UMKC agrees to $1.1 million settlement in sexual harassment suit

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The University of Missouri-Kansas City has settled a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by two women alleging that the university did nothing in response to complaints about inappropriate sexual behavior by two psychology professors.

Although it denied liability in the case, the university will pay $1.1 million to Linda S. Garavalia and Megan Pinkston-Camp, in a settlement finalized July 3.

In the lawsuit, filed a year ago in Jackson County Circuit Court, the two women said C. Keith Haddock and Walker S. Carlos Poston II sought sexual favors, circulated torture videos and pornography, and physically intimidated female lab students and employees.

Neither professor was available for comment Thursday; Haddock was out of the country until July 22 and Poston was out of the office until next week.

The two women allege that women working in the psychology lab, then known as the Health Research Group, were groped, fondled, and subjected to explicit sexual comments and sexual advances. They said it was generally understood that the women's careers might be in jeopardy if they didn't go along with the professors' behavior.

The Kansas City Star reported that at least five women have left the school in recent years because nothing was done about their complaints against Haddock and Poston.

Under the settlement, Garavalia, an associate professor in the psychology department, and Pinkston-Camp, a one-time doctoral student in the department who now lives in Maryland, will each receive $82,107 in lost wages and $246,322 in damages for emotional distress. Their lawyers will get $443,141.

Meanwhile Haddock and Poston remain in charge of the laboratory -- which has been moved from the psychology department to UMKC's medical school -- and both received promotions and raises, the Star said.

The two professors were promoted from associate professors to full professors soon after they moved to the medical school in late 2005. Poston received a raise from $76,707 to $101,707, while Haddock's salary rose from $75,876 to $93,376.

"The charge of sexual harassment is serious and the University of Missouri-Kansas City remains committed to due process in this matter," UMKC said in a written statement. "In our commitment to providing an appropriate environment, we are re-examining all information that was revealed during the litigation to determine if further action is needed."

Tammy Horn, one of the attorneys who represented the two women, said several women in the department left because they didn't think they had any alternatives.

"These were very smart, very educated women," Horn said. "They were physically scared and they were scared about their careers. And they had no idea where to go for help.

"Dr. Garavalia watched as multiple women felt they had no choice but to abandon their research efforts, dissertations, theses, grant opportunities, etc., to escape the sexually hostile environment created by Haddock and Poston."

The current head of UMKC's psychology department, Diane Filion, said in a deposition that she went to six people and an outside attorney seeking help for the women.

UMKC's Affirmative Action Office, Darlene Scott-Scurry, determined that "testimony revealed that certain behaviors were occurring in the laboratory that had no place in a university environment."

Yet she concluded that there was "insufficient evidence" of a sexually hostile environment.

In sworn statements provided in the lawsuit, three female students supported Garavalia and Pinkston-Camp, describing an environment rife with graphic sexual talk and intimidating behavior.

Pinkston-Camp, who worked in the lab from August 2003 to June 2005, acknowledged that she eventually gave in to Poston's advances and had physical contact with him -- though not sexual intercourse -- three times. She said she felt pressured to do so because he had the power to make or break her career.

"He was my supervisor," she said. "He was the one I depended on for my research career, for everything."