Historian Michael T. Landis tried to clear his name. Colleagues didn’t buy it.

Related Link Twitter thread lays out the evidence against Michael Landis

When Tarleton State University’s student newspaper, Texan News Service, published articles about an investigation into alleged sexual harassment by Michael T. Landis, an assistant professor of history, he declined to answer questions.

When the student paper reported that the investigation had found that though he had not sexually harassed his students, his behavior was “inappropriate” and an administrator recommended that he be fired, Landis’s lawyer issued a statement. Landis had “spent his entire career as a vocal advocate for civil rights of others,” she said, adding that he “remains dedicated to the Tarleton community.”

Behind the scenes, Landis hasn’t been as quiet. Within the last month, he has sent emails to at least two historians asserting that the student paper had printed lies about him and that university administrators wanted to fire him because of his politics, not his conduct.

When Landis promoted well-known female historians on Twitter, some interpreted the gesture as an attempt to “curry favor” with them in the face of potential disciplinary action. They worried that he was using his vocal support of women and his racial-justice work to deflect responsibility for his behavior.

Landis’s lawyer, Giana Ortiz, said that her client could not respond publicly to the specific allegations, but that he “appreciates the support from students and faculty” that he’s received. ...