DEPARTMENT OF
BRAIN AND COGNITIVE SCIENCES

June 14th, 2018
Dean Waugh,
Per your request, we are writing to provide a formal letter of resignation. We have decided to
forgo the generic resignation letter recommended by the University of Rochester counsel’s office
and instead be clear about the reason for our departure.
When we came to the University, we worked hard to help raise it up. We did high-impact
research and helped recruit students and faculty. We built up vibrant, interdisciplinary
collaborations. We brought in millions of dollars in grants. Undergraduates we mentored earned
the highest research awards in the University and prestigious fellowships from the National
Science Foundation. We worked day and night because we believed in this university as an
institution. As it turns out, we believed in it only because we did not know what the people in
charge stood for.
University of Rochester President Richard Feldman has declined to sanction, much less fire, T.
Florian Jaeger, a professor who sent an unwanted picture of his penis to a student; made
insulting and objectifying comments about female students' sexual desirability, appearance, and
vaginal taste; used drugs at a lab retreat with students; and had sex with an undergraduate
student, among many other unethical behaviors. These are not accusations. These actions were
confirmed by the University of Rochester's own investigation. The University also verified that
such behavior led at least ten women to avoid Jaeger to the detriment of their careers.1
President Feldman declines to take responsibility for his own refusal to punish Jaeger, instead
blaming the faculty senate, a body which he knows has no authority to impose sanctions.
Unbelievably, Former President Joel Seligman and Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department
Chair Greg DeAngelis both publicly defended Jaeger's tenure—to the media and faculty senate
respectively—by an appeal to the sanctity of "academic freedom."
After we filed complaints and participated in University investigations about Jaeger, DeAngelis
and the administration responded by trawling through the emails of six faculty who complained,
including the emails of a thirty-year department veteran and National Academy of Sciences
member. Though they found nothing damaging, DeAngelis held a meeting in which he falsely
accused us and other faculty of harming Jaeger's students’ (double-blindly reviewed)
conference submissions, without any basis whatsoever. DeAngelis also falsely accused us and
others of getting Jaeger uninvited from a conference. Following that, we and four others who
complained about Jaeger were excluded from a key faculty meeting that determined the future
1 President Feldman returned Jaeger to teaching undergraduates shortly after the University’s own
investigation defended him with the argument that “A combination of Jaeger’s harsh and demeaning
language, flirtatious behavior, use of sexual innuendo, promiscuous reputation, open relationships with
students and blurring of social and professional lines all contributed to some extent [to students avoiding
him], but we cannot unravel the degree to which women avoided Jaeger because of the sexual elements
in his conduct, as opposed to other simply offensive or unappealing aspects of his personality.”
Meliora Hall
University of Rochester
Rochester NY 14627-0268

 of the department. DeAngelis’ ballistic attack ruined our careers here and led others to shun all
who had complained. He later apologized specifically for unfairly damaging our reputations, but
you wouldn’t know that from the arguments the University has been making in the media and
the courts, calling the attacks and defamation we experienced perfectly normal “workplace
criticism.” Still, the University has refused to apologize to the four women—all victims of Jaeger
and alumnae of the University—for de-anonymizing them after explicitly guaranteeing their
confidentiality. President Feldman’s vow of a “culture of respect” seems to apply everywhere
except where it counts.
Nearly all university employees who helped cover for Jaeger are still in their positions. Vice
President Gail Norris, who told the faculty and deans that it was normal and acceptable for
University of Rochester investigators to turn down evidence—as the University confirmed its
attorney Catherine Nearpass did in our case—appears, beyond all reason and ethics, to still be
functioning as head legal counsel for the University. Norris so relentlessly defended a serial
sexual harasser that Jaeger was handing out her phone number to people in the field. Even
after the faculty senate condemned her office’s role in searching the emails of legally protected
complainants, the administration apparently still trusts her. Dean Gloria Culver, Dean Peter
Lennie, and Provost Robert Clark sheltered Jaeger by unleashing memos about how those
complaining about Jaeger were spreading “gossip” and “misinformation,” defaming the
numerous women who came forward in the case. Dean Culver’s response to a retaliation
complaint from four faculty was to tell us to “mend fences” in the department ourselves, while
she simultaneously forbade us from talking about what happened. Culver also promoted Jaeger
without even waiting to see the outcome of the University’s investigation. Why are people who
intentionally looked the other way and then steamrolled the women who complained still in
trusted positions?
Now, one face of the University is racing to change its policies. But it is clear that policies are
worthless when they are implemented by people like DeAngelis, Norris, Nearpass, Culver,
Lennie, and Clark. Incoherently, the University’s other face is arguing to the media and the
courts that everything that happened in our case was perfectly acceptable. Why change the
policies then? If our case has been handled well, why has the University refused to release the
original internal report that cleared Jaeger—a professor who sixteen women have now
complained about on-record—by saying he merely had a “colorful” past? Why is the attorney
who wrote that report still employed by the University? What is she trusted to handle? Most
recently, the University has engaged a "restorative justice" team to help the community recover.
While it’s not widely known, months later this team has yet to engage with any of the sixteen
women who came forward to speak about the harm Jaeger caused them. President Feldman
sustains Seligman’s legacy: administrators are never responsible, sexual harassers face no
consequences, and women who are harassed get no support.
Now, five of our collaborators have been pushed out. Altogether the department has lost six
faculty, including its two National Academy members. We estimate that faculty leaving over the
case have taken upwards of $10 million in grant funding with them. With our departure,
DeAngelis’ leadership will have winnowed the number of female tenure-track faculty to just two
—one recent hire whose primary appointment is in the medical center, and one who is Jaeger’s
partner. This should not be surprising given the Department's stance on women’s issues, such
as the DeAngelis’ repeated insistence that Kidd was entitled to only two weeks of pregnancy
leave.
Now, we have to uproot our labs, families, and lives. Jaeger got a semester of paid leave. The
sixteen women who complained about him got nothing, not even an administration who was

 ethical enough to say that what they experienced was wrong. We do not leave with the
bitterness or anger that you might expect from some of the nine faculty and students who are
suing the University over this mishandling. We leave only with unshakable sadness that
students at the University of Rochester have no one in the administration who will support them.
These events have given us no choice other than to resign our faculty positions, effective at the
end of the month.
Celeste Kidd
Assistant Professor
Brain and Cognitive Sciences
University of Rochester

Steven T. Piantadosi
Assistant Professor
Brain and Cognitive Sciences
University of Rochester