The Yale Law School administrators at the center of the “traphouse” incident are now the subject of an unrelated lawsuit alleging that they “worked together in an attempt to blackball two students of color from job opportunities as retaliation” for their refusal to make damning statements about a professor. The suit charges that their actions violated the university’s harassment policies, which prohibit the administration from taking “any adverse action” against a person “who has reported a concern” or “participated in an investigation.”
The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court on Monday, alleges that the law school’s dean Heather Gerken, associate dean Ellen Cosgrove, and diversity director Yaseen Eldik retaliated against two students after they refused to “make knowingly and materially false statements” against Amy Chua, a Yale Law professor who has courted, and attracted, controversy.
When the students refused, Gerken and Cosgrove allegedly asked a professor not to offer them a prestigious fellowship—in part by suggesting that both students were untrustworthy. In conversations with the two students, Eldik and Cosgrove also allegedly suggested they would suffer career repercussions for their refusal to comply.