Decades after patients first warned Columbia University that one of its doctors sexually abused them, some university administrators have finally faced consequences.
On Tuesday, Columbia released a long-awaited report that details a culture of silence that allowed OB-GYN Robert Hadden to abuse more than 1,000 patients during his nearly 25-year career at Columbia.
In unveiling the report, the university also announced that two long-time administrators are leaving their positions.
Dr. Mary D’Alton, chair of the OB-GYN department and Hadden’s former boss, has stepped down. D’Alton will maintain her clinical practice.
Dr. Lee Goldman, the former dean of the medical school, will retire. The two were administrators above Hadden. They were also among those cc’d on a 2012 letter that let Hadden continue seeing patients even after he was arrested when one woman reported he’d assaulted her.
Yesterday’s report was prompted by a ProPublica investigation that revealed how Columbia had dismissed women and ultimately protected a predator. Amid outrage in the wake of the 2023 story, Columbia announced it would set up a $100 million fund for survivors and initiate an independent review.
More than two years after the review was announced, the 156-page report was published days after the New York attorney general said it was investigating Columbia’s response to the Hadden case.
The report outlines how more than a dozen patients’ complaints had gone nowhere, in part because of the lack of clear reporting procedures. The report also found a “hierarchal institutional culture” in which physicians occupied an “exalted” or “god-like” status that made it difficult for staff to report concerns.
One patient, Eva Santos Veloz, was 18 years old when she saw Hadden for an emergency delivery in 2008. At the time, she and her mother reported that Hadden had touched her in ways that made her uncomfortable, sometimes without gloves. Nothing happened after she filed the complaint. At the time, she said, she came to believe she was making the whole thing up because no one seemed to believe her.
Santos said that while the report confirms that she was right all along, it doesn’t tell her anything new. “The only peace it gives me is that they are publicly saying, ‘We knew about this and we did nothing,’” she said.
The report also lists five different complaints that were reported to leadership but resulted in no action against Hadden. Investigators note that the university’s record-keeping practices were insufficient and that higher-ups failed to conduct a full investigation into his misconduct.
In an internal email sent Tuesday to the OB-GYN department and obtained by ProPublica, D’Alton announced that she will remain on the faculty “to continue our department’s work of advancing women’s health.”
“I cannot adequately express the sorrow that I feel for the suffering Robert Hadden inflicted on his patients,” D’Alton wrote in the email. “That these acts were committed by a doctor in our department, including while I was chair, pains me deeply and always will.”
A similar statement posted to the Columbia website does not note her continued employment.
D’Alton did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement, Goldman said his “heart breaks for the victims of Robert Hadden.”
He continued: “Throughout my tenure we focused on prioritizing a culture of ethics and patient safety at the medical school, and to reassess and enhance its policies and procedures on an ongoing basis.”
The report also confirms that executives at the top of the organizations — including former Columbia President Lee Bollinger, as well as one of the trustees at both Columbia and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, the Columbia-affiliated system where Hadden was an attending physician — had been alerted to Hadden’s arrest the evening it occurred.
Bollinger, who retired from his post in the summer of 2023, did not respond to a request for comment.
A letter accompanying the report’s release said, “The University remains steadfast in our commitment to our ongoing responsibilities. We must continue to operate with transparency and confront systemic failures when they occur.” Columbia did not provide an additional comment.
In a statement, a group of survivors, including Marissa Hoechstetter and Evelyn Yang, criticized the report for failing to examine what happened in the years after Hadden left Columbia — including the university’s documented efforts to destroy evidence, fight former patients in court and discredit those survivors.
The statement also points out that Claire Shipman, the current acting president of the university and who signed Tuesday’s announcement, has been on the board of trustees since 2013, amid the fallout from the Hadden case. She did not respond to a request for comment.
“What Columbia has released today offers the bare minimum accountability for failures that
should have been addressed years ago,” the survivors’ statement said. “It confirms the systemic breakdown that allowed Hadden to operate. But it stops short of examining the cover-up culture that survivors experienced firsthand once the abuse came to light.”
The deadline to submit a claim for compensation to Columbia’s survivor fund, which was established for former patients who do not want to file a lawsuit, was extended to June 15.
