{"id":3485,"date":"2026-04-09T21:31:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T20:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=3485"},"modified":"2026-04-09T22:44:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:44:45","slug":"kings-fellow-guilty-of-sexual-misconduct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=3485","title":{"rendered":"Tongue in the Ear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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As reported by The Times<\/em> here<\/a> and Daily Mail here<\/a>, Prof Simon Goldhill of King’s College, Cambridge and the Faculty of Classics has been found guilty of sexual and professional misconduct. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only thing at all surprising about this is Cambridge University has actually managed to find someone guilty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been a series of problems with regard to sexual harassment at Oxford University over the last few years. From Al Jazeera’s ‘Degrees of Abuse’ podcasts <\/a> to the recent scandals involving the Sa\u00efd Business School<\/a>, the trouser-dropping behaviour of Prof Miles Hewstone<\/a> and the conviction for rape of Prof Tariq Ramadan<\/a>, Oxford has built a huge reputation for persistently minimising or overlooking sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cambridge is no different to Oxford. It has simply been even more reluctant to admit it has a problem and even more efficient at protecting and covering up harassers. Nothing has leaked — until now thanks to the actions of a brave student who has come forward and exposed Prof Simon Goldhill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon Goldhill has been at King’s College since his undergraduate days in 1978. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decades of self-mythology — the \u201cbeloved maverick,<\/em>\u201d the \u201cirreplaceable scholar<\/em>\u201d — were sustained by the College that long found accommodation easier than confrontation. Alongside that sits an unshakeable belief that years of service have purchased permanent insider status for people like Simon Goldhill, beyond the reach of regulations or meaningful accountability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What follows is typical of Colleges — a culture of tolerance of the unacceptable. Concerns are softened into \u201cmisunderstandings,\u201d bullying behaviour is ignored, complaints are absorbed and deflected, reputations are protected at the expense of those with less power. The hierarchy does the rest. Students learn the cost of speaking up. Colleagues learn the value of looking away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so the myth endures, not because it is true, but because it is convenient. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all took place in the Senior Common Room, where Simon Goldhill slobbered on a student, stuck a tongue in her ear, touched her inappropriately and claimed no consent was needed <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Goldhill, whose academic works include studies of sexuality in Ancient Greece, admitted kissing the woman, who is in her twenties, in a way that was \u201cover exuberant\u201d and \u201cno doubt slobbery\u201d. The investigation report found he had also stroked the woman\u2019s body, touched the zip on her trousers and put his tongue in her ear. The report said the touching of her ear \u201ccould have been unintentional\u201d. It added: \u201cAt no time in his evidence did he provide any direct evidence that he had asked for and received consent. His stated belief was that he did not need it for a goodbye kiss or \u2018friendly snuggle\u2019.\u201d [The Times]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Simon Goldhill wrote an execrable book called ‘Queer Cambridge’<\/a>. It’s a hugely misleading title, as it’s really a discussion of privileged well-connected, mostly male intellectual networks at King’s College rather than anything wider. But it does contain a description of Prof Michael Jaff\u00e9’s attempted seduction of Prof John Dunn<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“For decades King\u2019s had prided itself on the lack of distance between students and fellows, especially when they shared the institutional encouragement of a club or society. They sat quite close together, as the seating space was quite confined, and talked, and had a drink, though neither drank very much. \u2018Then Michael leant forward emphatically and put his tongue in my ear.” [‘Queer Cambridge’ by Simon Goldhill]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For Simon Goldhill, a tongue in the ear was always an anecdote told with laughter over wine in the Senior Common Room.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As reported by The Times here and Daily Mail here, Prof Simon Goldhill of King’s College, Cambridge and the Faculty of Classics has been found guilty of sexual and professional misconduct. The only thing at all surprising about this is Cambridge University has actually managed to find someone guilty. There […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3485"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3498,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3485\/revisions\/3498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}