Former Instructor Threatens to Sue Dartmouth and Some Students for Discrimination

Chronicle of Higher Education
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
By Jennifer Howard

A former Dartmouth College faculty member is weighing a possible civil-rights lawsuit against the college, Dartmouth Medical School, and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
Dartmouth undergraduates may also be named in a possible complaint by Priya Venkatesan, a former research associate at the medical school and a lecturer in Dartmouth's writing program. She told The Chronicle that she was subjected to "inappropriate, unprofessional behavior" that qualified as "discrimination and harassment" under Title VII of federal anti-discrimination law.
In an interview, Ms. Venkatesan described a history of "abusive statements" and "exploitative behavior" by supervisors and colleagues. That pattern of "hostility, anti-intellectualism, and very demeaning behavior," she said, even extended to the classroom.
In response to reports in the university's student newspaper, on the blog Gawker, and elsewhere, Dartmouth's general counsel released a brief statement that asserted that Ms. Venkatesan's claims were without merit.
Classroom Conflict
Ms. Venkatesan, who has a Ph.D. in literature from the University of California at San Diego and a master of science in genetics from the University of California at Davis, specializes in the intersection of science and literature.
She told The Chronicle that in an undergraduate writing-program class on science, technology, and society, she encountered "abrasiveness, rudeness, diatribish responses" from some of her students. A discussion of postmodernism drew especially hostile reactions.
"It really offended their sensibilities," she said. "But there are ways of mediating that response."
She wound up canceling class for a week on doctor's orders, she said.
Ms. Venkatesan was once a Dartmouth undergraduate herself; she's a member of the Class of 1990. She speculated that ethnicity and gender played a role in her alleged treatment at Dartmouth as a faculty member. Her three years as an instructor were "a sour experience," she said. "I didn't have to go through what I went through." [To see the entire story, go to: http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/04/2674n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en ]