Letter Calls for Comaroff’s AAAS Removal

harassment and professional conduct policies.

BY ELIAS J. SCHISGALL AND DARLEY A.C. BOIT CRIMSON STAFF WRITERS

More than 70 Harvard students and three student groups called on the American Academy of Arts and Sciences to review Harvard professor John L. Comaroff’s membership in an open letter to the organization Saturday.

“Membership in the Academy of Arts and Sciences is a rare honor,” the letter states. “Professor John Comaroff’s repeated

The letter points to the Academy’s rules stating a professor may be removed from the academy following an “institutional triggering event,” meaning “the individual’s employer or a reputable third party” took action against the scholar in question, arguing Gay’s sanctions on Comaroff constituted a triggering event. “Per AAAS procedures, wherein Harvard’s finding of culpability should trigger an automatic investigation by the Academy, we call for the Board and Membership Committee to take appropriate action quickly and transparently,” the letter reads. The letter also references a federal lawsuit against Harvard assaults on academic freedom, intellectual vitality, and a safe learning environment mean that he has failed to live up to the values and expectations of this position.”

Comaroff, a professor of African and African American Studies and Anthropology, was placed on unpaid administrative leave by Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Claudine Gay in 2022 after two University investigations found Comaroff in violation of the school’s sexual filed by three female graduate Anthropology students claiming the University ignored years of harassment allegations against the professor. Referring to accounts of harassment in the suit, which is awaiting trial, the letter states that “harassing or assaulting students represents a significant disruption to their education and freedom of inquiry.”

Comaroff’s lawyers have consistently denied all allegations of sexual harassment and profes- sional retaliation.

“The letter to AAAS is another publicity stunt in a relentless campaign by a small group of protestors to smear Professor John Comaroff,” wrote Comaroff’s attorneys, Harvard Law School professor Janet E. Halley, Ruth K. O’Meara-Costello ’02, and Norman S. Zalkind.

“This campaign against Professor Comaroff, which eschews fairness and due process, is based on allegations that have been either rejected in a full investigation or that are complete -