type: NYT (Copyright 1992 The New York Times) priority: Regular date: 05-04-92 2239EDT category: Domestic subject: BC MIT SUIT title: SUIT DEPICTS FIGHT ON MIT FACULTY author: FOX BUTTERFIELD text: CAMBRIDGE, Mass.-- A literature professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has startled the university by filing a lawsuit charging that she was harassed for putting traditional scholarly standards ahead of the radical political views of her colleagues. The professor, Cynthia Griffin Wolff, an authority on Emily Dickinson and Edith Wharton, asserts in the suit that she has been subjected to ``a pattern of professional, political and sexual harassment'' with the acquiescence of MIT administration officials. The breach-of-contract and civil rights suit, filed last month in Middlesex Superior Court, seeks unspecified damages from the university. The suit has exposed a long simmering fight within MIT's small literature department, which has been so heated that last fall the university's provost, Mark Wrighton, temporarily suspended its power to hire and promote faculty members. Although personal and political disputes over matters of hiring and curriculum are common in universities, Professor Wolff's suit is unusual in the way that it partly reflects a battle over feminist scholarship. Professor Wolff asserts in the suit, for example, that that while she is a feminist scholar she has been excluded from teaching in the Women's Studies program at MIT because she had voted against giving tenure to a more radical female professor who went on to become head of women's studies at the university. In her suit, Professor Wolff also asserts that sexual preferences have become a consideration in hiring decisions in the literature department. Professor Wolff herself declined to comment on the case. But her lawyer, Stephen H. Oleskey, said that she had twice prepared course outlines for proposed classes in women's studies and had discussed them with both the curriculum committee of the women's studies program and with Ruth Perry, the head of women's studies. Both times she was rejected by Professor Perry, whom Professor Wolff had voted against for tenure, Oleskey said. But Professor Perry's lawyer, Jonathan Shapiro, denied those assertions. Instead, he said, ``Professor Wolff never proposed a course and was never told she couldn't propose one'' in women's studies. In her suit, Professor Wolff also alleged that David Halperin, an openly gay classicist, had ``demanded'' in a department meeting that a professor be hired ``because he said he was `in love' with the candidate.'' According to the suit, when Professor Wolff ``expressed opposition to this rationale for hiring, Professor Halperin verbally attacked'' her for expressing homophobic views. In a telephone interview, Halperin acknowledged ``saying I was in love with him.'' But Professor Halperin, who is head of MIT's small gay and lesbian studies program, said he had made the comment in the interest of full disclosure and did not mean ``we should hire him because I was in love with him.'' Christina Hoff Sommers, a professor of philosophy at Clark University in Worcester and a friend of Professor Wolff, said the battle within MIT's literature department ``is a case of political correctness gone mad.'' Professor Sommers said Professor Wolff considered herself a ``progressive feminist'' but one who still believed in applying traditional scholarly standards in her academic work. A number of the 10 professors in the department are ``radical feminists, gay theorists or Marxists, very dogmatic and intolerant,'' Professor Sommers said. ``Anyone who dares to oppose them gets labeled as part of the white, hetero, patriarchal hegemony.'' At MIT, the nation's foremost university devoted to science and engineering, the literature department is a often referred to as a ``service section'' to help students broaden their education. It has few majors and no graduate students. Wrighton, the provost, said that because of the pending litigation he could not comment on individual accusations. But he said that ``we take very seriously'' the concerns raised by Professor Wolff and others about tumult in the literature department. (STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS.) Last fall, according to Professor Wolff's suit, after she had informed Wrighton that an assistant professor of literature, a male, ``was being sexually harassed'' by Halperin, the provost put together a committee to investigate the literature department. Its findings have not been made public. But Wrighton wrote to some members of the department that the committee had found a ``hostile environment'' that interfered with the assistant professor's rights, and the man, who asked not to be named, was given an additional three-year appointment before he would come up for tenure. Halperin has denied ``any unprofessional conduct'' with that assistant professor. But several other professors generally supported Professor Wolff's portrait of the troubles in the department. Irene Tayler, a professor of literature, said that she too had been barred from teaching in the women's studies program, apparently because her scholarship was not politically acceptable. Another professor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the department was sharply divided by those who termed themselves ``progressives,'' and analyzed issues according to race, sex and class, and others who were labeled ``neo-conservatives.''