On April 29, former history department postdoctoral fellow Charnan Williams filed a lawsuit against the College and several senior faculty members. In the complaint, which is publicly available, Williams alleged “race discrimination, sex discrimination, retaliation, hostile work environment, conspiracy to deprive [her] of her civil rights, civil conspiracy, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, breach of institutional policies and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
The lawsuit’s named defendants include the Trustees of Dartmouth College, associate dean of international and interdisciplinary studies and African and African American studies department chair Matthew Delmont, history department chair Darrin McMahon, former dean of the faculty of arts and sciences and biological sciences professor Elizabeth Smith and associate dean for the social sciences and government professor Benjamin Valentino. It was filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
McMahon, Smith, Valentino and Williams declined to comment. Chochotte did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Events alleged in the complaint could not be independently verified by The Dartmouth.
Williams claims in the lawsuit that Delmont, McMahon, Smith and Valentino led a “coordinated campaign” to “destroy her academic career” by “obstruct[ing]” her ability to fulfill her postdoctoral fellowship contractual obligation. The four defendants allegedly changed her course content after the course had already received approval. The lawsuit also claimed that the faculty administrators “deliberately misrepresented” her performance in an annual review and “breached” contractual obligations by “manufactur[ing] pretextual grounds” to terminate her employment.
The lawsuit alleges that administrators created a “hostile work environment” for Williams through a “coordinated campaign of harassing emails and text messages… about questions [Williams] had already answered,” “sexually inappropriate comments,” McMahon’s “paternalistic ‘father/daughter’ framing of their academic relationship and “exclud[ing] her from department events” because of her race.
The case also alleges that administrators “retaliated” against Williams for “asserting her rights” to teach her course during winter 2025 instead of spring 2025, and her husband’s “protected complaints” to the Board of Trustees and the Dean of Faculty against Delmont over “general misconduct.” Williams is married to African and African American studies professor Marvin Chochotte. Chochotte is not a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Williams is seeking “compensatory damages” for lost wages, benefits and future earnings, emotional distress and attorney fees; “front pay” — compensation for lost benefits — “and/or reinstatement to the contractual position tenure-track assistant professor position”; back pay; a “declaratory statement of admission”; and an injunctive relief that would require the College to “implement policies and training to prevent future discrimination and retaliation.”
The history department hired Williams in July 2023 as a postdoctoral fellow for a two-year term with a “contractual right to transition into a tenure-track assistant professor position” in the department, according to complaint documents. As a postdoctoral fellow, Williams had a “postdoctoral contractual obligation” to teach one course during the second year of her fellowship.
However, the complaint alleges that administrators consistently “obstructed” Williams’s ability to teach her course by delaying the approval process, then “us[ed] that manufactured failure as grounds for termination.”
Furthermore, according to the complaint, McMahon allegedly made “sexually inappropriate comments” in Williams’s presence at an academic talk, and told her that he “viewed her as a ‘daughter’ and himself as a ‘father figure’” in October 2023.
Also that month, McMahon asked Williams to teach a history class called “Race and Slavery from the Revolution to Emancipation,” which she agreed to. In November 2023, he asked her to teach the class during winter 2025, which she agreed to. In December 2023, McMahon asked her to teach the class during spring 2025 instead, which she agreed to, according to the complaint.
In January 2024, Williams submitted a teaching request form for the class, which was approved by the history department in March 2024 to be taught in spring 2025, the complaint reads. The Dartmouth could not obtain specific documents in the complaint.
In April 2024, when McMahon was on leave, an unnamed interim department chair allegedly recommended that the course be split into two and that Williams teach one of the courses. According to the complaint, Williams then resubmitted a teaching request form for HIST 13.02/AAAS 20.07: “Early America and African American History: From the Colonial Era to the Gold Rush” and received approval for the modified course in September 2024.
The complaint alleged that between November 2024 and December 2024, McMahon and Delmont informed Williams they were “overhaul[ing]” her future course.
In January 2025, the new course was removed from the Dartmouth Course Approval Routing System. The next month, Delmont “tabled” the course, according to the complaint.
On May 6, 2025, McMahon wrote in Williams’s annual review that her progress was “inadequate” and did not “meet minimum expectations,” according to the complaint. McMahon allegedly did not meet with Williams to discuss the performance review. According to the Dartmouth Faculty Handbook, doing so is a requirement for McMahon as department chair.
On May 28, 2025, Williams’s course was approved “through Valentino’s assistant” after it had been “tabled” by Delmont “in his capacity” as AAAS department chair on Feb. 25, 2025, according to the complaint. On May 29, 2025, Smith allegedly emailed Williams to inform her that her postdoctoral fellowship would not transition into a tenure-track assistant professor position and that her employment would be terminated on June 30, 2025.
HIST 13.02 is listed on the Arts and Sciences Registrar’s Office website as a course, but has not yet been offered.
The complaint also alleges that the AAAS department “unilaterally manipulated” Chochotte’s course schedule by “slat[ing]” him to teach courses and during terms when he had “previously communicated his preferred courses” to the department.
On Oct. 27, 2025, the New Hampshire Unemployment Security Office informed Williams that “performance issues” were cited as the reason for her termination of employment, according to the complaint.
On Jan. 29 of this year, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission informed Williams that it could not find any violations during its investigation of her dismissal, giving Williams 90 days to file a lawsuit, according to documents associated with the complaint.
College spokesperson Jana Barnello wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth that the College “does not comment on ongoing litigation.”
“As outlined by Dartmouth policy and its shared governance structure, faculty make academic hiring decisions, and we support their right to do so,” Barnello wrote.
The case has not yet been heard in court.
Sahil Gandhi ’29 is a reporter from Staten Island, N.Y., and is majoring in environmental studies and government modified with philosophy and economics. He loves word searches and falling down internet and Wikipedia rabbit holes.
