Sexual assaulter Peter Rathjen, the fired former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Adelaide, is back in Australian news.
A former employee at the University of Tasmania, where Rathjen was an official before going to Adelaide, has sued him and the university.
It seems long ago and a different life when I was reporting on Balter’s Blog about the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Adelaide, Peter Rathjen, and the numerous charges of sexual assault and harassment that led to his termination by the university. Readers of those posts from four years ago may recall that it was my reporting on Rathjen that eventually led Australian investigators to delve into his serious misconduct.
I was in the middle of my most active #MeToo reporting phase then, a period that began in 2015 while I was still at Science magazine and has never really stopped, even if I have taken on few new investigations since launching a newsletter for my Hudson Valley village last year.
But some past accusations at the University of Tasmania, where Rathjen was Vice-Chancellor before moving to Adelaide, have come back to haunt him and the university itself. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is now reporting that a former University of Tasmania employee has sued both Rathjen and the university, the latter for failing to provide a safe working environment.
According to the report (quoted here at length because the ABC often puts its stories behind a paywall:)
“The employee is seeking damages for psychological injury, aggravated damages and exemplary damages due to alleged assaults and sexual harassment by Professor Rathjen.
In a statement of claim filed with the Supreme Court in Hobart in November 2023, the staff member claims Professor Rathjen hugged her and grabbed her on her bottom at a university event in 2016, grabbed her on her bottom at a lecture in 2017 and grabbed her on her bottom and breast at a function at his home in 2017.
According to the statement of claim, she alleges all of that contact was without her consent.
The woman is also suing the university, claiming UTAS is vicariously liable for Professor Rathjen's alleged assaults and harassment because it failed to perform due diligence when hiring him, failed to adequately enforce sexual harassment policies, failed to maintain a safe work environment and failed to protect her from assaults and harassment.
In documents provided to the ABC by the Supreme Court, she claims the university appointed an investigator to look into complaints of misconduct against Professor Rathjen but then undermined the investigation by "cultivating a culture of contempt" for the investigator and process.
In the court documents she claims UTAS failed to provide adequate support when she indicated she wanted to make a complaint about Professor Rathjen, and actively dissuaded her from doing so.”
The university is denying that it had anything to do with Rathjen’s conduct or was responsible for preventing it, and also argues that the lawsuit was filed past the deadline for doing so.
Via Google Alerts I receive all news reports about Rathjen (and many other miscreants) and I expect that my many sources in Australia will also keep me posted on developments. I am told that my reporting on Rathjen, as well as on fired University of Adelaide ancient DNA researcher Alan Cooper and others, made a big difference in Australian science, and I am grateful to all the sources in Australia who helped with it—and happy for the victims who may have finally got some kind of justice.
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I don't know about Australian English, but in at least one version of British English (as spoken by a British friend of mine), "bottom" has a more extensive meaning than it does in American English (as spoken by me): in AmEng it's a synonym for "rear end"; in my friend's BrEng it covers both one's "back bottom"="rear end" and one's "front bottom".