Harvard professor on leave over sexual abuse charges

U.S. well-known university Harvard announced Sunday night that Jorge Domínguez, a professor in the government department at Harvard, had been placed "on administrative leave" as 18 women came forward to accuse him of sexual harassment in the past three decades.

Domínguez has been placed "on administrative leave, pending a full and fair review of the facts and circumstances regarding allegations that have come to light," Michael Smith, the dean of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said in an email to the Chronicle of Higher Education newspaper.

The first sexual harassment allegation began in 1979 and the latest from 2015, according to the investigation by the newspaper.

"It wasn't just the kisses on the cheeks and the hugs. It was also the requests to get drinks after work, the flirtatious emails, his asking one of them to sit next to him during a meeting," said the Chronicle report.

In the wake of a Chronicle investigation revealed last week that found 10 women who say Dominguez made them uncomfortable, more have come forward. The number is now 18, including women from all areas of university life: graduate students, undergraduates, fellow professors, and staff members, said the newspaper.

A statement on the website of the Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, where Dominguez is a faculty associate, said that the center "is unambiguously committed to the policy and practice of zero tolerance of sexual harassment or gendered disparity of treatment."

The professor was found guilty of "serious misconduct" by Harvard in 1983 after Terry Karl, a junior professor in the department, reported that he had repeatedly groped, kissed, and propositioned her.