Yale News
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Retired Yale School of Medicine professor and former Morse College advisor Eugene Redmond sexually assaulted five students affiliated with his University research and engaged in sexual misconduct with at least eight other undergraduates, recent college graduates and one high school student over a period of 25 years, according to a report released today by a Yale-commissioned independent investigator.
After the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct found him responsible for sexually harassing a student, Redmond retired from Yale in July 2018, still pending disciplinary action.
The independent investigator, former U.S. Attorney Deirdre M. Daly, found the 13 students’ accounts to be “highly credible” due to the similarities in their descriptions of incidents that occurred over two decades and the fact that the students did not know one another. In all five cases of sexual assault, the students were sharing a bedroom with Redmond at his St. Kitts research facility at his behest, Daly noted. And the interns’ accounts of sexual misconduct reflect “textbook grooming behavior”: Redmond garnered students’ trust, established control and created an “environment of secrecy and isolation,” per the report. Redmond reportedly conducted three purported medical exams of students that included “inappropriate genital and/or rectal exams.”
The sexual assaults and most incidents of sexual misconduct occurred at Redmond’s research facility on the Caribbean island St. Kitts, where he ran a summer internship program for Yale undergraduates and other students. The School of Medicine first investigated Redmond for misconduct in 1994, after a group of Yale interns raised complaints of sexual molestation and harassment against the then-University professor. After the investigation, Redmond told University officials he had terminated his summer research program. But, according to the report, the University failed to institute a “meaningful oversight mechanism” to monitor Redmond and ensure the program had closed permanently. In fact, per the report, Redmond recruited at least 20 students between 2001 and 2017 to the program.
“If Yale had implemented a longstanding monitoring program after the 1994 investigation, Redmond’s ongoing misconduct might well have been detected and stopped,” the report reads. “In addition, at various points after 1994, several members of the Yale community had concerns about Redmond’s 3 subsequent interactions with certain students, which, if they had pursued, might have prompted Yale to further scrutinize Redmond’s conduct and potentially uncover his misconduct.”
Yale launched the independent investigation in January 2019 in response to a new complaint against Redmond, the third separate complaint reported to the University. The independent investigation was launched months after the former professor’s 2018 retirement and after the News first contacted University officials for comment on Redmond’s UWC case and retirement.
Daly’s report, based on interviews with 110 witnesses, includes detailed accounts of Redmond’s alleged misconduct, the 1994 investigation, his retirement and suggested recommendations. Although the incidents of sexual misconduct occurred in St. Kitts, Daly noted that Redmond’s conduct “would also constitute sexual assault under current Connecticut law,” in addition to violating the St. Kitts criminal code.
Redmond’s attorney could not be reached for comment on the report released today. Redmond has denied all allegations of misconduct against him in previous reports and declined to be interviewed for Daly’s investigation. According to the report, Redmond attempted to obstruct the independent investigation by encouraging former students not to cooperate and advising some to “provide false information, or to withhold relevant information.” Redmond’s license to practice medicine in Connecticut remains active, per state records.
“Redmond’s actions, reported by the survivors who came forward, are reprehensible and antithetical to the educational mission of our university,” said University President Peter Salovey in a written statement. “ I state again in the strongest possible terms that sexual misconduct and sexual assault have no place in this university.”
The report recommends that Yale designate an individual to monitor and enforce disciplinary sanctions and restrictions imposed on faculty members found responsible for sexual misconduct. In addition, the report suggests bystander intervention training for faculty and staff and recommends that the University consider policies for sharing information about sexual misconduct by former employees who seek employment at other educational institutions.
According to a press release, the University is developing a new protocol to supply additional oversight for internship and overnight programs. Faculty and staff will be required to register activities involving overnight stays off campus with undergraduates, and will be explicitly advised of guidelines for these trips, such as not sharing rooms with students.
“Retirements and changes in staff structure made it possible for Redmond to re-open his internship program after that program had been prohibited,” the University’s press release reads. “To prevent a similar mistake from occurring in the future, Yale is putting in place a formal monitoring plan that will ensure that any disciplinary decision that includes forward-looking prohibitions will be well-understood and enforced by all relevant offices and staff, both today and as far into the future as necessary.”
Redmond was a School of Medicine faculty member for 44 years.
Daly’s 54-page report detailing Redmond’s misconduct can be accessed here.
Jever Mariwala | jever.mariwala@yale.edu .
Marisa Peryer | marisa.peryer@yale.edu .
Alice Park | alice.park@yale.edu .