Lesbian academics harassed with Title IX complaints by gay acquaintance desperate for job

It's pretty out there. The most bizarre thing about it was that they were ultimately able to prove this guy faked the complaints and settled with him (though she lost the job, ultimately, as did he).

I seem to remember Datalounge vilifying this woman at the time. With great misogynous zeal.

Wow! What a story.

The only part I somehow missed was how the in-person meeting with "Jessica" and Melanie went. I pictured "J" showing up in drag! But it seemed to skip over that event, and only reveal Marta's new concern that "Jessica" had claimed she visited her at her apartment the previous Monday, after their meeting with Melanie.

WHO showed up at that meeting as "Jessica?" Or was the meeting canceled?

R2 Do you have a link to a thread? Or can someone find it?

Can anyone figure out the "J's" real name?

Has Reddit uncovered who "J" is yet?

If not... it's up to Datalounge.

Lesbians and gay men ain't never gotten along, and ain't never gonna!

OP is "J"

It should not be that hard.

Just check out the legal documents or look at who was hired by U of M for Creative Nonfiction three years ago.

Would it kill them to do something with their hair and wear nice clean shirts if they're getting their picture taken for the paper?

^^^It just might.

R10 = "J"

R1 I was expecting something else from the first few paragraphs, so I was surprised to find that obvious conclusion once she introduced J (that he did it because he wanted the job) was the correct one. But it is indeed not what I expected from just the byline; I expected something involving homophobia or shit-stirring students.

R4, I don’t recall reading about this on DL before. Other academic drama, sure, but not this.

There was a similar case, IIRC, in Cambridge, but I can't remember what happened. A law school professor at Harvard who became victim to a con artist.

What a horrible experience for them. I hope karma catches up with “J” as he is a psychopath!

R15 Yes, the recent Bruce Hay scandal at Cambridge. I saw similarities too. Except the perpetrators and victims were inverted here, sort of.

J is a renowned author!

R17 What lesbian has sex with a man and claims that he is her one exception? Should have been a sign that she was full of shit. And that's not even getting into the MTF partner.

Behind a paywall ... NYT has lifted paywall restrictions for everything related to Coronavirus but don’t they know lesbian professor sex drama stories are just as important???

R2: are you referring to the Avital Ronell saga?

The one with eyeglasses looks like someone cut her hair with gardening shears.

Well, beauty and barber shops are closed, under Shelter In Place guidelines....

Is that true for their state? They don't live in California.

Any identiy info turn up on "J" in the case?

Talia’s sort of a jerk, but she’s right about this

I can't demonize this guy because I've not heard his side of the story.

R27 Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Based on what she and Marta write he sounds psychotic. It's probably accurate and the story is true. But we've heard zero from this guy and know nothing about him. In this #metoo era, how many times to we have to learn the lesson of be wary of final judgement until you've heard all sides.

Plus, on thing I thought of: now that this has become a NYTimes story. I wonder if "J", based on his patterns of behavior laid out in their story, just uses this to take it to a whole other level of lying and bizarre allegations?

Gay men really hate women -- even lesbians.

I've been on DL long enough to know.

I can't believe Dataloungers haven't uncovered "J" yet. I'm just picturing what this queen looks like in my mind!

Well I just did a quick search on Reddit and Twitter. I'm a bit of a novice but usually uncover *something.* Like, evidence of other people looking. Anyone else?

R9 claims "Just check out the legal documents or look at who was hired by U of M for Creative Nonfiction three years ago."

I recommend digging through the comments sections of the articles written about the case as a starting point.

Talia Levin on Twitter claims to have found him. See Twitter thread...

Oh dear!

"J's" name is Duane Gilson

This is absolutely horrifying. Perpetuating stereotypes of queer folks as sexual predators and simultaneously reinforcing the narrative that title IX complaints are all made up. Fuck this guy.

Ugh, he looks like the worst kind of queen

I hate gays who make "Tina Fey" face in every photo. We can see you're fat or you have a wonky eye. Squinching your face up like Popeye or rolling your eyes to the side can't hide that shit as well as you think.

Honestly, he looks humble, quirky and personable in that photo. And is definitely comfortable, low-baggage 5.

The perfect cover!

Reading that article made me feel sick to my stomach.

That guy is an absolute piece of shit. Way to make things harder for people who really are sexually harassed.

Here is a photo of Duane Gilson from an interview, "5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic." He looks like a kind neighbor.

Actually, I should have just posted the article. Oops, sorry.

This guy is pure evil. There should be prison time for this kind of thing!

A PhD from George Washington and he thinks he'entitled to a job at a good school? He's lucky to have gotten one at MCLA--God knows, he probably thinks he's Williams material. Good luck getting tenure--this kind of thing, if proven, is usually a career ender. I noticed he has tried to remove access to him on the Internet. His days are numbered and he knows it. An MFA from Chatham? Why bother.

love love lesbians. They look like all the lesbians I knew in the 80s. The look never veers from 40 years ago. They're good that way.

It's the lack of makeup; hairstyle is nondescript. Devoid of artifice. Love lesbians so much.

LOL at the people saying we need to hear both sides. No, we don't, because literally nothing justifies what he did. They caught him. They have the phone number he used to verify the anonymous email addresses from which he sent the false complaints. The number was his number, the one he used to text the woman asking if she'd heard anything about the job. Bigger LOL to the way he tried to get in front of it by claiming a woman was obsessed with him, broke into his house, and trolled one of his colleagues. Because that's what people obsessed with you do - troll other people.

If you ever meet a guy with a chest tattoo of a typewriter...run!

R48 Agreed. It's more accurate than Phrenology!

[quote]R45 love love lesbians. They look like all the lesbians I knew in the 80s. The look never veers from 40 years ago. They're good that way.

My best friends are lesbians. They can cut to the chase. And they’ll help you build a glass-fronted, rock solid bookshelf for your vintage Madam Alexander dolls of the world collection in 2 hours.

R50 AND will not judge you for having dolls--even though they have no interest in them themselves!

Gawker would have DESTROYED this guy.

Duane is pals with Colby Keller. @Dgilson is Duane’s old twitter handle.

Duane on piss play.

Boy, he's just shamelessly going for the "Truman Capote thing" at R48, isn't he? LOL.

Now, take a look at this guy's story:

More Colby and Duane.

R54. God, that offensive--offensively pretentious, self-satisfied, and twee. The lesbians should send that to all of his administrators, colleagues, and students. Who cares about his penchant for piss play? It's the awfulness of his writing that makes him unfit to teach writing at any level, from preschool to postgrad!

From R54: "It’s unfortunate that my desire to see others piss, or to be pissed upon, or to drink the piss of a beloved, is considered a human deviation, not an act of love. Oh well. Like David, I soldier on."

I don't know about you, but I'm dabbing tears from my eyes. Here we are celebrating doctors and nurses and grocery-store workers while this brave urination warrior goes virtually unnoticed!

"...and lifted a cup of his urine to my lips and bade me to sip."

Has the Bard of Avon himself been resurrected? To pee, or not to pee: that is the question.

"...a cleansing of both the remnants of sex and of the metaphysical sorrow that consumed me that day."

Dude, just be a piss freak. No need to justify it with "metaphysical sorrow." Also, no need to broadcast it to the whole world when you are, you know, a professor desperately trying to move up the academic ladder.

"Have I gone too far?"

Absolutely.

R55 That guy is a fucking attention whore who wants in on the story. He knew Duane was a psychopath. He didn't care. He never told the Duane to stop contacting him. He never spoke up. He wasn't afraid of him nor did he fear retribution. He never thought Duana was a threat. Until now, of course, because now he can use the story to get attention.

Uh, sorry, R59, but there seems to be quite a pattern here... The lesbians proved he was guilty as sin in that case, so why wouldn't I believe this guy, too?

R60 I didn't say I don't believe his story. I do. I justdon't think he was slightly bothered by Duane's behavior and is hopping on the pile on to get attention.

R57? Don't get me wrong - I hate this Duane guy and wish he would drop dead. But if you can't come up with a better critique than "awfulness" you have no business criticizing anyone else's writing.

The quotes R57 provided were truly awful, though.

That’s really sinister.

This guy went to a lot of trouble. I suppose the teaching position was worth it? But it makes me wonder if he had some sort of other beef with these two besides competition. In the article she states they've known each other for a long time. If not, he's just demented.

Most academics are insane. Both too little education and too much education make you nuts.

Won't the lesbians be in trouble now for breaking their settlement agreement that they weren't allowed to named him? Yes, they didn't actually give his name, but they made it very easy to figure out who he was.

R67 Interesting, I don't know. But I doubt it. My impression is they seem to more or less have their act together with legal stuff. I imagine they had lawyers read the article before it was published.

Too paraphrase a famous quote, "Academics be crazy ". I would like a Lifetime movie about this whole melodrama. In order to maintain social distancing, they can film the actors separately and edit them together. It won't look any more awkward or weird than any other Lifetime film. My casting suggestions would be Maura Tierney and Cynthia Nixon for the les professors and Simon Pegg for the stalker.

R67, the trouble with NDAs is that to sue for violation, you have to make a deposition and make the information you are trying to conceal part of the public record.

That and the cost of suing these women in a case in which the plaintiff does not have a slam dunk, will be enough to keep him from taking legal action.

The problem with suing over an NDA is that the plaintiff has more to lose than the defendant.

R65 Duane Gilson was also surprisingly sloppy.

According to this woman's article they were able to trace the emailed anonymous tips from three different aliases to a single internet provider, which they ultimately had to hand over. And there he was! He did it all on his own computer? From his own internet account?

If I did something like this (knock on wood) I would be so paranoid and careful about how I did it. I'd use burner phones, travel to other random towns to use computers in libraries where I was sure there were no security cameras, do absolutley nothing related to any of it on any computer or phone of mine, make sure I never touch nothing related to the crime, use gloves, wear fake mustaches, dress in drag. LOL

I'll be willing to bet his personal computer(s) search history was loaded with "how to" google searches about anonymous tips and Title IX research and all the deans and offices and contacts and reddit threads. Sloppy!

R69 Yes! Simon Peg!

Or maybe Cole Escola, to make it extra demented (actually, Escola could play one of the lesbians too)

Simon Peg to play the stalkers grandpa.

Way too old to be an early career academic.

[quote]R67 Won't the lesbians be in trouble now for breaking their settlement agreement that they weren't allowed to named him? Yes, they didn't actually give his name, but they made it very easy to figure out who he was.

[quote]R70 The problem with suing over an NDA is that the plaintiff has more to lose than the defendant.

Here there is no Non Disclosure Agreement, in that the settlement allows all parties to publicly discuss the facts as long as they themselves do not reveal “J”s identity by name.

She mentions this near the end of the article.

Just by looking at the pic, I can CONFIRM they're lesbians.

Maybe Duane Gilson and Joey Gugliemelli (Sherry Pie) can get together in prison and exchange grifting/stalking tips.

My impression is that it wasn't only the job. He resented these women for their cozy family life; he wanted to destroy that as much as anything else.

Yes, R74. That is the Non-Disclosure Agreement. It is a clause in the settlement that states they cannot reveal Duane's name.

If he wants to sue them for revealing it, Duane will likely make his name public himself---and will probably spend more on legal fees than he would recover.

This is why non-disclosure agreements made with people who are not super rich--and why NDA with such narrow terms as this one---are not very effective.

[quote]R70 That is the Non-Disclosure Agreement. It is a clause in the settlement that states they cannot reveal Duane's name.

Right. But most often an agreement like that is very sweeping, and you can’t talk about the events that lead up to it at all. Here there’s just 1 thing they can’t disclose; the events themselves aren’t being put off limits.

A little bit of makeup would do wonders for these mannish lesbians

Why did they hire a lawyer? Why not hire a private investigator with IT knowledge? A former spy, like Christopher Steele. Or someone from a company like Cambridge analytica

They hired a lawyer because one of them was being investigated by their employer, and they had questions going forward.

Does Duane Gilson have any social media presence at all left? I saw one online article had a giant "Remove this article the author is a criminal blah blah" thing at the top (huh?). I wonder if he'll invent another fake byline.

????

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”

R7 is Mother Mucca.

Gilson seems to have no academic job these days. He's gone from MCLA (which is a little town in the Berkshires, not LA) and it looks like he may have spent 5 minutes at Texas Tech. Maybe he's on the road with Colby. I have to admit the acquaintanceship with Colby Keller made this more interesting and oddly, makes his motives both more twisted and understandable. I guess the companionship of Calvin, histrusty lab mix has never been enough.

R87 Yes. It's another odd layer.

I'd love to see a Fatal Attraction/Misery-esque film adaptation based on this story.

Of course he's a firecrotch. OF COURSE he is.

R87

What his motives got to do with Colby?

Seriously, every ginger I’ve known comes with a giant chip on their shoulder.

Was just scrolling and had to stop and saying those are two of the dykiest faces ever.

It's because they fug, r91.

Any recent info on this weird case?

Duane Gilson should film everything he's doing and really ramp-up the insanity, then maybe Netflix will make a docu-series about him, a la Tiger King.

This tread popped up a while back on the "DC Urban Moms" message board:

It’s scary to think about how if the false accuser had been just a bit more tech-savvy he would have gotten away with it.

R48 "I'll email you the unpublished manuscript of my new screenplay. It's very Joycean you'll love it "

Any new info on this, or Duane Gilson?

Gilson's the co-author lf this drivel. Wonder how he knows Fotis?

R95 I'd watch, with all the schadenfreude I could muster.