NYU and a politics professor reached a confidential settlement on Aug. 25 after she sued the university and its Abu Dhabi campus more than a year ago, claiming gender-based hostility caused her to experience “immediate and visceral retaliation.”
Kanchan Chandra, a tenured faculty member at NYU’s Social Science Division and Politics Program, claimed her dean dismissed her concerns after reporting that she faced “inappropriate conduct” from other faculty, including sexist language being expected to do abnormal amounts of “clerical and administrative” assignments. The case was dismissed “with prejudice and without costs to either party.”
Details about the settlement were not disclosed. The decision prohibits Chandra from refiling the case and neither party will have to pay for the other’s legal expenses.
“The matter has been resolved to our mutual satisfaction,” Chandra said in a statement to WSN.
In the suit, Chandra claimed that she had been denied her request to be considered for a political theory search committee by Jeffery Timmons, the former head of the politics program and currently the Vice Dean of Faculty at Stern School of Business at NYU Abu Dhabi. Timmons allegedly told her he did not plan to consider candidacy to join the other four male faculty on the team and that he had “had it” with these “senior women from New York.”
Chandra, who was eventually able to join the committee, asserted that she was unfairly targeted on the basis of her gender. She also claimed that she confronted Timmons — who received similar complaints in 2017, 2018 and 2019 — regarding “inappropriate behaviors and sexist language.”
University spokesperson John Beckman previously told WSN that NYU “disputes the claims” of the alleged workplace discrimination taking place in Chandra’s lawsuit.
Chandra filed the complaint with NYU’s Office of Equal Opportunity in February 2019 — which was dismissed by the OEO seven months after she pressed them about the issue — receiving no result update.
The OEO launched an investigation into Chandra without her knowledge of the charge, procedure or outcome.
A month after the OEO complaint was filed, Chandra met with President Linda Mills, who was at the time a representative of NYU’s Provost, and was promised an “explicit acknowledgement” of her experience. She has yet to receive a response.
After Paula England was appointed as Dean of Social Sciences in 2021, she said Chandra’s tenure would continue. However, after Chandra reiterated concerns regarding gender hostility on campus, England reportedly informed her that her contract at NYU Abu Dhabi was terminated on “exceptions to what is allowed” on her contract. Chandra’s status as a joint appointee and tenured faculty was terminated and her application for renewal was rejected.
Upon returning to the Washington Square campus, she alleged that she was excluded from all faculty committees and was told by her department’s chair that faculty “cannot” be expected to be included. In 2024, Chandra attempted to reapply as a professor at Abu Dhabi for the January term but was denied and dissuaded from applying by England due to departmental needs.
Contact Levi Langley at [email protected].
