Study of 'sexual paranoia' on US campuses draws lawsuit from student

Laura Kipnis is being sued by a student whose case she highlights in a new book arguing against overzealous regulation

Laura Kipnis, an academic who has spoken out against the way US universities handle sex abuse claims, is being sued by a student whose harassment case against a professor features heavily in Kipnis’s latest book. Under the name Jane Doe, the graduate student claims a chapter in Kipnis’s Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus invaded her privacy and misrepresented her case against a philosophy professor.

Texts between the student and Peter Ludlow published in the book could be used to identify her, the student claims, though Kipnis changed her name in the book. Ludlow was dismissed from Northwestern University in Illinois following two allegations of sexual harassment. In her book, Kipnis uses Ludlow’s case to argue that universities’ application of rules on sexual conduct is overzealous and undermines civil liberties.

Related: Sexual paranoia on campus – and the professor at the eye of the storm

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