Woman Rebuts Dean’s Claim

An attorney for a woman whose claims of sexual harassment led to the resignation of UC Berkeley’s law school dean said Sunday that the dean “grossly mischaracterized” the incident as consensual and that the university has repeatedly mishandled the woman’s allegations.

Reached in Amsterdam where she was spending the holidays, the Berkeley attorney, Laura Stevens, said the dean sexually assaulted her client two years ago after a night of drinking with a group of students from the university’s prestigious Boalt Hall law school.

The lawyer e-mailed the allegations over the weekend to several media outlets in the United States, including The Times.

The attorney said that before her client filed a formal complaint against the dean, John P. Dwyer, in October, she tried without success to address the matter by bringing it to the attention of a university administrator in charge of harassment claims and three law school faculty members. Stevens said her client received little assistance.

Stevens also said that university officials attempted to keep the matter quiet, asking her client to agree not to discuss it lest Dwyer’s reputation be damaged. The woman refused, Stevens said.

Dwyer announced last Wednesday in a letter to the faculty, staff and students that he would resign effective Jan. 1 because of the sexual harassment allegation.

In the letter, which was publicly released by UC Berkeley, Dwyer said that he “had a single encounter two years ago that was consensual, but there is no allegation that any form of sexual intercourse occurred.” He went on to say that it “reflected a serious error in judgment on my part and was inappropriate.”

Stevens said in the interview Sunday that her client agrees that intercourse did not occur. Stevens said that Dwyer came to her client’s apartment after a night of drinking with a group of students including her client, then a second-year Boalt student.

According to Stevens, the alleged assault took place after her client passed out, apparently from her evening of drinking.

Dwyer did not return calls for comment late Sunday or late last week.

Stevens also offered an explanation for why her client, who graduated in May and is now working as a public interest lawyer, didn’t file the complaint for two years.

The student sought help from several quarters, Stevens said: from the university’s student health center, where she participated in group and individual therapy; from law school faculty members; and from the university’s Title IX officer, whose position is intended to ensure campus compliance with federal laws prohibiting harassment.

Stevens said the officer, however, did not know which procedures applied in connection with a complaint against a dean, and she could not assure the student that her identity would remain confidential or that she would be protected from retaliation if she lodged a formal complaint.

The student, now 27, also reported the incident to three female law school faculty members, but they expressed doubt about their responsibilities and concern about possible retaliation if they became involved, the attorney said.

Because of fears of retaliation, the student then chose to keep silent until she graduated and took the bar exam, the e-mail statement said. She retained an attorney and made a formal complaint under the university’s faculty code of conduct in October.

UC Berkeley spokeswoman Janet Gilmore, responding Sunday to the news release, said she could not discuss what specific allegations are being investigated by the university, citing privacy restrictions.

She said, however, that the university is continuing to look into the former student’s complaint as well as the school’s general practices and procedures for sexual harassment complaints. The investigation is being handed by Janet Yellen, an economist at Berkeley and a former high-ranking official in the Clinton administration.

Stevens said in her e-mail that university officials interviewed the young woman with her lawyer, met with Dwyer and “attempted to extract an agreement from the student to keep silent about his conduct, so as not to injure his reputation.”