The New York Times
by Michael Levenson
May 1, 2021
Across the country, colleges and universities have been wrestling with allegations of sexual misconduct, racial discrimination and anti-Semitism. But rarely have the three collided at the highest levels of leadership, as they have at Linfield University, a small, historically Baptist college in Oregon’s wine country, which celebrated the appointment of its first Black president in 2018.
The university faces growing calls for the resignation of that president, Miles K. Davis, and the chairman of its board of trustees amid accusations that they made offensive comments about Jews and that Dr. Davis and three other board members had engaged in various forms of misconduct with female professors and students.
One of those trustees resigned in 2019 and has been charged with sexual abuse. The controversies have played out for months in a federal lawsuit filed by a student, through public statements from faculty members and leaders, student protests, and votes of no confidence. It has even pitted the N.A.A.C.P., which has cited racial bias in the accusations against Dr. Davis, against the Anti-Defamation League, which has joined in calls for Dr. Davis’s resignation.