Inside Higher Ed: Accusations and Suicides
For the second time this year, a professor at the University of Iowa has taken his own life after being accused of sexual harassment.
For the university, which also has faced a scandal involving alleged sexual assault by athletes and a devastating flood this year, the latest incident added to an unsettling semester.
On Wednesday, just a week after he was accused of sexual harassment in a lawsuit, Mark Weiger killed himself. He was a professor of music known for his oboe performances and teaching. A former student and teaching assistant’s lawsuit, filed in federal court against Weiger and the university, charged that he had a romantic relationship with another student, engaged in repeated classroom banter and touching of an inappropriate nature, and created a sexually hostile environment. According to the suit, the university conducted its own investigation of the situation last year, found Weiger had violated policies against sexual harassment, and then resolved the issue “informally.” He was found in his car, dead from carbon monoxide poisoning, with the garage door at his home closed. Authorities said he left a note.
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