A candidate for the position of Oxford University’s Professor of Poetry has been accused of sexual harassment at universities twice during his career.
Derek Walcott, the St Lucia-born poet, allegedly sexually harassed two female students whilst he held Professorial posts at Boston and Harvard Universities.
In 1992, an anonymous student in a creative writing class taught by Walcott at Harvard in 1982 claimed that the poet had propositioned her during a discussion of her work, and had given her a “C” grade when she refused his advances.
According to Harvard Crimson, the University’s newspaper, Walcott did not deny that the student’s testimony was correct. He is also alleged to have said that his teaching style was “deliberately personal and intense.”
The student wrote a letter that was published in the Crimson, which contained an account of the conversation.
It recounts how Walcott asked the student to “Imagine me making love to you”, before asking, “Would you make love with me if I asked you?”
The letter then claims that, after she refused, Walcott devised a code by which the student could let him know during classes if she had changed her mind.
According to the student, after she sent the letter, Walcott was “cold and distant”, showed “no concern for my education” and “did not fully evaluate my work as he did with other students of the class.”
She was given a “C” grade for the class. She later appealed to be given a pass grade after she made her complaint, which Harvard’s Administrative Board allowed. Harvard University has officially reprimanded Walcott.
In 1995, the poet was accused of sexually harassing a student in a class he taught at Boston University.
Nicole Niemi, a student of Walcott’s playwriting and creative writing class, pressed for half a million dollars in compensation and punitive damages after claiming that he had propositioned her before threatening to fail her and refusing to produce her play after she refused.
Professor Hermione Lee, a campaigner for Derek Walcott, said that these allegations should not interfere with Derek Walcott’s running for the post.
She said, “I ask myself how far this puritanism might go. Should students be forbidden to read Derek Walcott’s poetry, lest they be contaminated by his long past behaviour?”
“I am campaigning for a professor of poetry who will be a person giving public lectures to students and professors. I am not campaigning for someone who will be in pastoral relations to students.”
“This matter has arose in the past, when Derek Walcott was given a honorary D.Lit at Oxford and these issues were raised at the time as with the many awards and positions that Mr Walcott holds. These historic matters of previous bad behaviour were set aside.”
She added, “You might ask yourself as a student body whether you wanted Byron or Shelley as a professor of poetry neither of whom personal lives were free of criticism.”
Walcott won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 and he has also won the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and the WH Smith Literary Award in recent years.
