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Columbia University leaders issued a letter apologizing to patients who were sexually abused by former university gynecologist Robert Hadden, promising a “multipronged response plan” that includes an external investigation into the university’s handling of complaints and a $100 million settlement fund to ensure compensation for the victims.
“Columbia failed these survivors, and for that we are deeply sorry,” President Minouche Shafik and Dr. Katrina Armstrong, chief executive officer of the medical center, wrote. “We owe it to the courageous survivors and the entire Columbia community to fully reckon with Hadden’s abuses.”
Hadden, who worked at the university for over two decades, had been the target of many complaints over the course of his career there; he was even briefly arrested in 2012, while still employed by the university. In July he was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for sexual abuse of his patients.
Since then, pressure has intensified for the university to investigate its own role in allowing years of abuse to go unpunished. A ProPublica exposé includes testimony from victims and prosecutors alleging that Columbia failed to cooperate adequately in investigations of Hadden and did not inform Hadden’s former patients of the reasons for his dismissal after he was fired.
Columbia is currently facing multiple lawsuits from Hadden’s victims and has settled with more than 200 of them in recent years, to the tune of over $230 million. But until Monday’s letter, the university had never admitted responsibility for Hadden’s abuse.
