Richard Ned Lebow of King’s College London
Richard Ned Lebow, a professor of international political theory at King's College London, responded by saying he would meet with his lawyer on Thursday and expects to file a defamation lawsuit. Lebow, who had threatened to sue the association unless it found in his favor, did not immediately respond to a question about who exactly he'd sue.
The association's lawyer, in a letter dated Tuesday, relayed its decision that no steps would be taken against Lebow if he offered an "unequivocal apology" to Simona Sharoni, a professor of women's and gender studies at Merrimack College who filed a complaint about the incident.
If he does not apologize, the letter said, the association will issue a formal, private letter of reprimand.
In an email to The Chronicle on Wednesday, Lebow made it clear he had no intention of apologizing.
The incident that sparked the uproar happened in April in a crowded elevator during the association's annual conference at a Hilton in San Francisco. Sharoni said she had offered to press the buttons for the floors where the elevator's occupants, who she said were mostly male conference attendees, wanted to get off.
Simona Sharoni of Merrimack College
When he learned she was upset, he said, he tried to resolve the dispute informally, as he believes the association's conduct code encourages. He wrote Sharoni an email saying he wasn't trying to make her uncomfortable or to insult women. He suggested that Sharoni, who was born in Romania and raised in Israel, might have misconstrued his remark. And he said that it was a "standard gag line" when he was growing up, in the 1950s, to pretend to be in a department store and ask the elevator operator for the hardware or lingerie department.
In an email after the uproar began, he told The Chronicle that Sharoni was "trying to impose her definition on my words, take needless offense, and use it as an excuse to make a complaint and put a chill on free speech and humor."
In a letter last month, the association's president, Patrick James, said it had found Lebow's email to Sharoni to be not apologetic and to have "marginalized and trivialized" her reaction to his elevator comment. The letter said it also appeared to be an attempt to intimidate her so she would not follow through on her complaint.
Sharoni, in an interview on Wednesday, rejected the idea that the matter should have been resolved informally. She said it's not fair to put the burden on someone who feels hurt or violated to "educate" someone who has acted unprofessionally in a professional setting.
She added: "I hope that the fact that it took ISA six months to decide on the appeal won't deter others from using the association's code of conduct when they're confronted with unprofessional and inappropriate behavior."
Sharoni said Lebow's refusal to apologize and insistence that he was the victim had added "insult to injury, given the magnitude of the backlash directed at me." She said she had been deluged with emails and letters she characterized as "anti-feminist backlash infused with sexual innuendo" and threats of violence.
"Now I should probably brace myself for a new wave of online harassment from entitled men who refuse to be held accountable," she added. "But at least the ISA upheld its decision."
Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news.
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