A New Zealand academic at the centre of a trans-Tasman dispute between the Australian National University and Auckland University of Technology over an alleged case of sexual harassment has resigned.
Dr Max Abbott, a senior New Zealand academic, was accused of harassing a more junior Australian-based colleague over a number of years, mostly by text.
It sparked a disagreement about whether the New Zealand university had responded sufficiently to the allegations, which it acknowledged as serious, by undertaking an in-depth investigation of its staff member.
AUT, Abbott’s university, confirmed in a written statement on Friday night that he had resigned.
“Earlier this week Dr Max Abbott was suspended pending investigation of allegations made in last weekend’s Sunday Star Times,” said Derek McCormack, the university’s vice-chancellor, in a written statement, referring to a New Zealand newspaper that first published the allegations against the academic.
“I have today accepted Dr Abbott’s resignation from employment and all positions at AUT.”
Abbott, who was a pro vice-chancellor at the university, had earlier resigned his role as dean when the allegations first came to light but retained his professorship until this week.
Dr Marisa Paterson, 37, the director of ANU’s Centre for Gambling Research, had made a formal complaint in 2019 against Abbott, a world renowned expert in gambling addiction.
On Friday night she declined to comment on the academic’s resignation.
Abbott, 68, was the co-director of New Zealand’s National Institute for Public Health and Mental Health research at AUT and is a worldwide leader in the specialist field of gambling addiction.
In a written statement to the Guardian on Friday, he said the allegations against him had “received extensive, generally unbalanced, media coverage”.
“The reactions of some people to this coverage within and external to the university made my academic and other positions untenable,” he said.
Abbott also said: “AUT investigated the harassment allegations and did not find a basis for disciplinary action. The procedures and outcome were assessed and deemed appropriate by independent employment lawyers.”
He said that it was “in the best interests of the university at this time for me to resign. I did this with a heavy heart, having been a dean for 29 years and playing a major role in the university’s development.”
But whether AUT did properly investigate the allegations spurred a trans-Tasman dispute between the school and Paterson’s employer.
Paterson alleges a pattern of harassment by text message that began in December 2017, which she said left her traumatised, and that continued into 2019.
By August 2019, Paterson told the Guardian in an interview on Tuesday, she had had enough and claimed she was threatened with retaliation for asking Abbott to stop. She went to her university’s human resources department with hundreds of pages of emails and texts – some of which the Guardian has viewed – to make a complaint against Abbott.
ANU sent a formal complaint to AUT, Abbott’s employer.
AUT responded with a short letter and an undertaking from Abbott that he would not contact her any more and would do everything possible not to influence her career outcomes. It also included an apology written by him. But that did not satisfy either Paterson or ANU.
“I want an investigation, reassurance he is not doing this to others, and an apology from AUT,” Paterson told the Guardian earlier this week.
An ANU spokesperson told the Guardian on Tuesday: “We have provided AUT with comprehensive information on this matter and requested for them to investigate as is appropriate.
“Sexual harassment is never OK and the Australian National University takes allegations of this unacceptable behaviour seriously. Such behaviour does not align with our values or our culture.
“Our priority is always the wellbeing and welfare of our community, and if anyone brings such allegations to us, they are heard, they are believed and they are supported.”
In an email on Tuesday, a spokesperson for AUT told the Guardian that a request for ANU to outline any further concerns it had about the investigation remained “unanswered”.
AUT also said in a statement a week ago, after allegations were published in a New Zealand newspaper, that it remained committed to “zero tolerance of sexual harassment and to full, fair and proper responses to all allegations of it according to its values”.
AUT said a formal investigation was immediately undertaken as soon as it received the complaint from ANU.
“External legal advice was received both before and after our investigation and our investigation and its outcomes were deemed appropriate.”
AUT did not say on Friday whether any further review or investigation would be spurred by Abbott’s resignation.
