The New York State lawyer normal’s workplace has begun investigating how Columbia College let a predatory physician proceed to see sufferers regardless of many years of warnings.
“The Workplace of the Legal professional Basic is conducting an intensive investigation into the institutional response to Robert Hadden’s misconduct,” a spokesperson mentioned in a press release to ProPublica. The company didn’t give additional particulars.
A ProPublica investigation from the autumn of 2023 revealed how Columbia ignored girls and finally protected Robert Hadden, a longtime OB-GYN on the college. In 2012, Columbia allowed Hadden to proceed seeing sufferers simply days after considered one of them known as 911 to report Hadden had sexually assaulted her.
In early 2023, Hadden was convicted in federal court docket of sexually abusing sufferers. He’s presently serving a 20-year sentence. Columbia has paid out greater than $1 billion for over 1,000 claims of sexual abuse.
After our investigation, Columbia dedicated to a wide range of reforms, together with improved affected person security, a $100 million fund for victims and an unbiased investigation.
However advocates, college students and survivors say Columbia must do much more to grapple with its position in Hadden’s conduct. 4 hundred Columbia medical college students lately wrote to school officers demanding disciplinary evaluations for directors who did not heed warnings about Hadden.
Not like at different universities which have handled serially abusive medical doctors, no higher-ups at Columbia seem to have misplaced their jobs or been disciplined. Dr. Mary D’Alton, who was cc’d on a letter that approved Hadden’s return to work, stays the chair of the obstetrics and gynecology division.
D’Alton didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Columbia declined to remark for this story.
The lawyer normal’s workplace has vital powers over New York’s nonprofits, together with Columbia. Just a few years in the past, it compelled the Trump Basis to close down. Extra lately it sued the Nationwide Rife Affiliation, which then needed to enact a collection of reforms.
Survivors informed ProPublica they have been heartened that New York is wanting into Columbia.
“Accountability is overdue, significantly in gentle of the Epstein recordsdata,” mentioned Evelyn Yang, pointing to latest revelations that a number of Columbia associates had ties to the financier.
Yang was amongst not less than 8 sufferers who have been assaulted by Hadden after he returned to work. She was seven months pregnant on the time.
Shortly after our story was printed greater than two years in the past, Columbia promised to “completely study the circumstances that allowed Hadden’s abuse to proceed.”
No report detailing these findings has but been printed.
Final week, Columbia acknowledged in an announcement that there “are many questions” concerning the timing of the investigation it commissioned. It mentioned that the report is anticipated to be launched “quickly.”
New York State Assemblymember Grace Lee blasted the college’s failure to challenge the report, telling ProPublica the college has not taken accountability for what occurred.
“To me, it’s simply outrageous that we’re right here now in 2026 and we nonetheless haven’t any report and nobody has been held accountable,” she mentioned.
By comparability, the exterior investigation into the College of Michigan’s response to the crimes dedicated by its former doctor Robert Anderson took about 15 months.
One other Hadden survivor, Marissa Hoechstetter, mentioned the lawyer normal’s choice to look at Columbia gives some aid as a result of the establishment has repeatedly failed to take action itself.
“I do imagine institutional accountability is a lacking a part of making a much bigger change within the struggle of gender-based violence,” Hoechstetter mentioned. “I don’t know what’s going to come of this investigation” — referring to New York’s probe — “nevertheless it exhibits that establishments that shield and canopy up abusers with a view to shield their very own folks and popularity shall be held accountable.”
Hoechstetter and Yang each advocated for the passage of the Grownup Survivors Act, a New York State legislation that in 2022 opened a one-year window through which survivors of sexual assault may file civil fits in opposition to their abusers or the establishments that protected them, even after the statute of limitations had handed.
For years, the college had did not notify Hadden’s former sufferers of his misconduct. Lastly, in November 2023, simply 10 days earlier than the legislation’s prolonged window closed, Columbia introduced it will ship letters to nearly 6,500 sufferers.
A closed city corridor assembly on the medical faculty this January gave a window into who was behind that lack of notification. “It really is a Board of Trustee choice” due to the potential value of litigation, Monica Lypson, the vice dean for medical training, informed college students in a recording that ProPublica obtained.
Lypson didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Individually, the deadline to submit a declare to Columbia’s survivors’ settlement fund, which was established for survivors who don’t wish to file lawsuits, has been prolonged to April 15.
