IU-South Bend professor fired for sexual harassment

An IU-South Bend professor and former chancellor has been fired for harassing a female student.\nPhysics professor Daniel Cohen was suspended from his position and banned from the campus in March after a student who had filed a previous complaint against him accused Cohen of intimidation. May 3, Kenneth Perrin, IUSB Chancellor, issued a letter to Cohen informing him of his dismissal.\nIUSB senior Julie Gilmour had filed a complaint against Cohen with the IUSB affirmative action office. Gilmour accused Cohen of harassing and intimidating her, which led to further disciplinary action.\nGilmour, who said she is suing IUSB for negligence in the matter, will not comment until after her case is settled.\nCohen was IUSB chancellor but was removed in 1995 by IU President Myles Brand for allegations of sexual misconduct. Cohen lost $50,000 in a lawsuit filed by former university employee Lynn Fall for sexual harassment.\nAfter his removal as chancellor, Cohen signed a 1995 agreement with Brand that any further proof of sexual harassment from the date of the agreement would lead to Cohen's dismissal.\nCohen declined to comment to the IDS on the circumstances of his termination but responded to his suspension in a letter published March 8 in the South Bend Tribune.\n"By the way, have you ever noticed that almost all the women who claim to have been sexually harassed are physically ugly?" Cohen wrote. "I guess they just need to deny their lack of attractiveness to the opposite sex, and to use this method to get the attention and money they cannot otherwise command."\nCohen's case will be taken up in an automatic review before the IU South Bend Faculty Board of Review later this summer.\nIU spokeswoman Susan Dillman called Cohen's pending dismissal a "South Bend campus matter." But in an e-mail dated March 9, Brand called Cohen's letter to the Tribune "an insult to the Indiana University community as a whole." Brand went on to say that the University was investigating several past and present incidents involving Cohen.\nCohen said he will not comment until after his hearing, but said he'd like to keep teaching "if they let me."\nMug courtesy of the South Bend Tribune.