by Dean Saitta, Professor of Anthropology and President, DU Chapter AAUP
In the last two weeks the Arthur Gilbert sexual harassment case has blown wide open. An article by Peter Schmidt appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education. A piece by Peter Bonilla was posted to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) website. A column by Vincent Carroll appeared in The Denver Post. All focus on the issue of whether Professor Gilbert’s due process rights were respected in the run-up to his being removed from the classroom, suspended from campus, investigated by authorities, branded as a sexual harasser, and sentenced to sexual harassment re-education. Much less was said, even in official case review circles, about whether Professor Gilbert’s classroom speech was justified by academic context and thus protected by academic freedom.
Our campus AAUP chapter expressed concern about the due process and academic freedom dimensions of this case when it first broke last spring. We worried about the consequences for all DU faculty—especially contingent faculty, given their much greater vulnerability—if Professor Gilbert is wrongly busted for justifiable classroom speech. Combining what I now know about this case with what I knew going in, I believe that Professor Gilbert was unfairly charged with sexual harassment and, based on the available evidence, did not even come close to crossing the line of protected academic speech. Professor Gilbert should be fully exonerated of the charges against him and fully restored to his teaching position in the Korbel School of International Studies. It remains to be seen, however, whether the judgment against him will be vacated by DU administrators as requested by FIRE in a letter sent to Chancellor Coombe.
