DALLAS, April 10 (UPI) -- A Texas university professor is suing, claiming she was wrongfully fired after reporting sexual harassment on the part of her male boss.
Patricia Davis, a former professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and former associate director of the school's Embrey Human Rights Program, alleges in her complaint filed Tuesday that her superior, Rick Halperin, the director of the program, had "inappropriate conduct towards women in his classes, including undergraduate and graduate students."
Davis said university administrators did not take her concerns seriously or investigate them.
She said Beth Wilson, SMU's Title IX coordinator, told Davis she had "found no evidence" of inappropriate actions on Halperin's part, but Wilson would not say how she came to that conclusion.
Davis was fired a day after she asked for an appeal. The termination letter said she was fired "due to false accusations of sexual harassment and to your disruptive and detrimental impact on program operations and your poor working relationships with program and other SMU staff."
Davis said Embrey staff noticed Halperin "often had women in his office behind closed doors and at odd hours," and so a rule was instituted that he wasn't to be alone in the office at unusual times and never behind closed doors.
Davis also alleged Halperin was obsessed with Nazis. He gave Nazi salutes privately, had Nazi symbols in his office and spent hours looking at Holocaust death-camp bodies on his office television.
In her suit, Davis said she warned her superior after hearing complaints from students and staff about his conduct, and he said if she told anyone, she should start looking for another job.
