15. Harvard faculty moved swiftly to forestall further complaints. Hours after Harvard
announced the investigation’s results, Harvard Law Professor Janet Halley issued a statement
calling Professor Comaroff’s description of Ms. Kilburn’s rape and his threats against Plaintiffs
“perfectly legitimate office-hours advice.” She further blasted Plaintiffs’ complaints as an “attack
on academic freedom.” Professor Comaroff’s wife, Professor Jean Comaroff, promptly
disseminated the statement to Harvard faculty and others in her professional network. A few days
later, 38 Harvard faculty members—including faculty currently supervising Plaintiffs’ studies—
wrote a letter publicly supporting Professor Comaroff and minimizing his abuse.
16. Harvard’s deliberate indifference to this pattern of retaliation has upended
Plaintiffs’ careers in anthropology. And Plaintiffs’ ordeal is just one example of Harvard’s broader
pattern of deliberate indifference: sexual misconduct, abuse, and retaliation are endemic to the
Anthropology Department. As the Crimson and Chronicle reports revealed, for over a decade,
Harvard willfully ignored sexual harassment complaints against not just Professor Comaroff, but
also against two Department Chairs, Gary Urton and Theodore Bestor. As a result, from 2007 to
2018—11 of the past 14 years—the Department was chaired by men who, according to these
reports, leveraged their power to prey on women students and junior faculty.
17. Harvard’s continued failure to act on repeated reports of harassment against
Professor Comaroff—until spurred to do so by the media—demonstrates an institutional policy of
indifference: a system designed to protect the University, its reputation, and the faculty who sustain
9
Harvard University Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment Policy at 1, available at
https://hwpi.harvard.edu/files/oge/files/sexual-and-gender-based-harassment-policy.pdf?m=1624890819.
6
that reputation at the expense of its students. The University ignores the misconduct of star faculty
for as long as possible, acting only when compelled by public outrage. When Harvard does
investigate, it employs a process stacked against survivors, in which even University officials lack
confidence. Instead of stopping abuse, Harvard perpetrates it, subjecting students to a second
trauma that exacerbates the original abuse and leaves the students vulnerable to retaliation at the
hands of faculty.
18. Harvard’s cycle of institutional betrayal violates Title IX and Massachusetts law.
II. PARTIES
19. PLAINTIFF MARGARET CZERWIENSKI is a natural person, and, at all
relevant times, has been domiciled in Massachusetts. She is a doctoral student in Harvard’s
Anthropology Department. She holds a B.A. in Women’s Studies and a Master’s of Public Health
with a graduate certificate in Afroamerican and African Studies from the University of Michigan,
and conducted research at the University of Michigan medical school throughout her Master’s
program. She joined Harvard for her graduate studies in 2014, where she has worked as a Ph.D.
student and teaching fellow. She is a highly credentialed member of the Department, and is the
recipient of the National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant.
20. PLAINTIFF LILIA KILBURN is a natural person, and, at all relevant times, has
been domiciled in Massachusetts. She is a doctoral student at Harvard. Ms. Kilburn holds a
Master’s degree in Comparative Media Practice from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
a B.A. in Anthropology from Amherst College. Her research has been supported by multiple
prestigious grants in her field. Ms. Kilburn came to Harvard in 2017. She specifically applied to
Harvard’s Anthropology Department to work with the Comaroffs, and eventually accepted
7
Harvard’s offer—turning down opportunities from other universities—because Professor John
Comaroff urged her to and promised her mentorship and pedagogic support.
21. PLAINTIFF AMULYA MANDAVA is a natural person, and, at all relevant
times, has been domiciled in Massachusetts and/or Maine. She is a doctoral student in Harvard’s
Anthropology Department. She holds a B.A. with Honors in Anthropology from the University of
Chicago and a Master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School. She enrolled in graduate studies at
Harvard in 2012 and has worked as a Ph.D. student and teaching fellow. While at Harvard, Ms.
Mandava has won multiple prestigious grants in her field, including the Wenner-Gren Dissertation
Fieldwork Grant and the American Institute of Indian Studies Junior Fellowship.
22. DEFENDANT HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND THE PRESIDENT AND
FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE is a non-profit corporation organized and existing
under the laws of Massachusetts that maintains its principal place of business at Massachusetts
Hall, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138.
III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE
23. This Court has subject matter jurisdiction over this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§§ 1331 and 1343, because Plaintiffs’ statutory claims under Title IX present a federal question
over which this Court has jurisdiction. Plaintiffs also assert state-law claims over which this Court
has supplemental jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367.
24. This Court has personal jurisdiction over Defendant pursuant to Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 4(k)(1)(A) because Defendant is domiciled in and conducts business within this
Judicial District.
25. This Court is the proper venue under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(b) and 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-
5(f) because Harvard is headquartered in this District and many of the unlawful practices
8
complained of herein occurred in this District, and the events or omissions giving rise to Plaintiffs’
claims occurred in this District.
IV. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
A. Professor Comaroff Harassed Students for Years Before Coming to Harvard
26. Harvard had good reason to be wary of Professor Comaroff. Before Harvard hired
him, Professor Comaroff taught at UChicago, where he was surrounded by “pervasive allegations
of sexual misconduct.” Indeed, multiple UChicago students and faculty complained to UChicago
about his behavior.
27. In or around 1979, immediately after Professor Comaroff began teaching at
UChicago, he lured an undergraduate student (“UChicago Student 1”) to his home promising
advice on her thesis. Alone with her, he forcibly hugged her, ran his hand down her back, and
groped her buttocks without her consent. UChicago Student 1 contemporaneously recounted the
incident to a graduate student, who replied that Professor Comaroff was well-known for his sexual
behavior toward students, and that he was engaged in an affair with another student. UChicago
Student 1—once a promising anthropology student—was so disturbed by her experience with
Professor Comaroff that she abandoned her plans to pursue a Ph.D. in anthropology.
28. This behavior continued for decades at UChicago. Between 2006 and 2007,
Professor Comaroff sent a female UChicago graduate student (“UChicago Student 2”) violent
pornography without her consent, commented on her choice of underwear, and assaulted her in his
office. During the assault, he kissed her forcibly on the lips, groped her buttocks, and repeatedly
grabbed her thigh without her consent. UChicago Student 2 contemporaneously reported the
assault to another graduate student, who in turn reported the incident to UChicago faculty. But
when Professor Comaroff learned of the complaint, he ensured that the student had “trouble”
9
finding a job. Professor Comaroff then pressured UChicago Student 2 to delete the explicit emails
he had sent her.
29. In 2007, on information and belief, Professor Comaroff initiated a sexual
relationship with another female UChicago graduate student (“UChicago Student 3”). But, on
information and belief, once Professor Comaroff lost sexual interest in her, he used his influence
to damage her career.
30. And in winter 2009, Professor Comaroff targeted Plaintiff Mandava, who was then
an undergraduate at UChicago. Professor Comaroff took a focused interest in Ms. Mandava during
a study-abroad trip in South Africa. He repeatedly invited her to sit next to him on long drives and
commented on the neckline of her clothing, all of which made Ms. Mandava uncomfortable. Ms.
Mandava told Professor David Bunn, who was also on the trip, about Professor Comaroff’s bizarre
actions in hopes that he would intervene. But Professor Bunn responded that Professor Comaroff’s
behavior was part of a pattern; he regularly crossed boundaries on study-abroad trips. During each
trip, he developed a “crush” on a female student and “obsessively” focused on her throughout the
program.
B. Harvard Knew That Professor Comaroff Had Harassed Students and Brought Him
to Harvard Anyway
31. Harvard knew of this pattern by the time it offered Professor Comaroff a position
to start in 2012. It hired him anyway.10
32. Upon information and belief, around the time Harvard hired Professor Comaroff,
UChicago faculty warned the Chair of Harvard’s Department of African and African American
Studies (“AAAS”)—who could have influenced the hiring decision, supervised Professor
10
In 2020, in a meeting with Ms. Czerwienski about Plaintiffs’ Title IX complaints, the Assistant Dean of
Student Affairs admitted that Harvard’s administration had known about Professor Comaroff’s behavior
for years.
10
Comaroff, or at least managed his interactions with students—about Professor Comaroff’s
misconduct at UChicago. Harvard could have heeded this warning and passed on Professor
Comaroff or implemented safeguards—and protected Harvard’s students. Instead, Harvard
empowered Professor Comaroff.
33. Professor George Meiu, who joined Harvard’s faculty in or around 2014, was also
aware of Professor Comaroff’s sexual misconduct at UChicago, where Professor Meiu studied
under the Comaroffs. After the Crimson exposed Professor Comaroff’s misconduct in 2020,
Professor Meiu apologized to more than 100 assembled members of the Department, including
Plaintiffs, “for what I knew and what I didn’t say anything about.”
34. Professor Nicholas Harkness, who joined Harvard’s faculty in or around 2011, was
likewise aware of complaints against Professor Comaroff. He, too, had learned of Professor
Comaroff’s history of sexual harassment and inappropriate sexual relationships with students at
UChicago, where he had been a graduate student until 2010. Indeed, after Plaintiffs filed their Title
IX complaints, he described Professor Comaroff to Ms. Kilburn as a “groomer” and “predator.”
But Harvard overlooked this history even when warned about it.
35. Harvard instead welcomed Professor Comaroff to the faculty. In or around 2011,
Harvard extended an offer to Professor Comaroff and his wife, Professor Jean Comaroff, to join
the Department of Anthropology and the Department of AAAS. It implemented no safeguards on
his contact with students.
C. Professor Comaroff Sexually Harasses Students at Harvard
36. The results of Harvard’s inaction were predictable.
37. In 2015, Professor Comaroff made persistent unwanted sexual advances toward at
least two Harvard graduate students. To the first (“Harvard Student 1”), he made repeated
11
comments on her physical appearance—telling her “you’re a very beautiful woman” during
meetings—and kissed her on the cheek.
38. To another (“Harvard Student 2”), his advisee, he commented on her appearance;
shared his attraction to other students (describing one student as “beautiful” and another as “out of
[his] league”); recounted his sexual history and sexual preferences to her in detail; and frequently
shared sexual jokes that made her uncomfortable. He also winked at her in class, drank out of her
water bottle in the middle of a course he was teaching, called her “my date,” and kissed her on the
forehead without her consent—all in view of other students. He told her that three students at
UChicago would say he had sex with them, but he branded them as “liars.”
39. Professor Comaroff eventually escalated his harassment against Harvard Student 2
to physical assault. He cornered her in his office, brushed up against her, sat unnecessarily close
to her in meetings, and touched her inappropriately. In fall 2016, during an annual brunch at his
house, Professor Comaroff cornered her in his laundry room and forcibly kissed her on the mouth
without her consent. His abuse continued throughout the semester: he kissed her, grabbed her
buttocks, and, on information and belief, sent her messages late at night asking about her sexual
partners.
40. Finally, at a meeting in his office, Harvard Student 2 confronted Professor
Comaroff about his behavior. He responded with more: he knelt in front of her, laid his head on
her breasts, and told her he was impotent.
D. Professor Comaroff Threatens Retaliation to Silence Warnings
41. Harvard Student 2 reported Professor Comaroff’s harassment to a Harvard
postdoctoral research fellow and former advisee of Professor Comaroff at UChicago (“Harvard
12
Post-Doc 1”). Harvard Post-Doc 1 advised Harvard Student 2 to report the conduct to Harvard’s
Title IX Office.
42. Professor Comaroff learned of this advice and swiftly retaliated: in fall 2017,
Professor Comaroff called Harvard Post-Doc 1 to his office and threatened that if Harvard Post-
Doc 1 continued “spreading gossip,” he would “find it impossible” to get a permanent academic
position.
43. At the time, Harvard Post-Doc 1 was relying on letters of recommendation from
Professors John and Jean Comaroff to find a teaching position. Professor John Comaroff’s threat
was thus clear and effective: if Harvard Post-Doc 1 did not stop engaging in oppositional activity,
the Comaroffs would thwart his prospects of finding a permanent teaching position.
E. Professor Comaroff Retaliates Against Plaintiffs Czerwienski and Mandava
a. Plaintiff Margaret Czerwienski Engages in Protected Activity
44. Harvard Student 2 also reported Professor Comaroff’s harassment to her classmate,
Plaintiff Margaret Czerwienski. Around the same time, yet another student (“Harvard Student 3”)
told Ms. Czerwienski that Professor Comaroff was acting as though he had a “crush” on her.
45. In spring 2017, Ms. Czerwienski complained to her advisor, Professor Susan
Greenhalgh, about Professor Comaroff’s harassment of Harvard Student 2 and shared her concern
that he was pursuing Harvard Student 3.
46. Professor Greenhalgh was a mandatory reporter under Harvard’s Title IX policies,
and should therefore have reported Professor Comaroff. Professor Greenhalgh expressed concern,
but, because Harvard had not properly trained her on her reporting obligations, she took no steps
to intercede and neither did Harvard.
13
47. Ms. Czerwienski also began warning other students of the dangers Professor
Comaroff posed.
48. Finally, Ms. Czerwienski urged Harvard Student 2 to report Professor Comaroff’s
harassment and assaults to Harvard’s Title IX Office.
b. Harvard Receives and Ignores Harvard Student 2’s Complaint
49. In spring 2017, following Ms. Czerwienski’s advice, Harvard Student 2 reported
Professor Comaroff’s sexual harassment to Seth Avakian, a University Program Officer for Title
IX and Professional Conduct who served as a Title IX Resource Coordinator for Harvard’s Faculty
of Arts and Sciences (“FAS”) graduate students and faculty, among others.
50. Under Harvard’s Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment Policy and the Sexual and
Gender-Based Harassment Policy and Procedures for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Mr.
Avakian was responsible for “identifying and responding to sexual harassment and its harm to
equal educational opportunity” and “stopping or preventing sexual or gender-based harassment.”
He also had authority to “put in place any appropriate supportive measures to protect the
educational and work environment,” and to initiate a formal investigation. But he did none of these
things.
51. Mr. Avakian also had the responsibility, under University policy, to convey
complaints about Professor Comaroff to the University Title IX Coordinator. University policy
required as much if he received more than one complaint about Professor Comaroff. And he should
have received many. Upon information and belief, Harvard Student 2 reported Professor
Comaroff’s harassment to multiple other faculty members. But these faculty and Mr. Avakian
apparently did nothing.
52. Nor did anyone else—except Professor Comaroff. Professor Comaroff obtained a
14
copy of Harvard Student 2’s complaint and read portions of her complaint back to her verbatim.
This intimidation tactic worked. It pressured Harvard Student 2 to withdraw her complaint and
would, apparently, dissuade her from participating in any further investigations, including of
Plaintiffs’ complaints.
c. Plaintiff Amulya Mandava Engages in Protected Activity
53. By spring 2017, Ms. Mandava had also learned that Professor Comaroff had
sexually harassed Harvard Student 2 and was pursuing Harvard Student 3. Ms. Mandava, like Ms.
Czerwienski, warned other students about Professor Comaroff’s sexual harassment.
54. Also like Ms. Czerwienski, Ms. Mandava reported Professor Comaroff’s sexual
harassment to Harvard. Ms. Mandava informed Professor Ajantha Subramanian—who, in 2018,
would become the Chair of the Anthropology Department—that Professor Comaroff had sexually
harassed two graduate students at Harvard; that he had given Ms. Mandava herself unwanted
sexual attention when she was an undergraduate at UChicago; and that he had had several sexual
relationships with graduate students at UChicago.
55. Professor Subramanian expressed distress, but took no action. She informed Ms.
Mandava that, under her understanding of Harvard policy, she could not elevate or act on Ms.
Mandava’s report unless the affected students (Harvard Students 2 and 3) made the reports directly.
c. Professor Comaroff Threatens Plaintiffs Mandava and Czerwienski
56. Harvard’s indifference had a predictable result. By October 2017, Professor
Comaroff had learned that Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski were warning others about his
behavior. He swiftly sought to silence them.
57. On or about October 13, 2017, Ms. Mandava met Professor Comaroff in his office
to discuss a grant application. During the meeting, Professor Comaroff told Ms. Mandava that
15
graduate students, including Ms. Czerwienski, were spreading “nasty rumors” about his sexual
misconduct with students, and that he knew Ms. Mandava had participated in those conversations.
Ms. Mandava responded by confirming that she had warned others in the Department about his
sexual encounters with students. In reply, Professor Comaroff first sought to dispel the “nasty
rumors” by claiming that he had “been sexually inactive for seven years” because he was
impotent—an admission that caused Ms. Mandava great discomfort because she was alone in his
office with him.
58. Next, Professor Comaroff threatened Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski. He told
Ms. Mandava that there had been “rumors” about him at UChicago, too. He referenced three
specific UChicago graduate students—including Harvard Post-Doc 1—who perpetuated these
“rumors” about him, and he told her that those other students had subsequently experienced
“trouble getting jobs.” He warned that he would not want the same to happen to Ms. Mandava.
59. Professor Comaroff further threatened that if Ms. Mandava continued to speak out,
she would lose her relationship with her recommender, Professor Jean Comaroff. He reminded
Ms. Mandava that he and his wife were responsible for her admission to Harvard and reiterated
multiple times how much “support” they had given her over the years. He cautioned that Professor
Jean Comaroff would be “furious” at anyone who told her about his conduct.
60. Finally, Professor Comaroff warned that if Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski
continued their “gossip,” he and his wife would find out, because “our students will always tell
us.”
61. Professor Comaroff’s threats were serious and credible. As Dean for Faculty
Affairs and Planning Nina Zipser acknowledges, academics “rely on narrow networks of
16
individuals.” 11 Harvard Professor Stephen Blyth affirms that “[t]he influence a senior professor
holds over a PhD student’s career . . . is immense: a poor letter of recommendation torpedoes job
prospects.”12 Anthropology is a small and tight-knit field. There are seldom more than a handful
of tenure-track positions available to graduating doctoral students. Each position receives hundreds
of applications. And Professor Comaroff’s influence permeates the field. His former students and
acolytes sit on hiring committees in almost every major anthropology department across the globe.
A down-vote from Professor Comaroff is thus the death knell of an anthropologist’s career.
62. Ms. Mandava shared Professor Comaroff’s threats with Ms. Czerwienski. Both
began fearing for their academic futures at Harvard and their career plans.
F. Ms. Czerwienski Reports Professor Comaroff’s Threats, but Harvard Again Fails to
Act, Derailing Plaintiffs’ Academic Careers
63. Ms. Czerwienski reported Professor Comaroff’s threats to Harvard Title IX
Resource Coordinator Seth Avakian three days later, on or about October 16, 2017. She also told
Mr. Avakian (as others had before) that Professor Comaroff had been sexually harassing students.
64. On information and belief, Harvard ignored Ms. Czerwienski’s complaints. In fact,
Mr. Avakian explicitly discouraged Ms. Czerwienski from filing a formal report with Harvard’s
Office for Dispute Resolution (“ODR”) because, he said, doing so would be futile.
65. With no response from Harvard, Professor Comaroff’s threats had their intended
chilling effect on Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski. Ms. Czerwienski did not file a formal
complaint, and, after the October 13, 2017 meeting, Ms. Czerwienski and Ms. Mandava both
11
Letter from Stephen Blyth, Professor, Harvard Univ., to Drew G. Faust, President, Harvard Univ. (May
7, 2018), https://www.bostonglobe.com/2019/05/24/read-
letter/h2qAM6WfEOWiRHQVmu0N2M/story.html?camp=bg%3Abrief%3Arss%3Afeedly&rss_id=feedl
y_rss_brief&s_campaign=bostonglobe%3Asocialflow%3Atwitter.
12
Id.
17
stopped warning other students about Professor Comaroff’s sexual misconduct. Indeed, later in the
fall of 2017, when Plaintiff Kilburn approached Ms. Mandava seeking guidance regarding
Professor Comaroff’s harassment, Ms. Mandava, fearful of retaliation, refused to assist Ms.
Kilburn.
66. Professor Comaroff, meanwhile, continued to harass students with impunity. He
even boasted about it publicly. At an October 2017 dinner with faculty and graduate students,
Professor Comaroff compared himself to Harvey Weinstein, and remarked, “They’re coming for
me next!” Professor Jean Comaroff, also in attendance, disparaged women who confront or report
sexual violence, commenting, “Whatever happened to rolling with the punches?”
67. These remarks rattled Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski. To mitigate the risk of
retaliation from the Comaroffs, Ms. Czerwienski ended her advising relationship with Professor
Jean Comaroff; dropped a required course then taught only by the Comaroffs (thereby delaying
her completion of that requirement); and shifted her academic focus away from Africa, a region
studied in Harvard’s Social Anthropology program exclusively by the Comaroffs and a former
student of theirs. Ms. Czerwienski also actively sought to avoid Professor Comaroff. Professor
John Comaroff’s tentacular influence in the field, however, made it impossible to avoid him, and
Ms. Czerwienski continued to encounter him on campus.
68. Ms. Mandava, too, ultimately ended her mentoring relationship with both Professor
Jean Comaroff and Professor John Comaroff, changed the focus of her dissertation, and did not
apply for a grant in their area of expertise to avoid them. Ms. Mandava had previously relied on
the Comaroffs for letters of recommendation for nearly every major application since college. Ms.
Mandava also felt persistent anxiety resulting from Professor Comaroff’s threat.
18
69. Harvard’s inaction thus upended the academic careers of Ms. Mandava and Ms.
Czerwienski. It would soon do the same to Ms. Kilburn.
G. Professor Comaroff Subjects Plaintiff Kilburn to Repeated Sexual Harassment
70. From the day Ms. Kilburn first visited Harvard as a prospective student in 2017
through April of 2019, Professor Comaroff subjected her to pervasive sexual harassment, including
unwanted kissing and touching and a graphic description of her own imagined rape and murder.
a. Professor Comaroff Kisses Ms. Kilburn When She Was an Admitted

Student
71. Professor Comaroff began making unwanted sexual advances on Ms. Kilburn
before she even matriculated at Harvard. On or about February 27, 2017, Ms. Kilburn met with
Professors John and Jean Comaroff to discuss her acceptance to the program. Professor John
Comaroff offered to walk Ms. Kilburn back to Harvard’s campus. As they approached the building
in which his office is located, Professor Comaroff stepped in front of Ms. Kilburn, hugged her
tightly—pressing the length of his body against hers—and kissed her on the lips without her
consent. Continuing to hug her tightly, he whispered in her ear that she should “go visit Columbia
[University], but then come back here.”
72. Ms. Kilburn was distressed by Professor Comaroff’s assault. She feared for her
future at Harvard, in a program she had dreamed of attending. But, not knowing of Professor
Comaroff’s history, she sought to forget the incident and move on.
b. Ms. Kilburn’s First Day of Grad School: “You Would Be Raped and Killed”
73. Ms. Kilburn’s fears, however, proved well founded. On the first day of Ms.
Kilburn’s doctoral program, on or about August 27, 2017, she met with Professor Comaroff, now
her advisor, in his office to discuss her planned study of a country in Central Africa.
19
74. During the meeting, Professor Comaroff repeatedly described various ways in
which Ms. Kilburn would be raped and killed in South Africa—approximately 3,000 miles away
from Central Africa—because she is in a same-sex relationship. He told her, “there are many places
where you would go where you would be raped,” “you would certainly be raped,” and “you would
be raped and killed.” He then identified specific places where “corrective rapes” had been carried
out, and stated over and over that Ms. Kilburn, too, “would be raped,” “would be killed,” would
be “left for dead,” and that “they would finish you off.” Ms. Kilburn sat frozen in shock, while
Professor Comaroff continued for approximately five minutes.
75. As he had with Ms. Mandava, Professor Comaroff ended the meeting by reminding
Ms. Kilburn of the power he now wielded over her career. He told her that he had “fought very
hard for [her]” in the admissions process and that Ms. Kilburn needed to trust him because he had
been advising students for fifty years.
c. Professor Comaroff Kisses Ms. Kilburn Again at His Home Without Consent
76. Professor Comaroff’s harassment again turned physical.
77. On or about September 24, 2017, Ms. Kilburn attended an annual brunch held at
the Comaroffs’ house. Professor John Comaroff greeted Ms. Kilburn with a hug and a kiss on the
cheek and began singling her out for unwanted attention; he placed his hand uncomfortably low
on her back to guide her through the room, expressed disappointment that she was not drinking
alcohol, and touched her lower back again when he returned with coffee.
78. When Ms. Kilburn went to leave the brunch, Professor Comaroff followed her. Ms.
Kilburn bent to retrieve her bag, and when she stood, Professor Comaroff had moved close to her.
He again hugged her forcibly and kissed her on the mouth without her consent. Ms. Kilburn pushed
him away and wiped her mouth, only to find Professor Comaroff smiling at her.
20
79. Ms. Kilburn was disturbed. Over the remainder of the fall semester of 2017, she
avoided Professor Comaroff. She did not attend the weekly meetings with Professor Comaroff that
were customary for first-year graduate students, and she began dressing more conservatively. She
also stopped attending the weekly African Studies Workshop led by Professors John and Jean
Comaroff, even though the workshop was crucial to expanding her network in her field and one of
the reasons she had decided to matriculate at Harvard over other institutions.
d. Harvard’s Program Administrator Rebuffs Ms. Kilburn’s Attempted

Disclosure: “Those Are Just Nasty Rumors”
80. Throughout the fall of 2017, Ms. Kilburn sought assistance from classmates and
staff. None offered aid because of Professor Comaroff’s threats and Harvard’s indifference.
81. First, in or around October 2017, Ms. Kilburn approached the Graduate Program
Administrator in the Anthropology Department. She asked whether the Graduate Program
Administrator was aware of Professor Comaroff ever having made students uncomfortable. But
before she could finish, the Graduate Program Administrator cut her off and responded, “Those
are just nasty rumors!”—mimicking the language used by Professor Comaroff.
82. Then, in late fall 2017, Ms. Kilburn sought out Ms. Mandava to share her
experience with Professor Comaroff. Chilled by Professor Comaroff’s threat to damage her career
if she spoke about his conduct, however, Ms. Mandava demurred.
83. Professor Comaroff’s threatened retaliation and Harvard’s inaction thus had their
predictable effect: Ms. Kilburn continued to believe that she needed to remain quiet about
Professor Comaroff’s abuse, and that she was alone in her experience.
e. Professor Comaroff Harasses Ms. Kilburn and Squeezes Her Thigh in Public
84. Professor Comaroff took advantage of the University’s indifference to continue
harassing Ms. Kilburn.
21
85. In late 2017, Professor Comaroff saw Ms. Kilburn in the atrium of the
Anthropology Department’s building. Despite Ms. Kilburn’s noticeable attempts to avoid him that
semester, he approached her, touched her back again, and insisted that she meet with him.
86. During a required meeting on or about January 23, 2018, Professor Comaroff
criticized Ms. Kilburn for avoiding meetings with him. He then told her that if she ever needed to
“talk to a woman,” she could approach his wife, Professor Jean Comaroff.
87. In or around February 2018, Ms. Kilburn was attending a departmental colloquium.
As Professor Comaroff was leaving the colloquium, he passed by Ms. Kilburn’s seat in the back
row and forcibly squeezed her thigh several inches above her knee in view of faculty and students.
88. And throughout the fall 2018 semester, Professor Comaroff repeatedly asked Ms.
Kilburn to meet him alone off-campus for reasons unrelated to her work. These unwelcome
proposals made Ms. Kilburn fearful and uncomfortable.
f. Professor Comaroff Continues His Harassment Through April 2019
89. By the spring 2019 semester, Professor Comaroff apparently recognized Ms.
Kilburn’s efforts to avoid him. He responded by becoming increasingly possessive over her.
90. In April 2019, Professor Comaroff repeatedly pressured Ms. Kilburn to direct her
forthcoming project to a topic in which he (rather than her other advisor, Professor Harkness)
specialized—a topic that had never been Ms. Kilburn’s area of focus, would be dangerous to
undertake, and was not tenable given the political situation in her country of study. Ms. Kilburn
expressed these concerns to Professor Comaroff during a meeting on the topic, but Professor
Comaroff exploded in response, with no apparent explanation. Shortly thereafter, he forbade Ms.
Kilburn from working with Professor Harkness at all, making her entirely beholden to him and
more vulnerable to his sexual advances.
22
g. Ms. Kilburn Reports Professor Comaroff’s Harassment to Harvard and

Discovers Harvard’s Past Indifference to Harvard Student 2’s Complaint
91. The situation soon got worse. On or about April 26, 2019, Ms. Kilburn was in the
glassed-in waiting area of the Graduate Program Administrator’s office. Professor Comaroff saw
her and tried to open the door and enter the waiting area. Ms. Kilburn, seeking to avoid contact
with him, and perceiving his approach as another potential sexual advance, told him that she had
a meeting and held the door shut. Against Ms. Kilburn’s physical resistance, Professor Comaroff
continued to try to force his way inside.
92. This moment was a breaking point for Ms. Kilburn. Before the events in April 2019,
she had believed she could manage Professor Comaroff’s behavior by avoiding him and seeking
joint meetings with Professor Jean Comaroff. But her avoidance had made him more possessive.
She feared that she would have to leave the program if Professor Comaroff did not stop harassing
her.
93. This fear drove Ms. Kilburn to report Professor Comaroff’s conduct, his threats
notwithstanding. On or about April 26, 2019, the same day as the door incident, Ms. Kilburn
complained to Professors Joana Pimenta and Lucien Castaing-Taylor that Professor Comaroff had
twice kissed her without her consent, told her on her first day of school that she would be raped
and killed, and repeatedly harassed her throughout her graduate career.
94. On or about May 2, May 6, and May 29, 2019, Ms. Kilburn met with Title IX
Officer Seth Avakian, Anthropology Department Chair Ajantha Subramanian, and Professor
Nicholas Harkness, respectively, to report Professor Comaroff’s sexual harassment of her.
95. Ms. Kilburn’s May 2, 2019 complaint to Mr. Avakian was met with predictable
indifference. Ms. Kilburn began describing her complaint, but before she even named her harasser,
Mr. Avakian guessed that her complaint concerned Professor Comaroff. Mr. Avakian’s notes
23
record, “Seth [said] to [Ms. Kilburn:] I should let you know that you don’t have to mention the
faculty member’s name, but I know who you are talking about”—a tacit admission that Harvard’s
administration was well aware of Professor Comaroff’s history of harassment. Then, in an explicit
admission (also recorded in his notes), Mr. Avakian acknowledged to Ms. Kilburn that “there was
another student w[ith] a similar issue w[ith] the same person” who had previously filed a
complaint.
96. Again, however—just like he had done in 2017 with Harvard Student 2—Mr.
Avakian did not stop or remedy Professor Comaroff’s harassment. Mr. Avakian instead put Ms.
Kilburn in contact with Harvard Student 2.
97. Ms. Kilburn met with Harvard Student 2, who shared with Ms. Kilburn that (as
alleged above) Professor Comaroff had engaged in a similar pattern of harassment against her:
kissing her, groping her, and isolating her from others.
98. The meeting confirmed for Ms. Kilburn that Harvard would not protect students
who complained about Professor Comaroff, and that his misconduct would therefore continue to
go unchecked. Before she learned of Harvard Student 2, Ms. Kilburn had not known that Professor
Comaroff had sexually harassed other students, nor that other students had reported his behavior
to Harvard. Nor had she suspected that Harvard would ignore repeated complaints that a professor
subjected students to serial sexual harassment. These revelations shocked Ms. Kilburn.
99. Ms. Kilburn shared her experience of harassment with Ms. Mandava in June 2019.
Ms. Mandava, in turn, sought out Professor Subramanian to complain of Professor Comaroff’s
2017 retaliation and also made a complaint to Professor Harkness about the same.
100. On information and belief, both Professor Subramanian and Professor Harkness
reported those complaints to the Title IX Office, but Mr. Avakian and Harvard did not act on them.
24
101. Because the Title IX Office failed to act, Professor Comaroff remained unrestricted
in his teaching and supervising of students throughout the spring and fall 2019 semesters. Harvard
even allowed him to take undergraduate students on a study-abroad trip in the summer of 2019.
Harvard waited even though it had received at least seven separate complaints to faculty and one
direct complaint to Harvard’s Title IX office in 2019 alone. In the interim, it left Plaintiffs
vulnerable to further harassment and retaliation by Professor Comaroff.
H. Harvard Fails to Act Until the Media Exposes Professor Comaroff’s Misconduct
102. Harvard apparently did not investigate Professor Comaroff’s misconduct until a
year later, in May 2020—when The Harvard Crimson contacted the Title IX Office seeking
comment on an article it was set to publish in the coming days. The article concerned sexual
harassment by multiple professors in the Anthropology Department, including Professor
Comaroff.
103. Now, on or about May 19, 2020, Mr. Avakian informed Plaintiffs that he had filed
a formal complaint against Professor Comaroff with Harvard’s ODR. This investigation came
more than two and a half years after Ms. Czerwienski had first reported Professor Comaroff’s
threat, more than one year after Ms. Kilburn had reported her own harassment to Harvard’s Title
IX Office, and eleven months after Ms. Mandava had reported Professor Comaroff’s threat to the
Department Chair.
104. Still, Harvard officials openly disparaged the ODR process. Mr. Avakian expressly
told Ms. Kilburn that reporting to the press would be more impactful than participating in the ODR
process. He cited Professor Jorge Dominguez, a Harvard professor who, on information and belief,
had serially abused women students for over 40 years, telling Ms. Kilburn that Professor
Dominguez’s victims found speaking to the press more effective than Harvard’s ODR process and
25
encouraged Ms. Kilburn to do the same. Department Chair Subramanian, too, urged all three
Plaintiffs to speak to the Crimson and subsequently with The Chronicle of Higher Education,
because, she said, that would give Harvard a reason to act. And Dean Zipser pressed Plaintiffs to
speak to the Chronicle, because, she said, only a public article would give her cover to take action
against Professor Comaroff.
105. Ms. Kilburn, Ms. Czerwienski, and Ms. Mandava had been reluctant to go public
with their stories. But, because Harvard’s faculty, Title IX Resource Coordinator, and top-level
decision-making officials now disparaged the ODR process and urged them to go to the press, they
did so.
I. The Crimson and Chronicle Reports Bring Other Victims Forward and Reveal
Harvard’s Deliberate Indifference to Rampant Harassment in the Department
106. On May 29, 2020, the Crimson published an article revealing a decades-long
pattern of sexual abuse perpetrated by senior male professors in Harvard’s Anthropology
Department. The Chronicle followed suit on August 25, 2020, publishing an article detailing
Professor Comaroff’s sexual harassment and retaliation against Plaintiffs, sexual misconduct by
two other professors, and Harvard’s longstanding indifference thereto. Those reports spurred other
victims to come forward.
107. Before those articles were published, Ms. Czerwienski, Ms. Mandava, and Ms.
Kilburn were aware only of the harm Professor Comaroff had caused them and two other
students—Harvard Students 2 and 3. Plaintiffs did not suspect that Harvard had failed to respond
to prior reports of sexual harassment. Only through the articles and the resulting fallout did
Plaintiffs learn of Harvard’s longstanding complicity in his abuse.
26
a. More Students Speak Up About Professor Comaroff’s Longstanding

Abuse
108. After the Crimson article’s publication, multiple students contacted Plaintiffs to
share their experiences of sexual harassment by Professor Comaroff and other professors in the
Department. These included UChicago Student 2, Harvard Student 1, and a faculty member at
another institution who shared that Professor Comaroff harassed her at a 2018 conference. In
addition, another current female Harvard Anthropology graduate student (“Harvard Student 4”)
reported that, in 2018, Professor Comaroff had made an inappropriate sexualized remark to her.
And yet another graduate student shared that she had been harassed by Professor Comaroff at a
conference.
109. Following the publication of the Chronicle article, Plaintiffs also learned that
Professor Comaroff had retaliated against Harvard Post-Doc 1 in 2017 when he encouraged
Harvard Student 2 to file her complaint of sexual harassment against Professor Comaroff.
110. UChicago Student 2, Harvard Post-Doc 1, Harvard Student 1, and Harvard Student
4 all complained to Harvard about Professor Comaroff’s misconduct towards them, but Harvard
did not meaningfully act on their complaints. Instead, as it had done to Plaintiffs, Harvard sent the
students elsewhere: Dean Zipser advised UChicago Student 2 to make her allegations public
through the press, and Mr. Avakian informed Harvard Post-Doc 1 that no investigation would be
conducted unless Harvard Post-Doc 1 filed a formal complaint.
b. The Crimson Reveals Harassment by Other Professors in the Department
111. The Crimson article also revealed that since at least 2013, Harvard had been
willfully ignoring complaints not just against Professor Comaroff, but also against two other
professors who served as chairs of the Department.
27
i. Professor Theodore Bestor
112. Through the Crimson article, Plaintiffs learned that Harvard administrators and the
Title IX Office knew about multiple complaints of sexual harassment against Professor Theodore
Bestor13 since at least 2013.
113. Harvard enabled Professor Bestor’s longstanding pattern of harassment through its
deliberate inaction, according to the Crimson. The Crimson revealed that, in 2013, a student
complained to then-Department Chair Gary Urton that Professor Bestor had subjected her to a
pattern of sexual harassment over the course of seven years. Professor Bestor’s harassment,
according to the article, included unwanted kissing and touching and inappropriate late-night
emails. Although Professor Urton told the student that he had relayed the complaint to Harvard’s
ombudsman, no action was taken at the time, the Crimson said.
114. The Crimson further revealed that Harvard’s Title IX Office had received reports
that Professor Bestor had sexually harassed multiple women, and that, because of his power and
influence in the tight-knit field of anthropology, the women feared reprisal should they file formal
complaints. Harvard had, however, declined to pursue a formal complaint against Professor Bestor,
the Crimson said, because Harvard believed that it could not prevent Professor Bestor from
retaliating against the women.14
115. The Crimson reported that Harvard had finally pursued an ODR complaint against
Professor Bestor in 2017 based on a UCLA professor’s complaint that Professor Bestor had
attempted to hug her and kiss her and had made inappropriate comments to her—and only then
13
Professor Bestor was Chair of the Anthropology Department from 2007 to 2012.
14
James S. Bikales, Protected by Decades-Old Power Structures, Three Renowned Harvard
Anthropologists Face Allegations of Sexual Harassment, The Harvard Crimson (May 29, 2020),
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/5/29/harvard-anthropology-gender-issues/.
28
after she appealed ODR’s initial refusal to investigate her complaint. The investigation eventually
found that Professor Bestor committed two counts of sexual misconduct against the UCLA
professor, but Harvard allowed him to return to work before completing his required sanctions, the
Crimson reported.
ii. Professor Gary Urton
116. The Crimson also described years of sexual harassment by Professor Urton.
117. The Crimson revealed that, in 2011, Professor Urton pressured a student into
unwelcome sex by propositioning her in exchange for a letter of recommendation and a high grade
in his class. Fearing professional reprisals if she did not assent, the student remained silent for
years, the Crimson said. The student eventually complained in 2016 to then-University President
Drew Faust and Harvard’s sexual harassment officer, yet the University took no steps to investigate
or protect other students, according to the Crimson.15
118. In a subsequent article, the Crimson further reported that Professor Urton had
propositioned a female graduate student on a research trip in 2003, and for the following nine
years, made her professional development at Harvard contingent on a sexual relationship with
him.16 According to the Crimson, she complained to Harvard’s Dean for Graduate Student Affairs
Garth McCavana, but, echoing Mr. Avakian, Dean McCavana responded that complaints rarely
worked out in the victim’s favor, which discouraged her from contacting the Title IX office. “I
15
Id.
16
James S. Bikales, Anthropology Faculty Call for Urton’s Resignation as More Former Students Accuse
Him of Sexual Misconduct, The Harvard Crimson (June 5, 2020),
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/6/5/urton-more-allegations-anthropology-faculty-demand-
resignation/.
29
was essentially told that I could file a complaint or get a degree, but not both,” the former student
told the Crimson.17
119. For his part, Professor Urton reminded the University that the allegations against
him were “well known” and that “Harvard has had at its disposal (and has discounted) [the
allegations] for three years.”18 He also acknowledged that Harvard knew “these are issues that do
not affect the Department of Anthropology alone, but are pervasive within the University.”19
120. The articles, Professor Urton’s response, and the resulting fallout laid bare
Harvard’s complicity in the abuse that, upon information and belief, Anthropology Department
professors had been committing against women students for over a decade. Before the Crimson’s
reporting, Plaintiffs were aware only of the misconduct to which they and a few others had been
subjected. The Crimson, however, exposed both a broader pattern of abuse and that, for years,
ODR, the Title IX Office, faculty, and administrators systematically refused to act on students’
complaints. This inaction, in turn, facilitated new abuses (including Plaintiffs’), all perpetrated
under threats to the careers of additional female students.
J. Harvard Conducts an Inadequate Title IX Investigation that Exposes Plaintiffs to

Further Retaliation
121. After the publication of the Crimson and Chronicle articles in May and August,
2020, respectively, Harvard finally began to investigate Plaintiffs’ longstanding allegations against
Professor Comaroff. This investigation, however, was limited in scope, placed inordinate burdens
17
Id.
18
Letter from Gary Urton, Professor, Harvard Univ., to Claudine Gay, Edgerley Fam. Dean of the Fac. of
Arts and Scis., Harvard Univ., and Lawrence Bobo, Dean of the Div. of Soc. Scis., Harvard Univ. 1-2 (May
31, 2020).
19
Id.
30
on Plaintiffs, and proved woefully inadequate. It has left Plaintiffs vulnerable to further harassment
and retaliation and perpetuated the hostile environment they face in the Department.
a. Harvard Refuses to Investigate Professor Comaroff Unless Plaintiffs Proceed

with Formal Complaints
122. In May 2020—shortly after assuring Plaintiffs that he had filed a formal complaint
with ODR—Mr. Avakian backtracked. He now told Plaintiffs that he would not participate in the
case, and that they would need to file formal complaints with ODR themselves if they intended to
pursue the matter. ODR confirmed to Plaintiffs that unless they filed formal complaints, ODR
would not fully investigate their case.
123. Ms. Kilburn, Ms. Czerwienski, and Ms. Mandava thus filed formal complaints
against Professor Comaroff with ODR on May 18, July 15, and July 31, 2020, respectively—
knowing that if they did not, Harvard would continue to ignore Professor Comaroff’s pattern of
sexual harassment and future students would remain vulnerable to him.
b. Harvard Allows Professor Comaroff to Tamper with Evidence
124. Professor Comaroff quickly poisoned the ODR process. Harvard allowed him to do
so.
125. On or about August 6, 2020, Professor Comaroff received a copy of Ms.
Czerwienski’s ODR complaint. The complaint relied, among other sources of proof, on messages
Harvard Student 2 had sent to Ms. Czerwienski in 2017 detailing Professor Comaroff’s ongoing
abuse. Upon information and belief, that same day, Professor Comaroff pressured Harvard Student
2—over whose dissertation defense he would soon be presiding—to delete those messages.
126. And throughout summer 2020, Professor Comaroff and his allies tampered with
witnesses: they contacted Harvard Post-Doc 1 and two female UChicago graduate students,
31
threatening repercussions if they did not remain silent about their knowledge of his misconduct.
These threats had their intended effect.
127. This tampering violated Harvard’s policies and procedures. Plaintiffs reported these
issues to ODR’s investigator (Ilissa Povich) and to Harvard deans. But Harvard refused to act.
c. Harvard Allows Professor Comaroff to Retaliate Against Ms. Kilburn
128. Harvard also allowed Professor Comaroff to weaponize the ODR process to
retaliate against Ms. Kilburn.
129. Professor Comaroff named three of the most prominent scholars in Ms. Kilburn’s
field—Peter Geschiere, Caroline Elkins, and Sue Cook—as witnesses in his defense. These
scholars had no firsthand knowledge of the relevant events and did not even know Ms. Kilburn.
But, by drawing them into the process, Professor Comaroff ensured that they would know about
Ms. Kilburn’s formal complaint against him and his animus towards her.
130. All three of these professors are preeminent scholars in Ms. Kilburn’s field and
would have been potential advisors and mentors available to replace Professor Comaroff. But
because ODR allowed Professor Comaroff to needlessly involve them in Ms. Kilburn’s case, Ms.
Kilburn can no longer turn to them as advisors or mentors, nor can she count on them as impartial
reviewers. Through this action, Professor Comaroff flatlined Ms. Kilburn’s nascent career.
131. Professor Comaroff did not stop there: he also named Professor George Meiu—one
of Ms. Kilburn’s current dissertation committee members—as a witness to testify about the layout
of a well-known seminar room. Professor Meiu had no relevant testimony to provide in Professor
Comaroff’s defense. He was, however, set to preside over Ms. Kilburn’s qualifying exams and
charged with determining whether Ms. Kilburn would be awarded a doctorate at the end of her
studies. He was also working closely with the Comaroffs. Although Professor Meiu refused to give
32
testimony, he made it clear to Ms. Kilburn that he did not support her complaint. Ms. Kilburn was
thus forced to delay her qualifying exams for months.
132. ODR played along with Professor Comaroff and approached the witnesses for
interviews. It, predictably, found that they did not have information material to Ms. Kilburn’s
complaint. Nonetheless, ODR took no steps to investigate or forestall Professor Comaroff’s efforts
to use the ODR process to poison the well.
133. Ms. Kilburn therefore complained to Mr. Avakian and Kwok Yu, the Harvard
Associate Dean who was overseeing Plaintiffs’ complaints, that Professor Comaroff was calling
witnesses for the purpose of derailing her career. But the Title IX Office also took no discernable
action.
d. Harvard Obtains and Discloses Ms. Kilburn’s Confidential Medical Records

to Professor Comaroff Without Her Consent
134. The investigation only got worse. In 2020, ODR contacted Ms. Kilburn’s
psychotherapist, a private therapist unaffiliated with Harvard, and obtained the psychotherapy
notes from her sessions with Ms. Kilburn. ODR did not obtain Ms. Kilburn’s consent for the
release of those records.
135. After obtaining the notes without Ms. Kilburn’s consent, ODR then withheld the
full notes from Ms. Kilburn, redacting swaths of the notes and refusing to disclose the redacted
portions even as ODR’s investigator grilled her about the redacted contents during an interview.
136. ODR then provided the notes to Professor Comaroff as part of its draft report.
Professor Comaroff, in turn, deployed the notes to gaslight Ms. Kilburn, claiming that she must
have imagined that he sexually harassed her because she was experiencing post-traumatic stress
disorder—a condition that she developed as a direct result of his conduct.
33
137. Finally, ODR published the notes in its Final Report concerning Ms. Kilburn’s
complaint against Professor Comaroff and appended them as exhibits, making Ms. Kilburn’s
medical records available to anyone with access to the Final Report.20
e. Harvard Refuses to Hold Professor Comaroff Responsible for his Pattern of

Sexual Harassment and Retaliation
138. ODR’s findings were issued in August 2021, over a year after Plaintiffs had filed
their complaints. Despite a process stacked against Plaintiffs, ODR made one finding in Ms.
Kilburn’s favor: it determined that Professor Comaroff had “over the course of approximately five
minutes” repeatedly described how Ms. Kilburn “would be raped” in certain parts of Africa. ODR
found that these unprompted and graphic descriptions constituted “severe” sexual harassment
against Ms. Kilburn.
139. As to Professor Comaroff’s other, repeated sexual harassment and assaults against
Ms. Kilburn (including his forced kissing and groping) and his retaliation against Ms. Mandava
and Ms. Czerwienski, however, ODR found that Professor Comaroff had not violated Harvard’s
Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment Policy.
140. ODR’s reports—portraying Professor Comaroff’s misconduct as a one-off verbal
incident—reveal willful blindness to the overwhelming evidence that he engaged in a pattern of
serial sexual harassment and retaliation that Harvard knew about but failed to stop.
i. Ms. Kilburn’s ODR Report
141. In Ms. Kilburn’s case, ODR refused to interview two thirds of the witnesses Ms.
Kilburn identified (even as it interviewed or attempted to interview all of the witnesses Professor
20
Harvard persisted in this course despite a request from Ms. Kilburn that Harvard limit access to her
confidential medical information. On or about September 28, 2021, Ms. Kilburn’s counsel requested that
Harvard not further disclose her medical records; inform her of individuals who have received a copy of
her medical records; and instruct these individuals to turn over the records to Harvard’s general counsel’s
office without retaining copies. Harvard rejected these requests.
34
Comaroff named). ODR also ignored the testimony of witnesses it did interview: throughout the
investigation, Ms. Kilburn gave consistent, specific testimony detailing each of the repeated
instances when Professor Comaroff kissed and touched her without consent. At least three separate
witnesses confirmed that she had been reporting his pattern of abuse to them since 2017, while the
harassment was ongoing, and long before she filed her complaint with ODR.
142. ODR, however, cited “inconsistencies” in Ms. Kilburn’s statements and used them
to discount her testimony. These “inconsistencies” are, in reality, a pretext to avoid a finding of
serial harassment and insulate Harvard from liability. To cite but a few examples:
a. Ms. Kilburn told ODR that Professor Comaroff kissed her in front of the Barker
Center with force. Yet ODR rejected this live, corroborated testimony because
ODR found it “inconsistent” with a sentence fragment from Mr. Avakian’s
notes. In fact, ODR did not even interview Mr. Avakian about this reference,
but had it done so, ODR would have discovered that the reference did not
contradict Ms. Kilburn’s testimony.
b. Ms. Kilburn testified that Professor Comaroff kissed her at his home after a
brunch. Another witness corroborated Ms. Kilburn’s testimony, and ODR
admitted that the witness’s account was “credible” and “contemporaneous,”
because Ms. Kilburn had told her about the kiss “on the same day” it occurred.
Nonetheless, ODR rejected this corroborated testimony because Ms. Kilburn
could not recall against precisely which wall in the room Professor Comaroff
had assaulted her.
c. Ms. Kilburn and three other witnesses testified that Professor Comaroff groped
her thigh, but ODR rejected Ms. Kilburn’s testimony based primarily on a non-
existent “inconsistency” in her consistent statements about where Professor
Comaroff was sitting before he groped her.
d. Professor Harkness testified at Ms. Kilburn’s ODR proceeding that Ms. Kilburn
had complained to him and that Professor Comaroff has sexually harassed
students at UChicago. ODR ignored his testimony entirely.
143. In addition, ODR entirely failed to consider multiple incidents of harassment
against Ms. Kilburn, including Professor Comaroff’s repeated invitations to meet off campus, his
35
forbidding her from working with her advisor, and his efforts (after Ms. Kilburn’s clear and
repeated efforts to avoid him) to forcibly enter an enclosed space with her over her resistance.
ii. Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski’s Reports
144. ODR made no finding against Professor Comaroff on the central issue in Ms.
Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski’s cases: whether Professor Comaroff threatened them and other
students in retaliation for discussing his sexual misconduct. Instead, ODR’s finding in Ms.
Mandava’s case rested on its conclusion that Ms. Mandava had not engaged in protected activity.
To reach that conclusion, ODR ignored Ms. Mandava’s testimony (corroborated by
contemporaneous messages referencing the conversations at issue) that she had complained of
Professor Comaroff’s harassment to Professor Subramanian and to multiple students. It also
ignored her testimony that Professor Comaroff had told her he knew she had engaged in such
conversations, and that she confirmed his belief before he threatened her.
145. With respect to Ms. Czerwienski, ODR concluded that she “engaged in a protected
activity by ‘sharing with other students her knowledge of [Professor Comaroff’s] purported . . .
sexual harassment of’ [Harvard Student 2].” Still, ODR determined that Professor Comaroff did
not have “notice” that Ms. Czerwienski had engaged in protected activity. In doing so, ODR
ignored Ms. Czerwienski’s testimony that weeks before Professor Comaroff’s October 13, 2017
threat, Harvard Student 2 told Professor Comaroff that Ms. Czerwienski was discussing his
misconduct with other students. And ODR further ignored the testimony of three separate students
who (in ODR’s own words) “each understood the last student referenced by [Professor Comaroff]
in the October 13 conversation . . . was [Ms. Czerwienski].”
146. Moreover, ODR refused to consider any of Ms. Czerwienski’s written
communications with Harvard Student 2. These communications show Harvard Student 2 detailing
36
Professor Comaroff’s sexual harassment and reference Ms. Czerwienski’s discussions with other
students about his harassment. They further reflect that Harvard Student 2 told Professor Comaroff
about those discussions and notified him that Ms. Czerwienski engaged in protected activity.
iii. ODR Recommends No Discipline
147. Based on these and other inequities that permeated its blinkered investigation, ODR
did not recommend discipline for Professor Comaroff. Indeed, ODR proposed no action that would
prevent further harassment or retaliation against Plaintiffs, much less remedy the harm they had
suffered.
148. Ms. Mandava, Ms. Czerwienski, and Ms. Kilburn therefore appealed ODR’s
decisions. The University’s appellate panel, however, held to ODR’s determination and summarily
concluded that no “procedural violation occurred.” The Title IX Office subsequently informed
Plaintiffs that “[t]he findings and determinations reached in the course of [ODR’s] investigation
are . . . final and cannot be re-visited.”
149. Harvard’s position is therefore clear: it views ODR’s determination that Professor
Comaroff is not responsible for most of his sexual harassment against Ms. Kilburn and for his
retaliation against Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski as final and sound.
K. An External Review Confirms Ms. Mandava’s Claims
150. After ODR issued its Final Reports, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (“FAS”) (the
division of Harvard to which the Department belongs) conducted a review to determine whether
Professor Comaroff’s “corrective rape” discussion with Ms. Kilburn violated its Professional
Conduct Policy, and whether Professor Comaroff’s October 2017 threat to Ms. Mandava and Ms.
Czerwienski violated that policy. It appointed an external factfinder to review ODR’s Final Report
37
and record of investigation concerning Ms. Mandava’s case (i.e., the same evidence that ODR
reviewed).
151. In December 2021, the external factfinder concluded, based on this evidence, that,
on October 13, 2017, Professor Comaroff threatened Ms. Mandava to stop her from participating
in discussions about his sexual misconduct. The investigator found that his statements violated the
FAS Professional Conduct Policy.
L. Harvard Announces Inadequate and Temporary Sanctions for Professor Comaroff
152. On January 20, 2022—nearly five years after Ms. Mandava, Ms. Czerwienski, and
Harvard Student 2 began reporting Professor Comaroff’s sexual harassment, and over a decade
after Harvard first learned of the risk he posed to students—Dean of FAS Claudine Gay announced
limited findings and discipline against Professor Comaroff. Dean Gay wrote that after an
investigation by ODR and FAS, Professor Comaroff “was found to have engaged in verbal conduct
that violated the FAS Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment Policy and the FAS Professional
Conduct Policy.” She provided no further detail about his underlying conduct.
153. Harvard imposed limited, temporary sanctions on Professor Comaroff in response:
the FAS placed Professor Comaroff on leave for the spring 2022 semester and relieved him of
teaching required courses (but evidently not elective courses), from serving on dissertation
committees, and from advising graduate students who do not have at least one other co-advisor for
the 2022-2023 academic year. Harvard did not take any measures to prevent Professor Comaroff
or those in his network from engaging in further harassment or retaliation against Plaintiffs or other
students.21
21
Dean Gay’s statement further referred victims of harassment to Harvard’s Office of Sexual Assault
Prevention and Response, a Harvard program that has been defunct for over a year.
38
M. “Perfectly Legitimate Office-Hours Advice”: Harvard Exposes Plaintiffs to Further

Retaliation from the Comaroffs and Their Allies
154. Mere hours after Harvard released its statement, Professor Comaroff and his wife
resumed their campaign of retaliation. On January 20, 2022, Professor Jean Comaroff disseminated
a press release from Professor John Comaroff’s lawyers disparaging Plaintiffs. She sent the
message to a broad segment of the Comaroffs’ professional network, including former students,
Harvard faculty, and other Anthropology scholars with the power to influence Plaintiffs’ careers.
One of the recipients of Professor Jean Comaroff’s email was Ms. Czerwienski’s current advisor,
whom Ms. Czerwienski selected after she was forced to drop Jean Comaroff as an advisor, and
who is charged with determining whether Ms. Czerwienski will be awarded a Ph.D.
155. In her email, Professor Jean Comaroff thanked the recipients for their “support and
affirmation” during the ODR investigation and wrote that she was sharing the press release to
provide “the full context” behind Harvard’s findings, as she believed this case “speaks to social
and political conditions in the contemporary academy” with “serious professional implications for
the future.”
156. The statement Professor Jean Comaroff appended to her email—authored by
Professor John Comaroff’s lawyers—panned Plaintiffs’ opposition to sexual harassment as an
“attack on academic freedom.”
157. Harvard Law Professor Janet Halley joined in the press release’s attack. She
commented, “What this case boils down to: two students took offense at perfectly legitimate
office-hours advice” (emphasis added). She exhorted “[e]veryone who advises at Harvard” to
“note this attack on academic freedom.”
158. The press release and Professor Halley’s comment not only grossly
mischaracterized Professor Comaroff’s conduct—including his insistence to Ms. Kilburn that she
39
would be raped and murdered in a country irrelevant to her studies, his unwarranted physical
advances, and his threats against Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski for speaking out about his
sexual harassment—it also evinced a clear intent to discredit Plaintiffs and to dissuade students
from making complaints about similar harassment.
159. The Comaroffs’ efforts paid off. Within days, they convinced 38 faculty members
to sign a public letter that minimized Professor Comaroff’s abuse and misrepresented the few
factual findings ODR made. The letter falsely stated that Professor Comaroff had simply given
Ms. Kilburn “advice intended to protect an advisee from sexual violence”—even though (as ODR
credited) he had repeatedly described how Ms. Kilburn “would be raped” in a country far away
from the one she planned to study. The Harvard faculty members further dismissed the external
factfinder’s conclusions, questioning why the review was “justif[ied].” And they bemoaned that
Harvard would “sanction” a “committed university citizen” by investigating such complaints
against a faculty member they “know . . . to be an excellent colleague.” By signing the letter,
Harvard faculty further curtailed Plaintiffs’ narrowing universe of potential advisors: amongst the
signatories are Professor Greenhalgh, Professor Elkins, and dozens of other faculty members.
160. Both communications, distributed to academics with the power to influence
Plaintiffs’ careers, constitute textbook retaliation. Their message is clear: students who experience
harassment should shut up. It is the price to pay for entry into academia.
N. Harvard’s Unlawful Policies Underpin Its Deliberate Indifference
161. Plaintiffs’ odyssey of abuse was not accidental. It was, instead, the product of at
least five ongoing practices, the effects of which are now well known: to protect powerful faculty,
even at the expense of students.
40
162. First, Harvard does not investigate or otherwise act on credible reports of sexual
harassment unless the victim proceeds with a formal ODR complaint, even if Harvard has received
prior complaints against the same professor. Harvard maintains this policy despite a December 30,
2014 warning from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights that “if a recipient
knows . . . about sexual harassment that creates a hostile environment, a recipient must take
immediate and appropriate action to investigate or otherwise determine what occurred . . .
regardless of whether a student has complained, asked the recipient to take action, or identified the
harassment as a form of discrimination.”22 Harvard could respond to student complaints by
investigating their allegations or bringing its own formal complaint; but Harvard has repeatedly
chosen not to do so.
163. Second, ODR ordinarily does not credit women’s complaints unless they are
corroborated by independent evidence, no matter how credible the complainant’s testimony. Other
survivors have publicly attested that Harvard has “ignored some of the most egregious cases of
harm and sexual harassment that were brought to their office because of lack of documentary
evidence.”23 At one time, Harvard’s written procedures concerning complaints of sexual assault
explicitly provided that Harvard ordinarily would not consider a case unless allegations were
supported by “independent corroborating evidence.” Harvard has since removed that requirement
from its published procedures, but it has persisted in practice. There is a consensus among scholars
22
Letter from Joel J. Berner, Reg’l Dir., U.S. Dep’t of Educ., Off. for C.R., to Martha C. Minow, Dean,
Harvard L. Sch. 3-4 (Dec. 30, 2014); see also Dear Colleague Letter from Russlynn Ali, Assistant Sec’y
for C.R., U.S. Dep’t of Educ., Off. for C.R., to Title IX Coordinators 4 (Apr. 4, 2011) (same).
23
Ann Gibbons, Harvard Bans Former Anthropology Chair After Finding Persistent Sexual Harassment,
Science (June 10, 2021), https://www.science.org/content/article/harvard-bans-former-anthropology-
chair-after-finding-persistent-sexual-harassment.
41
that the archaic historical requirement of independent corroboration in cases of gender violence
(and sexual assault in particular) rests on biases against women as lacking credibility.
164. Third, even as Harvard requires corroboration, its rules sharply restrict the written
corroboration that complainants may offer. Even when a complainant has corroborating
communications, Harvard will not admit them unless both parties to the communication participate
in the proceeding and make themselves available for cross-examination. This rule arbitrarily
excludes (among other things) statements by witnesses who are dissuaded from participating in
the ODR process by well-grounded fears of repercussions—even direct threats by the accused
himself. For example, Professor Comaroff’s intimidation (including reading her complaint aloud
to her) and threats of retaliation deterred Harvard Student 2 from participating in the ODR process.
As a result, Harvard ignored Harvard Student 2’s contemporaneous written accounts of her abuse.
165. Fourth, as a matter of policy, Harvard does not take measures to protect students
from professional retaliation. Despite Plaintiffs’ repeated complaints and expressed concerns that
Professor Comaroff would damage their careers through contact with colleagues and former
students at other institutions, and despite reports that Professor Comaroff did so, Harvard has done
nothing to prevent him from disparaging Plaintiffs to prospective employers. Indeed, Harvard has
professed that it will do nothing to prevent this.
166. Fifth, Harvard failed to adequately train faculty in the Department to report sexual
harassment by faculty against students. Despite knowing that some faculty would be reluctant to
report misconduct committed by powerful senior faculty, and despite reports of sexual harassment
by faculty in the Department (including Professor Comaroff), Harvard took no known steps to
train or encourage faculty in the Department to make reports. As a result, faculty who knew of the
42
danger Professor Comaroff posed, dating back to his time at UChicago, did not timely report this
knowledge to Harvard’s Title IX Office, exposing Plaintiffs to abuse.
167. These shortcomings were not public and were not known to Plaintiffs as their ordeal
unfolded, but they were no mystery to Harvard. Harvard Professor Stephen Blyth wrote in a May
2018 letter to then-President Drew Faust that Harvard’s “current institutional structure may
actively discourage victims from pursuing complaints.”24 He explained that Harvard fails to instill
“confidence that perpetrators will, when appropriate, be removed from the University,” and
concluded, “Harvard has been an institution that does not act” (emphasis added).25 Similarly, in
2021, Harvard faculty sent a letter to Harvard complaining about the pervasive deficiencies in
ODR’s process. Indeed, Deputy Provost Peggy Newell and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts
and Sciences Emma Dench admitted flaws in Harvard’s ODR process to Plaintiffs. Dean Dench
acknowledged to Plaintiffs that the ODR process made students “go mad” because it left them “in
limbo forever,” and Deputy Provost Newell affirmed that Mr. Avakian has mishandled Plaintiffs’
complaints.
168. To date, however, Harvard has failed to correct these inequities. It has, to the
contrary, repeatedly resisted programmatic changes to the ODR process. Harvard’s Graduate
Student Union has suggested such changes. So have Plaintiffs. But Harvard persists in its archaic
policies and customs, maintaining a “culture in which the abuse of power is normalized and
accommodated.”26
24
Letter from Stephen Blyth, Professor, Harvard Univ., to Drew G. Faust, President, Harvard Univ. (May
7, 2018), https://www.bostonglobe.com/2019/05/24/read-
letter/h2qAM6WfEOWiRHQVmu0N2M/story.html?camp=bg%3Abrief%3Arss%3Afeedly&rss_id=feedl
y_rss_brief&s_campaign=bostonglobe%3Asocialflow%3Atwitter.
25
Id.
26
Harvard University Anthropology Department, Standing Committee for a Supportive Departmental
Community Final Report 10 (2021).
43
O. Harvard’s Deliberate Indifference Has Harmed and Continues to Harm Plaintiffs
169. Harvard’s failure to prevent and redress Professor Comaroff’s abuse and retaliation
has profoundly altered the academic trajectories and career prospects of Ms. Czerwienski, Ms.
Kilburn, and Ms. Mandava. It has also caused them significant emotional distress—emotional
distress that will continue for the foreseeable future.
170. All three Plaintiffs have been forced to delay their degree progress to participate in
ODR’s lengthy—and ultimately futile—process. They spent hundreds of hours marshalling
evidence, preparing submissions, and struggling to understand ODR’s arcane evidentiary rules,
taking valuable time from their studies, writing, and other academic work—only for Harvard to
refuse to acknowledge Professor Comaroff’s serial harassment and threats against students, just as
it has done for years. Learning and living with the reality that Harvard is, and has for years been,
willing to protect a serial harasser at the expense of their careers has taken a significant toll on
Plaintiffs.
171. This ordeal has made it impossible for Ms. Kilburn to proceed with her doctorate
as planned. As a fifth-year graduate student, she must form a dissertation committee consisting of
advisors and faculty with expertise in her area of study, but her geographical region is studied by
only three Harvard professors in her field: the Comaroffs and their former advisee, Professor Meiu.
Nor can Ms. Kilburn look outside the Department to Professor Geschiere, Professor Elkins, or Dr.
Cook, whom Professor Comaroff needlessly involved in her case. Ms. Kilburn must instead change
her course of study and build an entirely new professional network. These limitations are
profoundly damaging to Ms. Kilburn’s academic progress; it will be virtually impossible for her
to finish her doctorate within the planned seven-year timespan. If Ms. Kilburn is unable to find
44
new advisors and successfully develop a new field of expertise, she may be forced to leave
academia entirely, having wasted years of her life and vast financial and personal resources.
172. Ms. Czerwienski had to direct her course of study away from Professor Comaroff’s
regional expertise and sever her advising relationship with Professor Jean Comaroff. The effects
are far-reaching: Ms. Czerwienski’s current advisor was one of the recipients of Professor Jean
Comaroff’s retaliatory email. And a prominent anthropologist in Ms. Czerwienski’s subspeciality
derided Ms. Czerwienski and her co-complainants for their “Titld [sic] IX uptightness.”
173. Ms. Mandava had to change the focus of her dissertation away from Professor John
Comaroff’s subject matter expertise and has been unable to receive crucial letters of
recommendation from Professors Jean and John Comaroff.
174. Given Professor John Comaroff’s influence in the field and retaliation against them,
all three Plaintiffs face dismal job prospects upon completion of their degrees, which has caused
and will continue to cause irreparable damage to their earning potential.
175. In short, Harvard utterly failed Ms. Czerwienski, Ms. Kilburn, and Ms. Mandava,
just as it has failed Professor Comaroff’s many other victims.
176. By hiring and retaining Professor Comaroff—and by ignoring complaints about
him for years—Harvard recklessly disregarded the likelihood that its students would suffer serious
harm.
V. COUNTS
Count One
Violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972
Deliberate Indifference to Gender Discrimination and Hostile Educational Environment
(20 U.S.C. § 1681)
(On Behalf of All Plaintiffs)
45
177. Plaintiffs re-allege and incorporate by reference each and every allegation in each
and every aforementioned paragraph as if fully set forth herein.
178. This count is brought on behalf of all Plaintiffs.
179. Plaintiffs are enrolled at Harvard as graduate students.
180. At all times relevant to this action, Harvard has received, and continues to receive,
federal financial assistance.
181. Harvard has discriminated against Plaintiffs Czerwienski, Kilburn, and Mandava
by subjecting them, through deliberate indifference, to discrimination based on their gender,
including disparate treatment, retaliation, and a hostile environment that was sufficiently severe,
pervasive, and objectively offensive to interfere with their educational opportunities and deprive
them of the benefits of their educational programs. Relevant actions include, but are not limited
to:
a. In October 2017, Professor Comaroff retaliated against Ms. Mandava and Ms.
Czerwienski by threatening their careers because he believed they had reported and
would report his sexual harassment to other students and faculty, which is a
protected activity under Title IX.
b. From 2017 through 2022, Professors John and Jean Comaroff created a hostile
educational environment for Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski because of the
Comaroffs’ belief that Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski had reported Professor
Comaroff’s sexual harassment and later his retaliation to other students, to faculty,
and to Harvard. The Comaroffs’ retaliatory actions at this time included, but are not
limited to, threatening Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski’s careers and
disseminating disparaging and misleading statements about Plaintiffs.
c. From 2017 through 2021, Professor John Comaroff engaged in a pattern of sexual
harassment and retaliation against Ms. Kilburn, which created a hostile educational
environment.
d. In 2021, Professor Comaroff perpetuated the hostile environment by retaliating

against Ms. Kilburn for complaining about his harassment. His acts of retaliation
included, but are not limited to, baselessly naming prominent scholars in her field
as witnesses in Harvard’s ODR process.
46
e. In January 2022, Professors John and Jean Comaroff disseminated disparaging and
misleading statements about Plaintiffs in retaliation for Plaintiffs’ filing of
complaints of discrimination with Harvard’s ODR.
f. In February 2022, Professors John and Jean Comaroff and other Harvard faculty
retaliated against Plaintiffs by publishing a false or misleading statement that would
reasonably dissuade students from making complaints against faculty.
182. Before Professor Comaroff took these actions, appropriate persons at Harvard with
authority to implement corrective measures were on actual notice of the risk he posed to students.
Harvard knew that Professor Comaroff had sexually harassed and otherwise discriminated against
other students before he retaliated against Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski and before he
sexually harassed and retaliated against Ms. Kilburn. In addition, since 2017, Harvard has been on
actual notice of the hostile academic environment that Plaintiffs themselves have endured at
Harvard. Harvard has shown continued deliberate indifference to Professor Comaroff’s sexual
harassment and retaliation by tolerating, condoning, ratifying, and failing to take remedial action
to correct it.
183. Harvard has also maintained an official policy, custom, and/or practice of deliberate
indifference to a known overall risk of sexual harassment, retaliation, and gender-based disparate
treatment against graduate students in the Anthropology Department. Specifically, Harvard has
(among other things) failed to adequately train its employees to prevent, report, and correct sexual
harassment and retaliation and to address its effects; failed to adequately act on multiple reports of
sexual harassment and retaliation by multiple professors; maintained and enforced dispute
resolution policies and processes that cause Harvard officials to fail to act on reports of sexual
harassment and fail to deter systemic sexual harassment; and otherwise failed to implement
adequate procedures to detect, monitor, and correct sexual harassment and retaliation. Harvard’s
official policy of deliberate indifference to gender discrimination has systemically deprived
47
women and non-binary graduate students in the Department of benefits, privileges, and placement
services relative to men.
184. Harvard’s deliberate indifference to the known risk of sexual harassment and
retaliation that Professor Comaroff posed, its inadequate response to Plaintiffs’ complaints, and its
failure to correct pervasive issues of sexual harassment and discrimination in the Department have
themselves exacerbated the hostile environment that Plaintiffs experienced in the Department.
185. Through its deliberate indifference, Harvard has denied all three Plaintiffs their
rights to work and learn in an environment free of gender discrimination and associated retaliation.
Plaintiffs have suffered and will continue to suffer harm, including loss of future educational and
employment opportunities, humiliation, embarrassment, reputational harm, emotional and
physical distress, mental anguish, and other economic and non-economic damages.
186. Because of the continuous nature of Harvard’s unlawful conduct, Plaintiffs are
entitled to the application of the continuing violation doctrine to the unlawful acts alleged herein.
187. Because a reasonable person in each Plaintiff’s position would have first discovered
that Harvard’s unlawful practices and handling of prior complaints against professors in the
Anthropology Department were the probable cause of her injury within the applicable limitations
period, Plaintiffs are entitled to the application of the discovery rule to the unlawful acts alleged
herein.
188. Because Professor Comaroff threatened their careers if they spoke out about his
misconduct, because Harvard ratified that threat by failing to act on it, and because Professor
Comaroff’s threat induced Plaintiffs Mandava and Czerwienski to keep silent about his misconduct
until May 2019, equity estops Harvard from relying on the statute of limitations.
48
189. Plaintiffs are entitled to all legal and equitable remedies available for violations of
Title IX, including compensatory damages, injunctive relief, attorneys’ fees and costs, and other
appropriate relief.
Count Two
Retaliation
(20 U.S.C. § 1681)
194. In addition to discriminating against Plaintiffs through deliberate indifference to
the risk and reality of a sex-based hostile environment, Harvard discriminated against Plaintiffs
through its deliberate indifference to the retaliatory acts of its employees,27 including:
a. In October 2017, Professor Comaroff retaliated against Ms. Mandava and Ms.
Czerwienski by threatening their careers because he believed they had reported
and would report his sexual harassment to other students and faculty, which is
a protected activity under Title IX.
b. From 2017 through 2022, Professors John and Jean Comaroff created a hostile
educational environment for Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski based on the
Comaroffs’ belief that Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski had reported
Professor Comaroff’s sexual harassment and later his retaliation to other
students, to faculty, and to Harvard (a protected activity). This retaliation
includes, but is not limited to, threatening Ms. Mandava and Ms. Czerwienski’s
27
Plaintiffs assert Count Two (along with their other claims) in addition to and in the alternative to Count
One and maintain that retaliation for complaints of sexual harassment is a form of gender discrimination.
49
careers and disseminating disparaging and misleading statements about

Plaintiffs for having filed complaints of discrimination.
c. In 2021, Professor Comaroff perpetuated the hostile environment by retaliating

against Ms. Kilburn for complaining about his harassment (a protected activity),
including by baselessly naming prominent scholars in her field as witnesses in
the ODR proceedings in retaliation for her formal complaint.
d. In 2022, Professors John and Jean Comaroff and Professor Janet Halley
retaliated against Plaintiffs by disseminating a false or misleading statement
that would reasonably dissuade students from making complaints against
faculty.
e. In 2022, 38 Harvard faculty members retaliated against Plaintiffs by publishing

a false or misleading statement that would reasonably dissuade students from
making complaints against faculty (a protected activity).
195. Before Professor Comaroff and his allies took these actions, appropriate persons at
Harvard with authority to implement corrective measures were on actual notice of the risk they
posed to students. Harvard also knew that its policies, customs, and practices unreasonably
exposed students (including Plaintiffs) to retaliation. Harvard was further aware that from 2017
through 2020, the above retaliation continued to chill Plaintiffs’ opposition to Professor
Comaroff’s discrimination and continued to harm their education and careers. Nonetheless,
Harvard maintained a policy, custom, and practice of deliberate indifference to retaliation in its
educational programs leaving Plaintiffs vulnerable to it.
196. Harvard’s actions would dissuade a reasonable student from making or supporting
a charge of discrimination.
that Harvard’s unlawful polices were the probable cause of her injury within the applicable
limitations period, Plaintiffs are entitled to the application of the discovery rule.
50
199. Plaintiffs are entitled to all legal and equitable remedies available under Title IX,
including compensatory damages, injunctive relief, attorneys’ fees and costs, and other appropriate
relief.
Count Three
Gender Discrimination
(20 U.S.C. § 1681)
204. In addition to discriminating against Plaintiffs through deliberate indifference to
discrimination (including sexual harassment and retaliation) by its employees, Harvard has also
discriminated against all three Plaintiffs by subjecting them to disparate treatment based on gender
and gender-based bias or animus. Specifically, Harvard maintains official policies, procedures,
and customs applicable to cases of sexual and gender-based harassment and retaliation based on
bias against women, against students who complain about gender-based harassment and
retaliation, and/or in favor of men. As a result, Harvard deprived Plaintiffs of the benefits of its
educational programs and subjected them to discrimination based on their gender.
205. Harvard’s differential treatment of Plaintiffs is a direct and proximate result of
gender discrimination.
51
206. Harvard has failed to prevent, respond to, adequately investigate, and/or
appropriately resolve instances of gender discrimination.
207. Because of Harvard’s continuous unlawful conduct, Plaintiffs have suffered and
will continue to suffer harm, including, but not limited to, loss of future educational and
employment opportunities, humiliation, embarrassment, reputational harm, emotional and
physical distress, mental anguish, and other economic damages and non-economic damages.
that Harvard’s unlawful polices were the probable cause of her injury within the applicable
limitations period, Plaintiffs are entitled to the application of the discovery rule.
210. Plaintiffs are entitled to all legal and equitable remedies available for violations of
Title IX, including compensatory damages, injunctive relief, attorneys’ fees and costs, and other
appropriate relief.
Count Four
Violation of the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act
(Mass. Gen. Laws Chapter 12, § 11I)
214. At all times relevant to this action, Harvard was an educational institution and has
received, and continues to receive, federal financial assistance.
52
215. The Massachusetts Civil Rights Act (“MCRA”) forbids efforts to “interfere” or
“attempt to interfere by threats, intimidation or coercion” with another person’s “exercise or
enjoyment” of any “rights secured by the constitution or laws of the United States, or of rights
secured by the constitution or laws of the commonwealth” of Massachusetts. Mass. Gen. Laws ch.
12, § 11H(a)(1). The act gives any person aggrieved by a violation the right to bring an action for
equitable relief and money damages. Id. § 11I.
216. Professor Comaroff subjected Ms. Kilburn to a pattern of gender-based harassment
and assault continuing from 2017 until at least April 2019 using threats, intimidation, and coercion.
217. Professor Comaroff also threatened, intimidated, and coerced Plaintiffs for
speaking about and opposing his sexual harassment and discrimination with the goal of inducing
them to stop their speech and opposition to his sexual harassment and gender discrimination, all
in violation of federal and state law. Relevant acts included, but are not limited to, the following:
a. In October 2017, Professor Comaroff threatened the careers of Ms. Mandava

and Ms. Czerwienski because he believed they had reported and would report
his sexual harassment to other students and faculty, which is a protected activity
under Title IX.
b. From 2020 to 2022, Professor Comaroff disclosed Ms. Kilburn’s allegations to

faculty members in her field and enlisted them as witnesses.
c. In 2022, Professors John and Jean Comaroff and Professor Janet Halley
disseminated an email disparaging Plaintiffs to other faculty with the power to
influence Plaintiffs’ careers.
d. In 2022, 38 Harvard faculty members published a false or misleading statement

that would reasonably dissuade students from making complaints against
faculty.
218. In doing so, Professor John Comaroff, Professor Jean Comaroff, Professor Halley,
and other Harvard faculty interfered and/or attempted to interfere by threats, intimidation, or
coercion with Plaintiffs’ rights under federal and Massachusetts law, including:
53
a. The right to be free of actions by an educational institution that “discriminate

[on the basis of sex] against any student admitted to” a graduate “program or
course of study in providing benefits, privileges and placement services,” Mass.
Gen. Laws ch. 151C § 2(d);
b. The right not to “be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of,
or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity
receiving Federal financial assistance” under Title IX, 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a); and
c. The right to “equality under the law” and freedom from discrimination on the
grounds of sex, guaranteed by Article 1 of the Massachusetts Constitution.
219. Harvard is vicariously liable for the actions of its faculty in violation of the MCRA
because Harvard employees took those actions within the scope of their employment.
220. The above-alleged threats, intimidation, and coercion in violation of the MCRA
upended Plaintiffs’ academic careers and caused and continue to cause them emotional,
reputational, and economic harm, for which they are entitled to damages, including punitive
damages, and equitable relief.
Count Five
Sexual Harassment Under Massachusetts Law
(Violation of Mass. Gen. Laws Chapters 214 § 1C)
(On Behalf of Plaintiff Kilburn)
222. This count is brought on behalf of Plaintiff Kilburn.
223. Plaintiff Kilburn is enrolled at Harvard as a graduate student.
224. At all times relevant to this action, Harvard was an educational institution and has
received, and continues to receive, federal financial assistance.
225. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151C § 2(g) prohibits an educational institution from sexually
harassing students in any program or course of study.
54
226. From 2017 to 2019, Professor Comaroff made sexual advances on Ms. Kilburn and
engaged in verbal and physical conduct of a sexual nature.
227. Ms. Kilburn understood that Professor Comaroff’s conduct was a term or condition
of the benefits, privileges, or placement services of her program and influenced the evaluation of
academic achievement.
228. Professor Comaroff’s sexual harassment unreasonably interfered with Ms.
Kilburn’s education by creating an intimidating, hostile, humiliating or sexually offensive
educational environment.
229. Harvard is strictly liable for Professor Comaroff’s sexual harassment of Ms.
Kilburn.
230. Professor Comaroff’s harassment inflicted injuries and threatens future injuries for
which Harvard is liable for damages, including punitive damages, and appropriate equitable relief
under Massachusetts law.
Count Six
Violation of the Massachusetts Equal Rights Act
(Mass. Gen. Laws Chapter 93, § 102)
233. The Massachusetts Equal Rights Act (“MERA”) guarantees “[a]ll persons within
the commonwealth” the “same rights enjoyed by white male citizens” to “make and enforce
contracts” and “to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons
and property.” Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 93, § 102.
55
234. As alleged in Count Eight, Plaintiffs made a contract with Harvard to provide them
with graduate education free from gender discrimination and retaliation, in exchange for their
matriculation, labor, tuition payments, and fees, among other things.
235. By subjecting Ms. Kilburn to a pattern of gender discrimination, including gender-
based harassment, by subjecting all Plaintiffs to retaliation in their graduate program, and by
creating an unequal and hostile educational environment, Harvard, Professor Comaroff (acting
within the scope of his employment), and other Harvard faculty members deprived Plaintiffs of
the benefits of their contracts with Harvard and the full and equal benefit of state and federal law,
including Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151C § 2(d), Title IX, 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a), and the Massachusetts
Constitution, based on their gender.
236. In doing so, Harvard acted knowingly and with reckless indifference to Plaintiffs’
rights.
237. Harvard is vicariously liable for the actions of its faculty in violation of the MERA
because Harvard faculty took those actions within the scope of their employment.
238. Plaintiffs are therefore entitled to all legal and equitable remedies available under
the MERA, including compensatory and punitive damages, injunctive relief, attorneys’ fees and
costs, and other appropriate relief.
Count Seven
Negligent Hiring and Supervision
(Massachusetts Common Law)

56
241. Upon information and belief, at all times relevant to this action, Professor Comaroff
was an agent of and employed by Harvard.
242. Harvard owed Plaintiffs a duty of care to avoid selecting a professor it knew or had
reason to know posed a significant risk of harm to students and to take reasonable measures to
protect Plaintiffs from sexual harassment and retaliation by its employees.
243. Harvard knew or should have known that Professor Comaroff posed a risk to and
was unfit to work with, exercise influence over, or supervise women students. Harvard, however,
failed to exercise due care in hiring Professor Comaroff and in retaining him in a position of access,
influence, and authority over women students without adequate training or supervision.
244. As a direct and proximate result of Harvard’s breach of its duty of care, Plaintiffs
were subjected to sexual harassment and retaliation by Professor Comaroff.
245. Plaintiffs suffered damages and injuries for which Harvard is liable under state law.
Count Eight
Breach of Contract
248. Harvard represents that it has a broad sexual misconduct policy and that it takes
active measures to prevent and punish sexual harassment and assault. For example, Harvard’s
Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment Policy, applicable to conduct occurring between September
1, 2014 and August 14, 2020, states:
Harvard University is committed to maintaining a safe and healthy educational and

work environment in which no member of the University community is, on the
57
basis of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity, excluded from participation in,
denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination in any University program or
activity. Gender-based and sexual harassment, including sexual violence, are forms
of sex discrimination in that they deny or limit an individual’s ability to participate
in or benefit from University programs or activities.
...
Retaliation against an individual for raising an allegation of sexual or gender-based
harassment, for cooperating in an investigation of such a complaint, or for opposing
discriminatory practices is prohibited.
249. Harvard’s Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment Policy also promises that Harvard
will “prevent incidents of sexual and gender-based harassment from denying or limiting an
individual’s ability to participate in or benefit from the University’s programs.” It commits that
Harvard will “provide prompt and equitable methods of investigation and resolution to stop
discrimination, remedy any harm, and prevent its recurrence.”
250. Harvard’s Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment Policy also gives Harvard “an
obligation to keep the community safe and to address incidents of alleged harassment that it knows
about or reasonably should know about.” Harvard’s FAQs Concerning the Harvard University
Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment Policy and Procedures No. 12.
251. Similarly, Harvard’s Interim Title IX Sexual Harassment Policy, applicable to
conduct occurring on or after August 14, 2020, promises that the University will “respond
promptly and equitably to sexual harassment in a manner that is not deliberately indifferent” and
“prevent incidents of sexual harassment from denying or limiting an individual’s ability to
participate in or benefit from the University’s programs or activities.”
252. Further, under Harvard’s Interim Other Sexual Misconduct Policy, applicable to
conduct occurring on or after August 14, 2020, the University will “respond promptly and
equitably to allegations of other sexual misconduct.”
58
253. Harvard’s Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment Policy and Procedures for the
Faculty of Arts and Sciences, applicable to conduct occurring between September 1, 2014 and
August 14, 2020, specifically charges the FAS with “maintaining a safe and healthy educational
and work environment in which no member of the community is excluded from participation in,
denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination in any University program or activity on the
basis of sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity.” And Harvard’s Interim Policies and
Procedures Addressing Title IX Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment and Other Sexual
Misconduct for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, applicable to conduct occurring on or after
August 14, 2020, similarly charge the FAS with “maintaining a safe and healthy educational and
work environment in which no member of the community is, on the basis of sex, including sexual
orientation or gender identity, excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected
to discrimination in any University program or activity.” Harvard’s FAS Professional Conduct
Policy also provides that “[f]aculty must comply with all applicable laws, rules, regulations, and
professional standards including FAS policies and practices; this includes, but is not limited to,
policies regarding discrimination and sexual and gender-based harassment” and that “[n]on-
compliance . . . could result in varying sanctions.”
254. Harvard’s Whistleblowing Policy further provides that “[t]he University will
protect from retaliation members of the Harvard community who make good faith reports of
suspected violations of the law or University policy.”
255. Similarly, Harvard’s Non-Retaliation Policy provides that “[t]he University
expressly forbids anyone to take any form of retaliatory action against any member of the Harvard
community who in good faith voices concerns, seeks advice, files a complaint or grievance, seeks
the aid of Human Resources, testifies or participates in investigations, compliance reviews,
59
proceedings or hearings, or opposes actual or perceived violations of Harvard University’s policy
or unlawful acts” and further promises that “retaliation will not be tolerated.”
256. These promises are part of the contract that Harvard makes with its students in
exchange for their matriculation, labor, tuition payments, and fees.
257. Plaintiffs performed under this contract. Harvard did not. Harvard permitted
Professor Comaroff to sexually harass Ms. Kilburn and to retaliate against all three Plaintiffs.
Harvard failed to take effective measures to “prevent incidents of sexual and gender-based
harassment” and to “protect” Plaintiffs from retaliation. Indeed, contrary to Harvard’s policy,
Harvard has tolerated a sexually hostile environment within its Anthropology Department and
failed to provide Plaintiffs with methods of investigation that were prompt and equitable or
designed to stop discrimination, remedy any harm, and prevent its recurrence. Harvard thus failed
to meet Plaintiffs’ reasonable expectations of the equal educational benefits to which they are
entitled under Harvard’s policies.
258. Harvard’s breaches of contract have caused Plaintiffs substantial economic
damages, including lost future earnings, among other injuries, for which Plaintiffs are entitled to
monetary damages and appropriate equitable relief.
Count Nine
Breach of the Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing
60
261. All contracts in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts contain an implied covenant
of good faith and fair dealing, including the contract between Harvard and Plaintiffs. This implied
covenant prohibits actions that will have the effect of destroying or injuring the rights of the other
party to receive the fruits of the contract.
262. Harvard’s multiple Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment Policies, FAS
Professional Conduct Policy, Whistleblowing Policy, Non-Retaliation Policy, and other materials
applicable to students all contain promises to Plaintiffs that are part of binding contracts between
Harvard and Plaintiffs Czerwienski, Kilburn, and Mandava.
263. Harvard violated the reasonable expectations of Plaintiffs under these contracts.
264. Harvard breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing by
maintaining an investigatory and dispute resolution process that is inadequate to effectively
remedy sexual harassment and retaliation against students, by failing to take the steps necessary to
prevent and correct the rampant sexual misconduct and retaliation committed by Professor
Comaroff, by failing to provide Plaintiffs with a complaint process that comports with basic
fairness, and by turning a blind eye to the hostile environment and unequal access to education
afforded to Plaintiffs based on their gender. These acts and omissions have injured the rights of
Plaintiffs to receive the benefits of their contracts with Harvard.
265. Upon information and belief, Harvard’s actions as alleged herein were performed
in bad faith, in that the purpose behind Harvard’s practices and policies was to facilitate the evasion
of Harvard’s obligations to address sexual misconduct and discrimination associated with
Professor Comaroff. Furthermore, upon information and belief, Harvard’s actions as alleged herein
were performed in bad faith in that Harvard deliberately refused to investigate informal complaints
of harassment against professors in the Anthropology Department, knowing full well that few, if
61
any, students would file formal complaints with ODR and that ODR investigations rarely result in
sanctions against professors. Upon information and belief, ODR has published misleading
statistics regarding the duration of its investigations, inducing participants to believe that ODR
investigations are significantly shorter than they are.
266. Plaintiffs have been damaged by Harvard’s breach of the implied covenant of good
faith and fair dealing.
Count Ten
Inducing Breach of Fiduciary Duty and Invasion of Privacy
(Massachusetts Common Law and Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 214, § 1B)
(On Behalf of Plaintiff Kilburn)
268. This count is brought on behalf of Plaintiff Kilburn.
269. From 2018 to 2019, Plaintiff Kilburn received treatment from a licensed therapist.
270. Under Massachusetts law, it is a breach of fiduciary duty for a healthcare provider
to disclose medical information about the patient without the patient’s consent.
271. A healthcare provider’s unauthorized disclosure of private medical information is
also an invasion of privacy actionable under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 214, § 1B.
272. Federal regulation 45 C.F.R. § 164.508 at all relevant times prohibited the release
of Ms. Kilburn’s medical records to Harvard without her specific, written, and signed
authorization.
273. A third party who induces a healthcare provider to disclose information that the
third party knew or should have known was confidential is liable to the patient for the damages
that flow from that disclosure.
62
274. Plaintiff Kilburn’s therapist possessed medical records that contain confidential
information communicated during private therapy sessions for the purpose of therapeutic
treatment. Plaintiff Kilburn reasonably expected that the information would be kept confidential.
275. Plaintiff Kilburn did not authorize Harvard to obtain her psychotherapy notes or to
disclose them to others.
276. Harvard knew or should have known of the existence of the physician-patient
relationship between Ms. Kilburn and her therapist.
277. Harvard intended to induce Ms. Kilburn’s therapist to disclose Ms. Kilburn’s
psychotherapy notes or Harvard reasonably should have anticipated that its actions would induce
Ms. Kilburn’s therapist to disclose Ms. Kilburn’s psychotherapy notes.
278. During its ODR investigation, Harvard obtained, used, discussed, and disclosed
Plaintiff Kilburn’s confidential psychotherapy records to multiple people, including, but not
limited to, Professor Comaroff, his lawyers (one of whom is a Harvard faculty member), several
faculty members on Harvard’s appeal committee, members of the Office for Gender Equity, Title
IX coordinators, and deans.
279. Harvard did not reasonably believe that Ms. Kilburn’s therapist could disclose that
information to Harvard without violating the duty of confidentiality that the therapist owed Ms.
Kilburn.
280. By inducing Plaintiff Kilburn’s therapist to disclose Plaintiff Kilburn’s medical
records without her consent, Harvard induced a breach of fiduciary duty and invasion of privacy
under Massachusetts law.
281. Harvard persisted in this course despite a request from Ms. Kilburn that Harvard
limit access to her confidential medical information. Specifically, on or about September 28, 2021,
63
Ms. Kilburn’s counsel requested that Harvard not further disclose her medical records; inform her
of individuals who have received a copy of her medical records; and instruct these individuals to
turn over the records to Harvard’s general counsel’s office without retaining copies. Despite
affirmative notice that Ms. Kilburn did not consent to Harvard’s continued use and disclosure of
her medical records, Harvard rejected these requests.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
Wherefore, Plaintiffs request the following relief:
a. A declaratory judgment that Harvard’s policies, practices and/or procedures
challenged herein are illegal and in violation of the rights of Plaintiffs under, inter
alia, Title IX and the applicable Massachusetts state laws and doctrines set forth
above;
b. A permanent injunction against Harvard and its officers, owners, agents,
successors, employees and/or representatives, and any and all persons acting in
concert with them, from engaging in any further unlawful practices, policies,
customs, and usages as set forth herein;
c. An award of damages to Plaintiffs, including compensatory damages and punitive
damages, in an amount to be determined at trial;
d. An award of litigation costs and expenses, including reasonable attorneys’ fees;
e. An award of pre-judgment and post-judgment interest available under law; and
f. Such other and further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.
DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL
Plaintiffs demand a trial by jury of all issues triable of right to a jury.
64
Dated: February 8, 2022 Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Sean Ouellette

Sean Ouellette (BBO# 697559)
SANFORD HEISLER SHARP, LLP
700 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20003
Telephone: (202) 499-5200
souellette@sanfordheisler.com
-- and --
Russell Kornblith (pro hac vice forthcoming)

Carolin Guentert (pro hac vice forthcoming)
SANFORD HEISLER SHARP, LLP
1350 Avenue of the Americas, 31st Floor
New York, New York 10019
Telephone: (646) 402-5650
rkornblith@sanfordheisler.com
cguentert@sanfordheisler.com
Attorneys for Plaintiffs
65

Czerwienski Et Al. v. Harvard University

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Czerwienski Et Al. v. Harvard University

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Czerwienski Et Al. v. Harvard University

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What allegations are made against Professor Comaroff and Harvard?

What allegations are made against Professor Comaroff and Harvard?

What did the committee tasked with examining the climate within Harvard's Anthropology Department conclude?

What did the committee tasked with examining the climate within Harvard's Anthropology Department conclude?

Case 1:22-cv-10202 Document 1 Filed 02/08/22 Page 1 of 65

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND THE JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

COMPLAINT AND DEMAND FOR JURY TRIAL

abuse and career-ending retaliation. Harvard Anthropology Professor John Comaroff1 is a

Amulya Mandava, three graduate students in Harvard’s Anthropology Department (the

2. Harvard’s deliberate indifference allowed Professor Comaroff to repeatedly and

plagued by a “longstanding pattern of sexism, misogyny, and sexual and gender-based

which the abuse of power is normalized and accommodated.”4

that has defined their time at Harvard.6

maintained that reputation by recruiting the world’s foremost scholars.

6. John Comaroff, Harvard Professor of Anthropology and of African and African

colonialism and postcolonialism, and historical anthropology. He wields extraordinary power

through a sprawling professional network, having mentored generations of tenured professors

considering Professor Comaroff’s candidacy. But Harvard welcomed him anyway.

offensive—even violent—sexual comments by Professor Comaroff.

9. Plaintiffs were among those complainants. In spring 2017, Plaintiffs Margaret

10. Harvard’s deliberate indifference to these complaints enabled retaliation by

his threats or targeting others.

with her other advisor.

its reputation to protect, did Harvard launch an investigation.

14. But Harvard’s investigation only exacerbated Plaintiffs’ nightmare. Harvard

on academic freedom.” Professor Comaroff’s wife, Professor Jean Comaroff, promptly

later, 38 Harvard faculty members—including faculty currently supervising Plaintiffs’ studies—

16. Harvard’s deliberate indifference to this pattern of retaliation has upended

17. Harvard’s continued failure to act on repeated reports of harassment against

Professor Comaroff—until spurred to do so by the media—demonstrates an institutional policy of

19. PLAINTIFF MARGARET CZERWIENSKI is a natural person, and, at all

Harvard’s offer—turning down opportunities from other universities—because Professor John

21. PLAINTIFF AMULYA MANDAVA is a natural person, and, at all relevant

22. DEFENDANT HARVARD UNIVERSITY AND THE PRESIDENT AND

FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE is a non-profit corporation organized and existing

Hall, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138.

III. JURISDICTION AND VENUE

has supplemental jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367.

claims occurred in this District.

IV. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS

A. Professor Comaroff Harassed Students for Years Before Coming to Harvard

about his behavior.

27. In or around 1979, immediately after Professor Comaroff began teaching at

Student 1—once a promising anthropology student—was so disturbed by her experience with

he had sent her.

29. In 2007, on information and belief, Professor Comaroff initiated a sexual

to damage her career.

to start in 2012. It hired him anyway.10

Comaroff, or at least managed his interactions with students—about Professor Comaroff’s

Comaroff or implemented safeguards—and protected Harvard’s students. Instead, Harvard

empowered Professor Comaroff.

IX complaints, he described Professor Comaroff to Ms. Kilburn as a “groomer” and “predator.”

the Department of Anthropology and the Department of AAAS. It implemented no safeguards on

his contact with students.

C. Professor Comaroff Sexually Harasses Students at Harvard

36. The results of Harvard’s inaction were predictable.

meetings—and kissed her on the cheek.

40. Finally, at a meeting in his office, Harvard Student 2 confronted Professor