Women Sue USC Over Sexual Misconduct Allegations
Several lawsuits, including one class action suit, were filed against the University of Southern California Monday over allegations that George Tyndall, the longtime campus gynecologist, carried out sexual misconduct under the guise of medical treatment for decades. The class action lawsuit was filed by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, a national litigation firm, on behalf of the "hundreds, if not thousands" of female USC students who were at one time examined by Tyndall.
The lawsuits come amid a recent, public outpouring of allegations that Tyndall, 71, sexually victimized female patients to his office on the USC campus. As reported by the Associated Press, the lawsuit claims Tyndall "routinely made crude comments, took inappropriate photographs and forced the plaintiffs to strip naked and groped them under the guise of medical treatment for his 'sexual gratification.'"
The class action lawsuit, filed against USC, the USC board of trustees, and Tyndall, alleges decades of sexual misconduct over the course of Tyndall's more than 30 years as campus gynecologist. The suit claims USC knew about allegations against Tyndall, and in keeping him on staff until he was suspended in 2016, "violated its female students' trust by knowingly putting women in the room for treatment by Tyndall, knowing that inappropriate physical contact and violations would occur."
According to the filed suit, USC female nurses or medical assistants commonly accompanied Tyndall in the exam room - something that isn't abnormal for male gynecologists. "In the years after Tyndall started, some chaperones reportedly became alarmed about the frequency with which he used a camera during pelvic exams," the suit reads. "Tyndall's chaperones questioned his motivations, with one reporting he took multiple pictures of hundreds of patients' genitals."
The suit also claims chaperones were concerned about Tyndall's "meticulous" full body scans, which chaperones said were "highly unusual if not inappropriate."
The suit mentions that a group of eight chaperones reported Tyndall to their supervisor in 2013, which led to the clinic executive's director speaking with Tyndall, and an alleged investigation by USC's Office of Equity and Diversity. "The investigation apparently concluded there was no violation of school policy," reads the suit. "The only action that [the executive director] took was to bar Tyndall from locking the door of his office when patients were present."
The suit then claims that Tyndall allegedly "increased his attempts to groom patients, particularly of Chinese ethnicity."
Tyndall has denied any misconduct since the Los Angeles Times initially reported on the allegations on May 16, 2018. USC officials conceded after the news broke that Tyndall should have been removed from the clinic years earlier "because of the severity of the complaints."
In a statement released Monday, USC provost Michael Quick addressed the lawsuit and the claims against Tyndall.
"I apologize to our students who were mistreated by Dr. Tyndall. Full stop," Quick wrote. "This should never happen to anyone, least of all to one of our students. I am horrified by it and disgusted that it occurred at USC."
In the statement, Quick denies the allegation, included in the class action lawsuit, that USC knew and covered up Tyndall's misconduct:
"That said, some of you have written, and I have seen media reports allege, that the university leadership knew about Dr. Tyndall’s misbehavior for a long time, and that we covered it up for the sake of the USC brand. This is absolutely untrue. It is unthinkable. It is true that our system failed, but it is important that you know that this claim of a cover-up is patently false. We would never knowingly put students in harm’s way."
Quick also writes there is no evidence that Tyndall targeted Chinese or other international students, and says the university is "carefully reviewing all complaints and has yet to find a pattern in who was affected."
You can read the full lawsuit here.
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