UT Students Call For Prof's Removal Amid Sexual Misconduct Claims

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Members of the UT Senate of College Councils have passed a resolution calling for the removal of a university English professor accused of sexual misconduct from this fall's course schedule, according to a published report.

A previous investigation by University of Texas at Austin officials found Coleman Hutchison violated sexual misconduct policies and failed to disclose a consensual relationship with a student. Last Thursday, the UT Senate of College Councils fast-tracked their resolution calling for his removal, the student-run University of Texas at Austin newspaper, The Daily Texan, reported.

Allegations against Hutchison date to 2011, when Jenn Shapland, then a 24-year-old graduate student in the UT-Austin English department, received an email from her professor, as Splinter later reported: “You write like a dream," the professor wrote. "Consider me quite smitten with your Critical Credo. Thank you, thank you for producing such a thoughtful and engaging piece of writing.”

Then a rising, 34-year-old professor in the department, Hutchison was on the verge of tenure, Splinter noted in its report. An exchange of messages between the teacher and student ensued, leading up to a meeting over drinks. Hutchison is said to have kissed the grad student during the encounter, sparking a consensual relationship that lasted four months.

The university's Office for Inclusion and Equity had launched an investigation into Hutchison's behavior, as both publications reported. Then, in the fall of 2017, Shapland wrote an essay about the experience published in the literary journal The Arkansas International. Without identifying Hutchison by name, Shapland described the relationship in angry tones in writing how its aftermath prompted her to leave the university.

An excerpt of Shapland's essay can be found by clicking here.

The university was able to Hutchison as the professor described in the essay after multiple students reported a similar pattern of behavior, Splinter described: "He’d tell a female grad student that he liked her writing, encourage her to meet with him to discuss it, and then begin making sexual advances."

In 2015, Splinter reported, Hutchison married another of his students, declaring at his wedding he loved her “...first as a little crush and then, quite suddenly, with the whole of my being.”

As reported in The Daily Texan, UT Senate of College Councils members believe a case for sexual harassment can be made against Hutchison given that the graduate student with whom he had been involved left the university because she felt uncomfortable.

"She basically published, I believe it was an op/ed or something, at the university that she's at now that outlining that he made her very uncomfortable, and that was the reason why she left the university," resolution co-author Alcess Nonott told The Daily Texan. "So in that case, that would be a violation of sexual harassment laws even though there was a previous consensual relationship."

As part of its report, Splinter spoke to 11 current and former students about Hutchison's pattern of behavior. To a person, each described his behavior as "creepy," the publication reported. He served as graduate adviser, meaning every grad student was obligated to talk to him each semester about a number of college-related matters — their courses, timelines for completion of assignments, funding and classes they would teach.

An email from Patch to Hutchison requesting comment was not immediately returned.

>>> Read the full story at The Daily Texan