(Bloomberg) -- Nobel laureate Philip Dybvig is facing an inquiry by Washington University in St. Louis about allegations of sexual harassment by a former student. 

Dybvig, who has been a banking and finance professor at the university since 1990 and won this year’s economics prize for his research on bank panics, was questioned by the university’s Title IX office in recent weeks, his lawyer, Andrew Miltenberg, told Bloomberg News. 

The office, which handles campus sexual harassment complaints, also has reached out to at least three former students to interview them about similar claims since October, according to emails reviewed by Bloomberg. They’re among a group of seven former students Bloomberg has spoken with who allege Dybvig sexually harassed them. Their complaints range from flirty messages to unwelcome kissing and touching — allegations that span at least a decade, some occurring as recently as this year.

Most of the women spoke on the condition of anonymity because they still work in academia or rely on employer-sponsored visas to live in the US. All accounts were corroborated by screenshots of messages with friends at the time of the alleged incidents, interviews with people the women had previously confided or, in one case, a fellow student who said she witnessed the encounter.

Dybvig, who is on an academic leave scheduled before accusations surfaced on social media on Oct. 12, did not respond to calls or emails requesting comment. His lawyer said the professor never had any improper physical or verbal interactions with students and has been devoted to teaching for more than 30 years.

“Professor Dybvig has been adamant about one thing,” Miltenberg said. “He takes his role as an educator very seriously. He feels that he has always had very appropriate and professional relationships with his students.”

Bloomberg contacted the Title IX office about the allegations and sent the school a detailed list of questions. University officials declined to discuss the matter.

“We don’t comment or share information about any specific case or individual,” said Julie Flory, vice chancellor for marketing and communications at the university. “We take sexual misconduct very seriously, and we will investigate any allegations that are reported to the university.”

Sexual harassment on college campuses falls under the purview of Title IX. The federal law, which prohibits sex discrimination at US colleges and universities, requires schools to have procedures for students to file grievances. Complainants have the right to an investigation, but it’s up to the school to decide what, if any, disciplinary action to take. 

Among those interviewed by the Title IX office was Karen Xiang, a 2012 graduate of the university’s Olin Business School. She said in an interview with Bloomberg that when she first met Dybvig at an event for new students in 2011, he pulled her on his lap for a photo. 

“He spoke Chinese and struck up conversations with Chinese girls,” said Xiang, who was an international student from China and is speaking publicly about her experiences for the first time. “Then he keeps probing you with borderline friendly-intimate moves, testing your boundaries.”

Soon after, Xiang said, the professor started sending her emails calling her tian mei zi, meaning sweet or sugar girl. One day, she said, he invited her to his office to give her a box of chocolates and, when she entered the room, he shut the door, pulled her to the sofa and started caressing her hand. “He sat extremely close,” Xiang said, “and started saying, ‘I think you are pretty’ and ‘I like you a lot.’”

Xiang, who now works for a US technology firm, said she left when another professor entered the room. Rattled, she met up with two friends and told them what had happened. They both confirmed Xiang’s story to Bloomberg.

Dybvig’s lawyer disputed Xiang’s account. The professor remembers having the photo taken, Miltenberg said, but asserts that Xiang sat on his lap of her own volition.

“I don’t think he pulled her on his lap or asked her to be on his lap,” Miltenberg said. “She wanted to take the photo and sat upon his lap.”

He also said that Dybvig has occasionally used the Chinese phrase for sugar girl, but characterized it as innocent — like “dear” in English — rather than intimate. “‘Sugar girl’ is a term of art in the Chinese language,” Miltenberg said, noting that Dybvig is well-versed in the nuances of the language because he lived in China for years. He added that Dybvig insists he has never caressed or inappropriately touched any student.

Xiang said it was absurd to suggest that she voluntarily sat on Dybvig’s lap.

“Why would a female international student, coming to study in the US for the first time, ever choose to sit on the lap of a foreign professor she just met, and in public?” said Xiang.

Xiang didn’t file a formal complaint to the university’s Title IX office. Neither did any of the other women Bloomberg spoke with. Like Xiang, all were international students. Some said they feared losing their student visas; others said they weren’t familiar with the process. The Title IX office didn’t respond to questions about what triggered its inquiry. 

“I considered reporting him at the time, but I was just a young Chinese student studying in the US for the first time, and he was a tenured and respected professor,” Xiang told Bloomberg. “Who’s going to help me if the school framed me for defamation and kicked me out?”

Dybvig, 67, has been a towering figure in economics for decades. While at Yale in 1983, he co-authored a groundbreaking paper that created a mathematical model demonstrating how a bank’s mix of assets can lead to panics among depositors. That “Diamond-Dybvig Model” has become the “foundation of modern banking regulation,” the Nobel committee said in its citation awarding this year’s prize in economics to Dybvig and his co-author. 

Dybvig has also taught at Princeton and Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in China, and written extensively about asset pricing, investment theory and risk management. 

Tore Ellingsen, chair of the Economic Sciences Prize Committee responsible for the selection of Nobel candidates, told Bloomberg that “neither the committee nor the Academy are qualified to investigate researchers’ workplace conduct.” Once the Swedish Academy, which oversees the awards, saw the allegations surface online, it contacted the university to “make sure they have an effective and fair process to handle the allegations,” Ellingsen said. “It is important that allegations of this kind are investigated, and that measures are taken to ensure that sexual harassment does not occur.”

He added that “as long as the university has not determined that Dybvig has done something wrong, I think we owe him an untarnished celebration of his great scientific achievement.”

Several female Chinese students told Bloomberg they warned each other about Dybvig’s behavior. Some gave him the nickname “mo xiao shou,” meaning “toucher of little hands,” according to screenshots of conversations viewed by Bloomberg. 

One Olin graduate who later helped her employer manage joint projects with Dybvig said that the professor would hold her hand for long periods of time when they were talking alone. In an email reviewed by Bloomberg, he said he thought about calling her “xiao,” a term of endearment, but “wasn’t sure how you would feel about that :-).” 

After a few encounters, the former student informed her supervisor who told her to immediately stop working with Dybvig. The supervisor declined to comment. 

In another email reviewed by Bloomberg, Dybvig sent a message to a student saying, “I see you are interested in ballroom dancing. I hope we have a chance to go dancing together sometime. (=  I should warn you I am not very professional, but I did go dancing almost every night at a hotel near campus when I was a first-year student at Penn.” 

Others said his advances went further. One woman said the professor massaged her shoulders and neck in his office, an incident that another woman who Bloomberg spoke to said she witnessed. Another said Dybvig kissed her neck without consent earlier this year. She told a friend at the time in a text message viewed by Bloomberg.

Dybvig’s lawyer said the timing of the allegations, which surfaced after the Nobel committee announced the award on Oct. 10, raised concerns that the complaints may have been motivated by professional jealousy. He suggested that other economists may have incited students to come forward with specious allegations and pointed to an Oct. 20 tweet by Jennifer Doleac, a Texas A&M University economics professor who mentioned unspecified harassment complaints against Dybvig. 

The accusations were being discussed in online forums and recounted to Bloomberg before Doleac posted her tweet.

Xiang said she felt compelled to speak about Dybvig after seeing that he’d won a Nobel Prize. Xiang first posted pseudonymously about her experiences on Oct. 12 in a WeChat article by 1Point3Acres, an online bulletin board popular among Chinese students.

After seeing Xiang’s post circulate online, Doleac said she started collecting experiences of women in economics via Twitter and sharing them with the hashtag EconMeToo.

“I certainly have nothing to gain personally from highlighting the accusations against him and others, and in fact I have borne professional costs from doing so,” Doleac said. “The point I was making in that tweet is that we have no reliable way to handle allegations of sexual misconduct within the economics profession; our institutions have failed us.”

On Nov. 17, Washington University’s student newspaper published a story based on two anonymous sexual harassment allegations against Dybvig. The professor, through his lawyer, declined to comment for the school paper’s story at the time.

More broadly, economists have previously acknowledged harassment and discrimination issues. At the 2019 American Economic Association meeting, the profession’s biggest gathering, former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said “economics certainly has a problem,” adding that it has a “reputation for hostility toward women and minorities.” In a panel discussion that year, several prominent women, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, shared stories of discrimination. 

Shortly after Doleac began circulating complaints, the AEA said it would discuss improving how it handles harassment at its upcoming meeting in January. 

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