Yale has suspended a tenured professor for violating the university’s sexual misconduct policies, the Yale Daily News reports.
John Coleman Darnell, a prominent Egyptologist and director of the Yale Egyptological Institute, resigned as chair of the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and agreed to a one-year suspension from the faculty “after engaging in several violations of university policy, including maintaining an intimate relationship with a student under his direct supervision,” the News reports, citing a January 8 e-mail from Darnell to the department.
“Darnell’s other violations consisted of participating in the review of a faculty member with whom he had an intimate relationship and using his leadership role in Egyptology to cover up his illicit behavior,” the News continues.
It’s not clear whether Darnell's violations involved two different people, or whether the student was a PhD candidate who later became the faculty member in question. Under Yale’s rules, faculty may not have sexual relationships with any undergraduates. Faculty-grad student relationships are banned whenever “a teacher is or in the future might reasonably become responsible for teaching, advising, or directly supervising a student.”
“[I] have violated Yale policies and the trust placed in me as a Yale faculty member,” Darnell wrote, according to the Daily News. “I have failed the university, my colleagues, and my students, and I am deeply sorry.”
University spokesman Tom Conroy declined to comment to the News.