Columbia Protected a Doctor Who Assaulted Hundreds of Patients
So much for “the highest standards of ethical conduct”
This case is a particularly egregious example of what happens in a culture where some people matter and some people don’t, and where protecting the people (the men) at the top of the power hierarchy is more important than common decency.
It’s a story about allowing powerful men to do what they want with no repercussions because in such a social dynamic, Might Makes Right, and those who have the prestige or power to get away with harming those with less, are almost expected to do so — particularly if holding them accountable might prove embarrassing. It’s something that we see time and again, although it is fortunately being gradually less tolerated.
Over the course of two decades, Robert Hadden, an OB/GYN who worked at a clinic affiliated with Columbia University, sexually assualted hundreds of women — at least 245 women have claimed he assualted them — and considering that he saw anywhere from 25–40 patients per day, there may well be many more who simply did not want to come forward. Hadden is now serving 20 years in federal prison. Columbia has still not notified his former patients of this fact.
Columbia University is a well-respected institution of higher learning, an Ivy League school that has long prided itself on being a center for both excellence as well as integrity. But, according to one former doctor who worked there at the time that Robert Hadden also did, there was a culture of covering up anything that might detract from that image. “If there was something that wasn’t perfect, you better not talk about it. We don’t want to ruin the reputation,” said Jennifer Tam, the only former colleague of Hadden’s who was willing to comment on the record.
In recent decades, several university medical systems have provided cover for abusive doctors whose victim counts run well into the hundreds. Columbia’s failures stand out even in this grim company. (emphasis mine) Unlike at Michigan State — where Larry Nassar sexually assaulted young gymnasts under the guise of medical care — no Columbia administrators are known to have lost their jobs. Unlike at the University of Michigan — where an athletics department doctor abused mostly male students — Columbia never commissioned an independent investigation into what happened under its roof. Unlike at the University of Southern California — where a staff gynecologist’s abuse led to a billion dollar settlement — Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, did not resign when the enormity of Hadden’s crimes came to light. (ProPublica)
In fact, Columbia has denied any culpability, citing Hadden's actions as “outside the scope of his employment” and something that he went out of his way to hide from them. But this doesn’t account for the fact that complaints about his conduct were made over the years and never resulted in any disciplinary action or even substantive investigation. After his arrest in 2012, the university never even interviewed the complainant. In fact, Hadden was back working in the clinic the next day, where he worked for 5 more weeks. Eight patients say he assualted them during that time, including Evelyn Yang, the wife of former Presidential candidate, Andrew Yang.
That arrest (which came after he licked a patient’s vulva and she went to the police) was later voided under a plea deal — one that probably never would have been offered if Columbia had cooperated with the investigation. It wasn’t until 2020 when his victims began to come forward publicly in such numbers that a federal investigation was opened and he was finally made to pay for his offenses.
Once Hadden’s crimes became clear, Columbia worked to tamp down the crisis. It waited months to tell his patients that he was no longer working, and then sent matter-of-fact letters that omitted the reason. After police and local prosecutors began to investigate Hadden in 2012, Columbia failed to hand over evidence in its possession, despite subpoenas that compelled it to do so. The university also did not tell the district attorney when more patients came forward — witnesses who could have strengthened the case prosecutors were trying to build. The DA found Columbia’s conduct so concerning that the office launched a criminal investigation into the university itself, along with the affiliated hospital where Hadden had admitting privileges. The inquiry found that Columbia had, by neglecting to place document-retention holds, “intended to destroy” emails written by Hadden and his former colleagues who had left the university. The DA found the records because they were “inadvertently left on an old server.” (Columbia disputes this.)
The local investigation of Hadden ended in a 2016 deal that allowed him to avoid serving a single day in jail. Cyrus Vance Jr., who was DA at the time, says that if Columbia had fully cooperated, it might have made a difference in his office’s decision to accept a plea. “Obviously that did not happen,” Vance says. (ProPublica)
Hadden used his prestige as a doctor affiliated with an Ivy League college, in addition to the culture of silence that prevailed there, in order to have continuous access to women he could prey on. Just as Larry Nassar had done at Michigan State with the gymnasts in his care, Hadden exploited his position of power and trust in order to sexually abuse women.
When complaints to Columbia never went anywhere, I’m sure it must have only emboldened him. “At least twice, the fact that Hadden’s bosses in the OB-GYN department knew of the women’s concerns was acknowledged in writing. They allowed him to continue practicing.”
HADDEN used sophisticated techniques to carry out his abuse, which he honed over the course of more than two decades. He exploited the power differential inherent in the doctor-patient relationship, he built rapport with victims, he asked victims invasive and unprompted questions about their sexual activity, including about sex positions and if they were able to achieve orgasm, and he provided unsolicited advice on these topics. He also used so-called breast and vaginal exams to hide his abuse, he isolated patients, and he conducted fake examinations. (justice.gov)
One of the dynamics that drove the federal investigation was that Evelyn Yang discovered she had been assaulted by Hadden after he had been arrested. She looked at the dates and realized that Columbia had just let him go back to work after his arrest, without an investigation, which resulted in her own assault. She came forward publicly in 2020 to talk about this and used her platform as a person higher up the dominance hierarchy to give further credence to the claims of the rest of the women.
When Judge Berman was sentencing Robert Hadden, he commented not only on the exceptional depravity of Hadden’s behavior but also that it had gone on unchecked for so long. This was a particularly egregious case, but unfortunately, this dynamic isn’t uncommon, even if it’s not always to this degree.
Predators often rely on the social stratification inherent in a dominance-based hierarchy to make sure that they can continue doing as they please. Even if they are caught, abusive priests simply get transferred to another parish, and harassing executives get a promotion. Women surgeons in the NHS in Britain get sexually harassed and assualted in full view of their colleagues, sometimes during a procedure, and nobody does anything because it's just how things are.
Because we too often believe that people in our culture have power because they deserve to have it, bad behavior is either minimized or disregarded entirely. Nobody wants to stick their neck out because too often it blows back negatively on them when confronting a man with significant social power. Sexual predators, in particular, are often abetted by a vague sense that the victim must have somehow brought this upon themselves. They must have invited it or welcomed it in some way. Why didn't they speak up sooner?
But there is no excuse for a doctor using his patient’s trust as a vehicle for sexually assaulting her. And there is no excuse for an affiliate institution, particularly one that prides itself on ethical conduct, to disregard reports of problematic behavior and to obstruct an investigation of one of its doctors.
When Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia at the time, eventually retired, he was replaced by Minouche Shafik. One of her recent book titles is, What We Owe Each Other “in which she calls for a better social contract to underpin our economic system and challenges institutions and individuals to rethink how we can better support each other to thrive.” The Amazon blurb notes that the book has “practical solutions to current challenges and demonstrates how we can build a better society — together.”
I’m all in favor of that and this book is definitely going on my reading list. Abuse of power, abuse of the vulnerable, as well as all the ways that a blind eye too often gets turned to that — we really must do better than this, for the good of us all.
© Copyright Elle Beau 2023
