Sex Scandal Forces Oxford's Top Poet to Resign Post
Dirty e-mails; sexual harassment; what's happening at the University of Oxford?
LONDON, May 26, 2009 — -- After just nine days, Ruth Padel has quit her post as Oxford's professor of poetry.
There was much fanfare when she was the first woman in 300 years elected to the coveted post. But today she was unceremoniously unseated by a sex scandal that sullies Oxford's ivory towers.
This is a sex scandal built on anonymous e-mails rather than stolen kisses.
The story goes like this: Leading the field of three candidates for the professor's chair was Derek Walcott, a Nobel laureate, a man who writes poems that are as long as books, a literary giant. As the date of the ballot approached, an anonymous e-mail was sent to 200 Oxford academics detailing charges of sexual harassment leveled at Walcott in 1982 when he was teaching at Harvard.
Walcott released a statement, announcing his withdrawal from the race. "It has degenerated into a low and degrading attempt at character assassination. I do not want to be part of it," he wrote.
But who was the anonymous e-mailer?
Padel and journalist John Walsh, who wrote about Walcott's past, were accused of masterminding the campaign. They strongly denied the charge. There were also whispers that one of Padel's recent and saucy poems described a liaison she enjoyed with Walsh on a kitchen table.
The election went ahead without Walcott and Padel trounced her only remaining rival, a relatively obscure Indian poet and critic. Padel won the top job, broke a glass ceiling and made history.
There is a sting in this plot worthy of a trashy airport thriller. We still don't know who the anonymous e-mailer is, but we do know that Padel e-mailed two journalists early in the election campaign, alerting them to the skeletons in Walcott's closet.
Padel has called her actions "silly and naïve" and explained she was only passing on information "in the public domain" that "concerned students" had brought to her attention.
Related Stories
ABC News Live