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Due Process

U Pittsburgh Denied Due Process to Professor as to Sexual Harassment Allegations

Eugene Volokh | 8.17.2026 8:33 AM

Some excerpts from Friday's longish decision by Judge Nora Barry Fischer (W.D. Pa.) in Bhattacharya v. Univ. of Pittsburgh:

Plaintiff, Chitrabhanu Bhattacharya, a tenured professor employed in the School of Business of Defendant, the University of Pittsburgh, was suspended without pay for a year, and terminated from the H.J. Zoffer endowed Chair, for "pervasive but not severe" violations of Defendant's sexual misconduct policy….

Plaintiff sued, claiming the University denied him due process, and the court agreed. The court concluded that a one-year suspension from a tenured position, and termination from a $50,000/year chair, were deprivations of "property" that required due process, and that such due process wasn't provided:

Plaintiff contends that Defendant failed to give him adequate notice of the charges against him, or an adequate explanation of Defendant's evidence. He avers, to the contrary, that Defendant provided a July 10, 2023 notice of charges whose "sole........

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