By Jon Parton
Former Computer Science professor William Hailey was terminated by the college at the end of summer classes after a student filed a harassment complaint against him.
Student Raffi Hatutian filed the complaint against Hailey after receiving a series of text messages from the professor. Hatutian was enrolled in one of Hailey’s spring 2012 classes.
“Raffi, I hope your interest and follow-through so far is not what I have to look forward to,” Hailey wrote in a long text to Hatutian. “It’s going to have to do a 180 [degree] turn-around. I am taking my time for you.
“There are many things I enjoy doing with my time. I enjoy working in my yard. I enjoy time with my son. I really enjoy spending time with a student who asks for a chance. They always appreciated that I take time just for them. We work, but we get lunch, maybe racquetball or swimming, if they are interested.
“If you don’t think you can keep a promise to me, please tell me before we begin. We can both save save [sic] a lot of time, and do other things for ourselves and for people in our lives who value our time that we are able to give to them. Raffi, it’s entirely up to you. Please let me know very soon what you want to, AND WILL, do.”
Although Hatutian said he could not comment on the matter, he confirmed that his attorney, Joshua Seiden, is in contact with the college.
Dennis Day, vice president, Student Success and Engagement, confirmed that Hailey is no longer employed by the college.
“Every college and university is under the restrictions of- there’s a duty to report and there’s a duty to certain actions,” Day said. “So in this case, when we found out about suspicions of certain acts, the college moved very quickly and the employee is no longer an employee of the institution within hours of finding out.”
Day confirmed that other complaints against Hailey were brought to his attention.
“In this case, there was enough smoke […] that there was an action needed to happen rather quickly,” Day said. “And then once there was a semi-confirmation of what was done, then the action was termination because we have no tolerance for it.”
On the website RateMyProfessors.com, students can rate professors and leave comments for others to read. One user wrote an unfavorable comment about Hailey on Jan. 8, 2010.
“Mr. Hailey was never willing to help you,” the comment began. “The only people that he would help was [sic] the ones that couldn’t speak English. He did not teach on useful things. He gave his opinion on how the U.S. should work. He asks you to go swimming with him a lot. It really creeps me out a lot. He should be fired. He wouldn’t show us how to do certain things when asked [sic].”
Hailey could not be reached for comment.
Editor’s note: Joshua Seiden is a former student and former editor of The Campus Ledger.
Contact Jon Parton, managing editor, at jparton@jccc.edu.
[…] you read the article on page two of this issue, you know that former professor William Hailey was terminated from the college after sending quite […]