An IU law professor resigned Friday after IU concluded a Title IX investigation.
Ian Samuel posted a letter explaining his resignation to Provost Lauren Robel on his Twitter account Friday.
“I’m choosing to forgo procedural rights that might (though I doubt it) preserve my job if I fought to the Pyrrhic end, because the academic year is over and it’s time for this process to be over, too,” Samuel wrote.
IU spokesperson Chuck Carney confirmed Samuel is no longer a faculty member at the Maurer School of Law or IU.
IU opened the investigation into Samuel’s alleged misconduct in fall 2018. The university had received multiple reports alleging Samuel engaged in potential Title IX violations throughout an evening after a law school event, according to a statement from Carney.
“IU appreciates Professor Samuel’s cooperation and acknowledgement of his misconduct,” according to the statement.
Title IX prohibits discrimination or exclusion from educational programs or activities on the basis of sex, according to the United States Department of Education. This includes sexual harassment.
Title IX applies to all institutions that receive federal money from the Education Department.
In his letter, Samuel wrote that the allegations described him drinking excessively in a public place he “shouldn’t have have been in” with people he shouldn’t have been around.
When the investigation began, he wrote, a few people suggested he reexamine his life. That night was a clear sign of a growing problem, he wrote.
“The truth is that the university’s investigation, in addition to doing justice, probably had the side effect of saving my life,” Samuel wrote.
Samuel graduated from the New York University School of Law in 2008. He spent nearly two years as a lecturer at Harvard Law School and previously worked for the U.S. Department of Justice. He was an associate professor at the IU Maurer School of Law for less than one year.
