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Last spring, senior music education major Angela Scolari, who was 20 at the time, received a letter in an envelope marked “confidential” from professor Chandler Carter expressing romantic affections for his student, prompting her to make a sexual harassment claim to authorities.
“I could call it a school-boy crush, but I’m not a school boy. It’s more a mid-life crisis, I suspect, which may have little to do with you,” the letter states. “Regardless, I’ve felt this way for well over a year, but have tried to conceal it to protect both you and myself, but also everyone around us. Such feelings from a teacher toward a student – while inevitable given that we’re only human – are usually toxic to all involved when expressed openly. For that reason, I ask that you keep this to yourself.”
According to the Hofstra Chronicle, Scolari responded by writing “no” on a post-it note and placing it in Carter’s mailbox days after she received the letter.
Carter reportedly asked Scolari to keep the letter to herself, and said that he had been advised to keep his feelings for his student to himself. Following Scolari’s public admission of the letter, more than a dozen students went on the record with letters urging Hofstra to “re-examine” Carter’s job at the university, which he still has.
“In my 23 years teaching at Hofstra, I have never previously communicated–nor felt–the sentiments I expressed in the letter referenced therein. And I never will again,” Carter wrote in a letter to the editor of The Hofstra Chronicle. "I have always tried to act in my students’ best interests. But in this instance, I failed. Upon receiving the student’s negative response, I immediately offered a sincere apology, which I reiterate now.”
Hofstra has also issued a statement saying the letter “may not constitute sexual harassment under the law," but the college "is now reviewing policies on such matters.”
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