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Complainant in EEOC case against UR, Jessica Cantlon, leaving job at university

rochester.edu

A complainant in the EEOC sexual harassment case against a University of Rochester professor will soon be leaving her job at the school.

Jessica Cantlon and her husband Brad Mahon, both in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department will be leaving for positions at Carnegie Mellon University next fall.

Cantlon says they told university they would consider leaving if the school didn’t make active attempts to review their sexual harassment procedures as well as conflicts of interest in their investigation into the incidents the EEOC complain brought up.

They also asked the university to restore the reputations of those employees who say they were retaliated against after filing complaints.

Cantlon and Mahon will be the third and fourth members of the 25 person UR Brain and Cognitive Sciences department to leave since the allegations against Jaeger were made public

"Losing four members, four established members of the faculty there, will have a big effect on students education, on the department’s ability to hold research grants."

Last year Dick Aslin, another complainant in the case was the first to leave, followed by Ben Hayden, a faculty member in the department who says he and his wife were retaliated against after making a sexual harassment complaint.

They will all be taking millions of dollars in federal grant funding from the university with them, Cantlon says, as well as the content of their work.

Mahon says the decision to move wasn’t to make a statement, it was what they felt they needed to do as a family.

"We have been really trying to work with the university over a relatively long period of time, a couple of years almost, to enact changes that we feel would be appropriate or that we feel needed to be enacted and there’s really been no movement from the administration."

Cantlon also says it wasn’t an easy choice. Rochester was a home for her and Mahon; they’ve been here for eight years.

"We have established really intricate and interesting and substantial research programs here at the university that are thriving. And for us to shut that all down, shut down out research labs, our family life, and go and build that up somewhere use is a devastating loss for us."

UR responded to an email sent by WXXI News, saying they had no comment on this issue. The university previously announced that an independent commission looking into the allegations of sexual harassment would release a report by January 12.