Dartmouth Professor’s Attorneys Say Inquiry Not Related to Activity on Campus

Hanover — Attorneys for a Dartmouth College professor who is being investigated over allegations of sexual misconduct said on Wednesday that they’ve been told by school officials that the inquiry is unrelated to his activities on campus.

Todd Heatherton is one of three psychology professors under investigation by Dartmouth and the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, but his lawyers said the allegations against Heatherton are “unrelated to any conduct” of the other two professors, Bill Kelley and Paul Whalen.

“The Dartmouth College investigation regarding Dr. Todd Heatherton is limited to an incident that occurred outside of New Hampshire,” Heatherton attorneys Julie Moore, of Wellesley, Mass., and Steven Gordon, of Concord, said in a statement Wednesday evening.

“Dr. Heatherton has fully cooperated with the investigation,” Moore and Gordon said.

The lawyers did not say what the “out-of-state incident” may have entailed, but said it was “unrelated to Dr. Heatherton’s scientific work in the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department, and it does not involve his academic research, scholarship, publishing, or teaching.”

They also said “until the investigation has concluded, neither we nor Dr. Heatherton can comment about the specifics of the investigation.”

Dartmouth said last week the three professors were on paid leave and had access to campus restricted as it investigated potential “serious misconduct.”

Heatherton’s attorneys noted that he was not “placed on paid leave as a result of the investigation,” but was already on a paid sabbatical through a senior faculty grant that started July 1.

“He has not been informed of any investigative findings, official or unofficial, and he looks forward to a resolution, hopefully, very soon,” Heatherton’s attorneys said.

Earlier efforts to reach Kelley and Whalen have been unsuccessful.