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A student was offered £ 5,000 and a leading university paid for his therapy after an investigation found he was bullied by a professor who abused his position of trust.
The University College London student claimed he had been traumatized after claiming that a teacher had had an inappropriate sexual relationship with him. An independent report commissioned by the university said she had bragged about the power she had over him and how it could affect his future career.
An investigation was launched after he and another male student complained about the teacher. It concluded that the teacher in question made sexual comments and shared personal information about other students and colleagues. She also found that she abused her position of trust as an employee at the university.
The independent investigator concluded that there was evidence to justify a court dismissal, but before this happened she resigned and the case was closed.
The student demands an apology from UCL and has launched a complaint about how the university handled the matter. He alleges that he did not provide adequate protection once a complaint was made and the disciplinary process took too long and lasted 16 months.
The student claimed that the teacher invited the students to parties before making advances and claimed to have knowledge about their family history as a means of bullying.
UCL has now offered the student £ 5,000 and has been paying for his therapy resulting from the event since 2019.
The student, who asked to remain anonymous, said it was difficult “to find the courage to report this person, but once I did, the upper echelons of the university simply insisted on putting barriers in my path and keeping quiet.”
He stated that the way the university handled the complaints “was not really geared towards the needs of the victims or to support them through the process (s), it was not integrated, it is too slow and full of traps that no one can tell me about. I speak”.
He added: “There was a disparity in communication between the university and me during the process as time passed. I had no updates and they just kept telling me ‘wait and wait because this takes time.’
A UCL spokesperson said they were aware that “unacceptable behavior exists in our learning, work and life environment,” adding that it has a “devastating effect on anyone who is affected by it.”
“It would not be appropriate to comment publicly on an individual case, but we can assure our community that we take misconduct very seriously and aim to act as quickly as possible while ensuring due diligence and acting decisively when actions are made. reports.
The university said the process to address these cases “can sometimes take longer” than it would like. “There may also be cases where a person at the center of an allegation leaves UCL before their misconduct can be fully investigated or disciplinary action taken,” he said.
An investigation by The Guardian in 2018 revealed that hundreds of academics had been accused of bullying students and colleagues in the past five years. It found that nearly 300 academics, including senior professors and laboratory directors, were accused of bullying students and colleagues.
UCL has introduced a policy that explicitly prohibits personal relationships where a supervisory relationship exists, recognizing the power imbalance that exists between staff and students in higher education and aims to ensure that abuses of power are avoided.
