Victim In Walter Lewin Online Course Sexual Harassment Case Comes Forward

Victim In MIT Online Course Sexual Harassment Case Comes Forward
CAMBRIDGE, MA - JUNE 24: Walter Lewin, a retired MIT physics professor, poses at home on June 24, 2011 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lewin became and internet phenomenon after millions of YouTube hits, for his entertaining , hands on demonstrations of the principles of physics. He taught for 60 years and loves teaching as much as he loves physics. (Photo by Joanne Ciccarello/The Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images)
CAMBRIDGE, MA - JUNE 24: Walter Lewin, a retired MIT physics professor, poses at home on June 24, 2011 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lewin became and internet phenomenon after millions of YouTube hits, for his entertaining , hands on demonstrations of the principles of physics. He taught for 60 years and loves teaching as much as he loves physics. (Photo by Joanne Ciccarello/The Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images)

Walter H.G. Lewin’s debut as a massive open online course instructor was announced with some fanfare: “Afraid of physics?” a press release asked in January 2013. “Do you hate it? Walter Lewin will make you love physics whether you like it or not.”

That made his MOOCs a good fit for Faïza Harbi, 32, a private English tutor living in Montpellier, France. Harbi spoke openly to Inside Higher Ed but asked that her maiden name be used. She said she decided to take a physics course after struggling with the subject in high school. She was not familiar with the rock star professor, whose more than four decades at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, innovative and hugely popular video lectures and hundreds of scholarly articles had earned him international acclaim.

...

It would take almost a year before Harbi, with the help of MIT’s investigators, said she came to understand that Lewin’s interest in her was not motivated by empathy, and that their first conversations included inappropriate language. Shortly after contacting her, Harbi said, Lewin quickly moved their friendship into uncomfortable territory, and she was pushed to participate in online sexual role-playing and send naked pictures and videos of herself.

Before You Go

Images From 'Surviving In Numbers' -- A Project Highlighting Sexual Assault Survivors' Experiences

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot