BERKELEY — Renowned philosopher and UC Berkeley professor emeritus John Searle has regularly sexually harassed his students and employees, and the university has just as routinely covered it up, according to a lawsuit filed by a former research assistant who claims she was fired after she rebuffed and reported Searle’s unwanted sexual advances.
Joanna Ong, 24, alleges that a 50 percent pay cut was among the hostile actions taken against her at the Berkeley campus after she reported being groped and harassed by the 84-year-old Searle last year. In a lawsuit filed in Alameda County Superior Court on Tuesday, Ong is suing Searle, the UC Board of Regents and unnamed defendants for unspecified damages on allegations of sexual harassment, assault and battery, hostile work environment, retaliation, and wrongful termination.
Ong’s lawsuit is the latest sexual harassment scandal to rock the university, which has been riddled with similar complaints in recent years and has overhauled the way it responds to such cases.
Systemwide, the University of California has disciplined more than 100 employees for sexual misconduct or harassment over the past four years, according to records released last month at the request of the Bay Area News Group and other media organizations. Critics say and the records suggest that academics have often been treated more leniently in the face of such charges than lower-level staff members.
“This is another example of the University of California standing idly by as their students or employees are victimized by indifference to the predatory faculty,” Ong’s attorney John Kristensen said in a statement. “There is a crisis of sexual assault on women at our nation’s institutions of higher learning. My client had to suffer twice. First, when the assault and subsequent harassment took place. Then again when she reported the misconduct and the responses were, at best, indifference, and at worst, enabling of the inappropriate sexual conduct that led to her original assault.”
Carla Hesse, interim lead on campus sexual harassment and sexual violence matters, said in a statement that the university could not comment on individual cases. But she said, “we want to be certain that the campus community is aware of the care we take in handling such cases.”
She said once the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (or OPHD) is notified of sexual harassment or sexual assault allegations, an investigation is launched and steps are taken “to ensure that a complainant is not required, in the conduct of their campus duties, to come into contact with a faculty member alleged to have violated policy.”
An employee at Searle’s campus office on Thursday directed the Bay Area News Group to email Searle for comment, but the message to him was not immediately returned. The UC Berkeley public affairs department did not respond to inquiries about Searle’s status at the university.
Searle has been a professor in Cal’s philosophy department since 1959 and is well celebrated and honored for his work in the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and philosophy of social science. His official website hosted by the university was down on Thursday.
Ong took an undergrad course with Searle before graduating from Cal with honors in 2014. From July to September 2016, she worked as a research assistant to Searle and a consultant at the John Searle Center for Social Ontology in Berkeley under director Jennifer Hudin, whom Ong previously knew as Searle’s grad assistant, the lawsuit reads.
Within a week of taking the job, Ong alleges, Searle locked her in his office, groped her and told her “they were going to be lovers.”
The lawsuit alleges that when Ong reported the assault to Hudin, Hudin told her she would protect her and that Searle “has had sexual relationships with his students and others in the past in exchange for academic, monetary, or other benefits,” the complaint reads.
Ong alleges that Searle openly watched pornography in his office with the sound on as students went by. Among the inappropriate comments she alleges, Ong said that Searle repeatedly asked her to log on to a “Sugar Baby, Sugar Daddy” website.
Ong said that when she reported the harassment to Hudin and others, no action was taken.
“Instead, defendants took steps (to) protect and cover up Searle’s assault and harassment of Ong, as they have done in Searle’s past history of similar conduct to other students and employees at UC Berkeley,” the complaint reads.
Berkeley’s handling of such cases exploded into controversy in late 2015, and the university released extensive records in early 2016 describing the extent of the problem. In all, 19 employees — including six professors — were disciplined, including world-renowned astronomy professor Geoff Marcy, the dean of the law school, the men’s diving coach and an assistant men’s basketball coach. Victims included seven students and 10 employees.
Searle is among the best-known of the professors to face accusations. In a 2009 Bay Area News Group story, then-philosophy department chairman Jay Wallace said that Searle’s class is like a rite of passage for students.
“His classes are always oversubscribed,” Wallace said. “He’s probably the most famous philosopher in the world. Many students feel that it’s something you have to do before you leave Berkeley: take a class from John Searle.”
