MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, Manhattan (WABC) — A culture of silence at Columbia University allowed a doctor to sexually abuse hundreds of women for decades, according to the findings of a new independent report.<\/p>\n
Robert Hadden, the former Columbia University OBGYN, was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for sexually assaulting dozens of women beginning in the 1980s through 2012.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the results of an external investigation commissioned by two of his former employers, Columbia and New-York Presbyterian Hospital, was revealed.<\/p>\n
According to the report, a culture at Columbia protected Hadden from allegations of abuse.<\/p>\n
Among its key findings were ineffective medical chaperoning, barriers to reporting misconduct and a culture that suppressed or discouraged it, a lack of reporting procedure, and insufficient record-keeping, which allowed Hadden to keep working after his 2012 sex crimes arrest on state charges.<\/p>\n
“Just another ingredient in their stew of cover up and deception,” said former patient Laurie Kanyok.<\/p>\n
Kanyok is one of the survivors who testified in Hadden’s 2023 federal trial.<\/p>\n
In a statement the university added, “While we cannot undo the harm of the past, we are firmly committed to ensuring that nothing like this can happen again.”<\/p>\n
Columbia has already established a $100 million survivors settlement fund and settled with more than a thousand former patients for over a billion dollars.<\/p>\n
The accusations of abuse stretched for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n
“It’s just money and I hate to be so flippant about it but you can’t take away the actions. You can’t take away the pain,” Kanyok said.<\/p>\n
“It’s extremely inadequate, insufficient, especially for a report that took almost three years to generate,” said former patient Evelyn Yang.<\/p>\n
Yang says Columbia’s promise to strengthen and improve training, protocols, and oversight is the bare minimum.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, two prominent university leaders are stepping down following the release of the report, but Yang says the problem is the scope of the investigation.<\/p>\n
“The entire period where after he was arrested where survivors and advocates, student advocates and faculty advocates, experienced things like silencing and other intimidation tactics. None of this cover-up is reported,” Yang said.<\/p>\n
Separately, the state attorney general is investigating Columbia for its handling of sex abuse claims.<\/p>\n
Survivors say they hope that investigation leads to true accountability.<\/p>\n
Columbia declined comment on the investigation.<\/p>\n
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