Former US Ambassador to Vatican Investigated for Sexual Harassment

By Dennis Coday
National Catholic Reporter
May 5, 2014

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/report-former-us-ambassador-vatican-investigated-sexual-harassment

The online news source Inside Higher Ed is moving a story this morning that says Miguel H. Diaz, U.S. ambassador to the Vatican from 2009-2012, was investigated for sexual harassment by the University of Dayton, the Marianist university where he has been teaching since leaving government service.

See the story: Unwanted Advances.

Insider Higher Ed reports that a “preponderance of evidence” led investigators to conclude there was “reasonable cause to believe that some of [Diaz’s] conduct constituted sexual harassment that created an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment,” according to a letter sent to the alleged victims by Dayton’s general counsel.

The university imposed a number of restrictions on Diaz as conditions for his continued employment, according to the report.

Insider Higher Ed quotes from a confidential letter written by Dayton’s provost to the couple who filed a complaint against Diaz.

An investigation found Diaz to have likely engaged in “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature” toward a married couple who were his colleagues at the University of Dayton, according to the letter.

Diaz declined to respond to inquiries from Insider Higher Education.

Diaz and his wife Marian, also an academic, are expected to take up new jobs at Jesuit-run Loyola University in Chicago this summer, she as assistant professor of practical theology in the Institute of Pastoral Studies, and he as the John Courtney Murray University Chair in Public Service and a professor of systematic theology.

Loyola University confirmed to Inside Higher Education that the former ambassador is to begin work but declined further comments.