A new legal filing outlines how the terms of a class action lawsuit would play out on the Dartmouth campus.
Last month, nine plaintiffs and Dartmouth College reached a $14 million settlement.
The women in the lawsuit alleged that Dartmouth administrators failed to properly protect students from harassment and assault by three former members of the school’s neuroscience faculty.
The proposed settlement lays out how the $14 million would be distributed and who’s included in the settlement class: namely, graduate and undergraduate women who worked with the three professors accused of sexual misconduct between 2012 and 2017.
That would include graduate advisees of the former professors, students who co-authored a paper with one or more of the professors or co-authored three or more papers with one ore more of the three professors.
Graduate students in the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department between March, 31 2015 and August 31, 2017 “who will attest that they experienced dignitary, emotional, education and/or professional harm during this period as a result of the misconduct of one more of the Three Former Professors” are also part of the proposed settlement class, according to the filing.
Class members who don’t exclude themselves from the settlement would automatically receive a base payment of $1,000 each.
The proposal also lays out how the plaintiffs would work with the college on initiatives to improve the campus climate.
For example, the plaintiffs and Dartmouth would jointly propose nominees for two positions on the External Advisory Committee, which was established in January as a way to provide independent external oversight on the progress of the college's Campus Climate and Culture Initiative.
The settlement agreement still requires the approval of a judge.
