T. Florian Jaeger, the professor accused in the sexual harassment complaint against UR that has consumed campus, will no longer teach his undergraduate class.
Jaeger told his students in an email Tuesday that he had spoken to the University about “how to best proceed” and that another instructor would be taking over his BCS 152 class, “Language and Psycholinguistics.”
The class was slated to be cancelled the next day.
“I understand and support your desire to join the fight against sexual discrimination and harassment,” Jaeger wrote. “I have read comments online, and while many of them are personally painful for me to read (as most of these comments do not grant me ‘presumption of innocence,’ to put it mildly), I am glad that there is now generally so much support for people who speak up against discrimination. I feel that this is a huge achievement, because that was not always the case.”
Jaeger said he plans to respond in more detail to the allegations at a later time.
The email came as students, faculty, and others were filling up Feldman Ballroom for University President Joel Seligman’s anticipated town hall. Much of campus and the alumni community had been mobilizing over the weekend to protest the administration’s handling of the investigation into Jaeger’s harassment, which came to light in a Friday media report. Most prominent — and covered in several national media outlets — is the story of Professor Celeste Kidd, who says Jaeger sexually harassed her for years while she studied under him and, later, worked as his colleague in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department.
The complaint against UR, filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, was filed by seven former and current faculty members, including two former chairs of the BCS Department, and a former graduate student.
Jaeger sent his email the day before a planned protest of his class.
This article will be updated with more information.
