Coed Complaint

A poet is accused at Harvard

Like many prominent poets and playwrights, West Indies-born Derek Walcott, 52, is much in demand as a college lecturer and teacher. And, as may befit a writer, he has a teaching style that, by his own description, can seem "deliberately personal and intense." But for one Harvard University freshman coed, it was more than that. The young woman, who took a poetry workshop that Walcott taught as a visiting professor last semester, has made an official complaint to the university accusing him of sexual harassment.

According to the coed, who insists on anonymity, Walcott invited the workshop members for coffee after an evening class in November, as he often did. This time she was the only one who accepted. During the ensuing conversation, Walcott asked her to "imagine me making love to you." Then he said, "Would you make love to me if I asked you?" She said no. Six weeks ago, in a letter of complaint to Marilyn Lewis, Harvard's dean of coeducational affairs, the woman said that Walcott's attitude toward her in class "drastically changed" after she rebuffed him, and she protested the grade of C that he ultimately gave her for the course.

Last week, after details of her complaint appeared in the Harvard Crimson and other newspapers, Walcott spoke out from his home in Port of Spain, Trinidad. "The charge is unjust," he said. In his version of the encounter, "This girl mentioned that she had written an erotic poem. Later I asked her what she had done for the weekend and she said she went with her boyfriend. I made some quip about that, but there was no intention to be in any way offensive. And if she felt I was, then she could have cut me short or walked away. I never touched her."

Walcott, who has published three collections of plays and whose six widely praised volumes of poetry include the recently issued The Fortunate Traveller, currently holds a visiting professorship at Boston University. He said that in view of the controversy, he had canceled plans to accept an honorary degree from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis., last weekend, because "I didn't want to embarrass any institution." Meanwhile, although Harvard's Dean Lewis told the complaining coed that her charges "had merit" and that "formal action" had been taken, Walcott said he had heard nothing further from the university about the matter.

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