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"I want him fired": UGA professor's accuser details alleged sexual assault

By Nicole Carr, WSB-TV
By Nicole Carr, WSB-TV

ATHENS, Ga. — A University of Georgia professor is being investigated after complaints of sexual assault.

Channel 2 Action News has learned the professor, William Kazez, was placed on leave after multiple claims were filed. Now, he's been barred from campus.

Kazez has been a faculty member at UGA for about three decades.

At least seven women — students and faculty members — have come forward in recent months with complaints going back several years of unwanted touching, groping and sex acts by Kazez, according to Lisa Anderson, a Decatur attorney representing two of the women who said she’s also working with the others.

One of the accusers told Channel 2's Nicole Carr was groped by the professor in California in the 1980s.

"It was a lot of the feeling you got in 1988 when these things happened and there wasn’t anything you could do at all. Now we tried to do something and it was shrugged off," said Dr. Laura Anderson.

She prompted the investigation when she wrote UGA in 2017 about her case. Kazez was a post-doctoral student sitting in one of her undergraduate Caltech courses and one study session turned into him allegedly groping her.

"People your age have been asking me, 'Did you report it at the time?' and I have to say, 'To whom?' There wasn’t a person you reported these things to," she told Carr.

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Anderson said as a tenured professor she did not fear retaliation. She wrote uga out of concern for students.

She said it took half a day for the university to write back with its response — Kazez had been with the UGA for more than two decades and they had not received such complaints. Anderson and a group representing the accusers say that’s not true.

"I mean, it’s enraging that they didn’t (do) something when they got my letter. Two and half weeks after another complaint. They had two closely related complaints about the same professor and they shrugged," Anderson said.

The university said in a statement to our partners at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that its Equal Opportunity Office is investigating allegations against Kazez. It also presented a campus police report from one woman who accused him of sexual harassment.

The university sent Kazez home in March pending the investigation of additional complaints. Four of the accusers are represented by Atlanta Women for Equality, which provides free services to sexual harassment surviors.

Last year, one of those accusers recorded Kazez admitting this much:

Kazez: "Um, you aren’t to blame for my completely inappropriate behavior.  That’s me, not you. You aren’t to blame for my bad and inappropriate behavior. That’s me, all me, not you.”

Student:  "I feel really bad. I have heard things about you. I wish they are not true."

Kazez's attorney told our partners at The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, “Dr. Kazez has empathy for the accusers, however, some of their assertions have changed over time, and others could not have happened as alleged."

She also noted the investigation is designed to protect all of those involved.

Cox Media Group

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