DARTMOUTH REFUSED To Let An Innocent Accused Professor Defend Himself Publicly. He Committed Suicide.
What happens when a college cares so much about its own reputation that it silences a professor from even defending himself against horrific allegations?
For Dartmouth, it contributed to his death at 50.
David Bucci killed himself after the college refused to let him clear his name against allegations that he looked the other way when female students brought sexual harassment allegations to him as department chair. When the college settled the students’ $70 million class action suit in August for $14.4 million, it declined to issue “the one thing Dr. Bucci had hoped for: a statement proclaiming his innocence,” The New York Times reports in a troubling feature on the human cost of unfounded allegations.
Bucci had a history of “crippling depression,” and the toll of keeping quiet as his name got dragged through the mud brought it roaring back. By the time his faculty dean rose to his defense, he was on the verge of being “hospitalized for depression and treated with electroconvulsive therapy.” Dartmouth’s notice of Bucci’s passing does not mention his suicide or the college’s role in it.
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