Last weekend, Tamar Lewin wrote about a sexual harassment case at Yale University that had been unfolding for nearly five years without much public notice. The case centers around a former chief of cardiology who professed love for a young Italian researcher at the Yale School of Medicine.
As Ms. Lewin reported, The Times obtained documents pertaining to the case, and, apparently faced with unwelcome revelations, the university promptly announced that the doctor would not be returning to his post.
Here is a quick taste of the story behind the story:
Back in June when I got an email asking if I’d like to write about a tangled case of sexual harassment by a section chief at the Yale medical school, I took the idea to the national editor, Alison Mitchell, who said, “Great, can you write it next week?”
Hah! Although the outline was clear from the first email, it took four months to find people who would talk on the record and give me the documents I needed — painstakingly retyped and sent through untraceable channels, with no letterhead, no names, no identifying marks. Even the most accomplished senior faculty members worried that speaking out might bring retaliation from a dean who had just been reappointed to a five-year term.
The case started in the medical school, but reached up to the highest levels of the university. The bare bones: The chief of cardiology, Michael Simons made unwelcome advances — including a florid love letter — to a postdoctoral researcher, and when rebuffed, began deriding her husband, also a cardiologist. A university-wide committee heard all the evidence and recommended, twice, that Dr. Simons be permanently removed from his post and barred for five years from any other leadership positions. But the provost did not follow those recommendations, which were confidential. Instead, he left Dr. Simons in two high posts, and, with no public hint of any wrongdoing, announced that Dr. Simons would step down as cardiology chief for 18 months and return in June.
Many faculty women, who saw the reduced penalty as confirmation of a pervasive bias against women, took their complaints about Dr. Simons’s expected return to the university president. So they were disheartened when the president reappointed the dean to a new term.
It was a delicate story to write — especially since some of the most damning facts could not be included in the story, because they were known to so few people that it would be clear who had breached confidentiality.
But while the early reporting was slow, the end came fast. I sent three people a Friday afternoon email saying I was going to write about the case and asking for comment. The email had one crucial sentence: “I have all the documents.” I never heard back from any of them, but they apparently forwarded the email, immediately, to the powers that be. And on Monday morning, the chief of medicine announced that Dr. Simons had “decided not to return.”