Culture Wars/Current Controversies

How Columbia University Protected a Predator

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When sexual predators have a powerful institution to harbor them, they can cause almost incomprehensible levels of harm. Dr. Robert Hadden spent his entire clinical career at Columbia University, and for decades its medical apparatus did nothing as he abused hundreds of patients. Consistently, Columbia ignored or was deaf to women’s complaints. The university even let Hadden continue seeing patients after he was arrested at his office for licking someone’s genitals. Remarkably, given the scale of the abuse and the stature of Columbia, the public knows much less about how it all happened than it does about comparable cases at Michigan State, USC, or UCLA. That changes today, with this devastating investigation by Bianca Fortis and Laura Beil, done in collaboration with ProPublica. It is the definitive account of how Columbia stood by while one of its doctors became perhaps the most prolific sexual assailant in New York history. We’re also publishing a haunting portfolio of portraits of 23 survivors, telling their experiences in their own words.

—Nick Summers, features editor, New York

Protecting a Predator How Columbia University ignored women, undermined prosecutors, and allowed one of its OB/GYNs to abuse hundreds of patients.

Photo: Hugo Yu
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Categories: Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Education

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