Hamilton College Professor Files Lawsuit Alleging Decades of Race and Nationality Employment Discrimination

“An academic work environment lynching,” described one former colleague.

CLINTON, NY – Hamilton College is facing a lawsuit alleging workplace discrimination spanning decades.

Hamilton College Professor of French Joseph Mwantuali, a Black man who immigrated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, filed a federal lawsuit in the Northern District of New York on December 27th, 2022 alleging a decades-long pattern of discrimination by some of his white women colleagues in the French and Francophone Studies Department (FFS) and high-level college administrators with support from the college. The suit claims violations of both federal and state civil rights law.

“The situation got so bad it was time to seek help from a lawyer,” Mwantuali said in an interview.

Mwantuali’s suit claims that Hamilton subjected him to hostility from peers, barriers to career advancement, exclusion from departmental decision-making, unfair internal judicial proceedings, and retaliation on the basis of his race and national origin. He is being represented by Chaya Gourarie of the New York law firm Tully Rinckey, PLLC.

The lawsuit is the culmination of an April 2020 internal complaint at Hamilton, which Mwantuali later withdrew citing an unfair judicial process, and a 2021 Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charge, which the EEOC dismissed without assessing merit and advised Mwantuali that he had the right to sue in September 2022.

Mwantuali submitted his 2020 college complaint after the dean of faculty ruled against him in a harassment case brought forward by a woman colleague. The dean removed him from supervisory duties over the complainant and moved him into a different office. Mwantuali said the allegation was false.

 “An academic work environment lynching,” Professor Emerita Shelley Haley said of the case in a September 2021 letter to an EEOC investigator. Haley, a retired professor of Classics and Africana Studies, was the only tenured Black woman at Hamilton for much of her 32-year career.  She declined to comment for this article. Mwantuali agreed with her characterization in an interview.

“The entire scenario reeks of explicit racism resulting in the punishment of a Black African man for perceived slights by a white woman,” Professor of Mathematics Robert Kantrowitz wrote in a letter included in the lawsuit. “The complainant’s exaggerations were amplified and bought wholesale by the white female Dean.”

“Hamilton College investigated Professor Mwantuali's Complaint fully and fairly in accordance with its Title IX policy,” said Hamilton College in a statement. “The College disputes the allegations in the Complaint and will address them through the judicial process.” Hamilton’s legal counsel includes Jonathan Fellows and Suzanne Messer of Bond Schoeneck & King, PLLC.

The litigants are scheduled to appear virtually before Magistrate Judge Hon. Miroslav Lovric in late March 2023. Mwantuali and Gourarie have requested a jury trial and are seeking unspecified damages.

Pattern of past trouble

In 2022, 9 mostly women and Black and brown professors resigned from Hamilton College. One of them, anthropology professor Mariam Durrani, filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights, alleging targeted harassment that was ignored by the College. The complaint was dismissed in October. The state said Durrani was unable to provide evidence that the harassment originated from within the school, and that Hamilton had permitted it. Durrani maintains that the College was aware of the connections and failed to act.

“Hamilton sees it as a coincidence, rather than something that needs to be followed up on,” said Durrani of the harassment she experienced.

Across U.S. higher education, faculty of color continue to be underrepresented and face additional barriers. Many Black faculty say their qualifications are routinely diminished and they are subjected to discrimination.

Frozen out

Mwantuali was the only Black professor to be hired to the FFS Department during his 28-year tenure. His claims of discrimination date back to 1997, when he says French Professor Martine Guyot-Bender, who declined to comment for this article, came to his office and said “let’s fight” with regard to a departmental decision. When he reacted, Guyot-Bender threatened to isolate him, he said. “And she succeeded.”

“It’s been non-stop since then,”  Mwantuali said. He charged that four consecutive deans – Joseph Urgo, Patrick Reynolds, Margaret Gentry, and Suzanne Keen – ignored his complaints. Urgo declined to comment for this article, while Reynolds, Gentry, and Keen did not respond.

Mwantuali did not receive a promotion to professor until 2012, despite becoming eligible in 2004. The suit alleges that three white women colleagues, Guyot-Bender, Cheryl Morgan, and Roberta (Bonnie) Krueger (Morgan declined to comment, Krueger did not respond), vetoed or prevented his nomination, and that Krueger declined his request for nomination, falsely claiming he had not produced book contracts. Krueger then supported Morgan for promotion the following year despite her not having any publishing contracts, the suit said.

Mwantuali resorted to nominating himself for the promotion in October 2011. In August 2012 Reynolds wrote to Mwantuali notifying him of promotion to Professor and in doing so lauded his professional accomplishments and concurred “with the recommendations of the French Department and Committee on Appointments.”

In March 2016, an external review of the FFS Department recommended creating formal decision-making rules and bringing in faculty members from adjacent departments for some decisions, citing that not all members of the department felt they had a full voice. The suit alleges that Gentry, the dean at the time, took no action in response to these recommendations.

Additionally, Mwantuali was eligible to chair the department by 1999, but was not selected until 2018, after all other members had served at least twice. In 2016, Gentry informed Mwantuali that Guyot-Bender, Morgan, and Krueger opposed him serving as Chair, and instead appointed Morgan. After intervention from the Interim Director of Diversity & Inclusion Phyllis Breland and College President David Wippman, Mwantuali became Chair in 2018, the suit said.

Harassment claims

In May 2019, fellow French Professor Claire Mouflard filed a harassment complaint with the college against Mwantuali which led to a year-long investigation and sanctions from Keen, then dean. Mouflard declined to comment for this article.

While the content of the complaint was not made available, Mwantuali said Mouflard accused him of harassing her by asking where she lived and what kind of car she drove, questions Mwantuali had said he thought were considered part of polite conversation. He says the allegations are false.

Kantrowitz, who served as Mwantuali’s advisor in the case, wrote in his letter, “Joseph and I addressed these exact issues – our respective commutes and our cars – on a regular basis at the photocopy machine.”

Haley’s EEOC letter asserted that Krueger, Guyot-Bender, and Morgan “manipulated an untenured junior woman faculty member (Claire Mouflard) into bringing a false charge of sexual harassment against Joseph.”

Following Keen’s decision against Mwantuali, he filed a complaint with the College against Guyot-Bender in April 2020 alleging discrimination and harassment based on sex and race. The suit alleges that he was then subjected to unequal process compared to the Mouflard complaint and to Guyot-Bender in the case, including different amounts of time offered for deadlines, the ability of the respondent to read the complainant’s materials, biased questioning from the investigator, an all-white jury, and more.

Haley, who served as Mwantuali’s advisor in the Guyot-Bender complaint, encouraged him to withdraw the complaint and pursue recourse outside the institution, saying the College was biased against him. He did in late 2020, kicking off the EEOC charge.

Hamilton College is required to issue a response to the lawsuit in early March 2023.

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