USC medical school dean out amid revelations of sexual harassment claim

After the dean of USC’s medical school resigned last year amid long-running complaints about his drinking and boorish treatment of colleagues, university leaders assured students and faculty that his successor would be worthy of respect.
The man USC chose, however, had a black mark on his own personnel record: A finding by the university 15 years ago that he had behaved inappropriately toward a female medical school fellow.USC formally disciplined the dean, Dr. Rohit Varma, in 2003 following allegations that he sexually harassed the young researcher while he was a junior professor supervising her work, according to confidential personnel records reviewed by The Times and interviews with people familiar with the university investigation.
As The Times was preparing to publish a story disclosing the case, USC announced Thursday afternoon that Varma was no longer dean.
“Based on previously undisclosed information brought to the university in recent days, USC leadership has lost confidence in Dr. Rohit Varma’s ability to lead our medical school. As of today, he is no longer dean of the Keck School of Medicine,” USC Provost Michael Quick said in a statement.
Late Thursday, Quick added that the undisclosed information included details provided by “Los Angeles Times and the university’s own inquiry into the matter.”
On Wednesday, prior to that inquiry, USC had told The Times it considered the matter resolved and that it remained confident in Varma.
The woman accused Varma of making unwanted sexual advances during a trip to a conference and then retaliating against her for reporting him, according to the records and interviews. USC paid her more than $100,000 and temporarily blocked Varma from becoming a full member of the faculty, according to the records and interviews.
“The behavior you exhibited is inappropriate and unacceptable in the workplace, reflects poor judgment, is contrary to the University’s standards of conduct, and will not be tolerated at the University of Southern California,” a USC official wrote in a 2003 letter of reprimand.
Despite this, USC soon promoted Varma to full professor. He was elevated three years ago to chair of the ophthalmology department by Dr. Carmen Puliafito, the former dean whose drug use and association with criminals The Times revealed this summer.
The sexual harassment allegation is well known in the upper echelons of the university, but not among many of the students and staff. The Times learned of it after publishing the July report about Puliafito. Current and former faculty members contacted the newspaper to express concern that Varma was overseeing the medical school given the harassment finding.
Candidates from top U.S. universities were in the running for the dean’s position, raising questions about why USC elected to follow Puliafito’s troubled tenure with the appointment of a faculty member previously found to have committed misconduct.
Varma did not respond to messages seeking comment.
At the January ceremony formally installing Varma as dean, USC administrators lauded his groundbreaking research on eye problems in minorities. A news release noted that he was “one of the leading recipients of research funding from the National Institutes of Health,” delivering tens of millions of dollars in grant money to the school.
“Healing, passion and hope — these words speak to the character of our new dean,” USC President C.L. Max Nikias told the standing-room-only crowd.
The harassment complaint sprang from a 2002 ophthalmology conference. At the time, Varma was a 40-year-old rising star in ophthalmology with an inspirational backstory. Raised in India, he had volunteered at a leper colony during medical school and worked alongside Mother Teresa, according to a USC press release. He had come to USC in 1993 and carved out a niche researching the prevalence of eye problems in minorities — a field of study the federal government was eager to fund.
A young international student working for Varma on one of those research projects — an NIH-funded study of eye disease in Latinos — accompanied him to the conference.
The woman later told USC investigators that when they arrived at the conference hotel, Varma told the woman he had booked a single room and expected her to share a bed with him, according to two sources familiar with USC’s investigation. She told the investigators that when she questioned the arrangement, Varma claimed the grant money would only cover one room, the sources said.
She said that when she protested further, he took her cellphone away and threatened to have her visa revoked, according to the sources. The woman told investigators that she had no money to pay for her own room and ended up sleeping on a cot in Varma’s room, the sources said.
She reported the incident to USC, and the university’s Office of Equity and Diversity launched an investigation of Varma for sexual harassment and retaliation. Investigators found evidence to support her claims, according to confidential university records reviewed by The Times.
“It has been determined that there is sufficient basis to conclude that inappropriate behavior has occurred,” then-Keck medical school Dean Stephen Ryan wrote to Varma in a March 2003 letter. “Further inappropriate behavior will result in your dismissal.”
As punishment, Varma was denied an expected promotion to full professor and his salary was reduced by $30,000, according to the letter. (He was making about $280,000, according to a disclosure he filed in his divorce case later that year.) He also was ordered to undergo counseling about sexual harassment, the letter stated.
“In addition, you should avoid all one-on-one encounters with [the researcher]. Contact with [her] shall be limited to that which is necessary to perform your job,” Ryan told him in the letter.
Ryan, who died in 2013, wrote that the letter “will be part of your permanent University file.” Half a dozen USC officials were copied on the letter, including two who remain in prominent roles: Vice Provost Martin Levine, and Senior Vice President and General Counsel Carol Mauch Amir.

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