Tufts sues after order to rehire professor fired for sexual misconduct

Tufts University is seeking to overturn an arbitrator’s decision reinstating a professor who was fired last year after he admitted to engaging in sexual activity in his office — a tryst overheard by one of his students. 

Filed earlier this month and first reported by The Tufts Daily, the university’s federal lawsuit asks a judge to vacate the arbitration award issued under a collective bargaining agreement with Service Employees International Union Local 509, the union representing theater professor Ted Simpson and other Tufts instructors.

According to the lawsuit, an undergraduate student reported Simpson to Tufts’ Office of Equal Opportunity after they heard “sexual noises” coming from his office while working in an adjacent classroom late on March 25, 2025. The student said they were “frozen in panic” and feared the woman who was with Simpson might be another student or professor, according to a copy of their complaint. (The arbitrator’s ruling identified the woman as Simpson’s girlfriend and clarified that she has no affiliation with Tufts.)

Tufts launched an investigation into the student’s complaint, and the university alleges that Simpson initially claimed he had been watching the erotic 1986 drama “Betty Blue” at the time. However, the student also recorded audio of the sexual activity they overheard, and a Tufts Title IX investigator determined the sounds did not match “Betty Blue,” the lawsuit states.

According to court documents, Simpson eventually admitted that he and his girlfriend “let our emotions get the best of us,” though he maintained there had been no penetration or oral sex during the passionate encounter. 

Simpson could not be reached for comment Monday. In a rebuttal included in the court record, he said the matter was “an isolated incident in an otherwise unblemished record” spanning more than two decades of teaching.

“There was a brief moment on the 25th when one thing led to another, quietly behind closed doors in the late hours,” he added. “It was not the smartest decision I ever made to be sure. If I could apologize directly to the student who was involved I would, but I do understand that is not possible.”

In its lawsuit, Tufts said it fired Simpson not only for engaging in sexual activity on campus near where a student was working, but “for violating Tufts’ Sexual Misconduct Policy … and for lying during the investigation into his sexual misconduct.” 

SEIU Local 509 brought Simpson’s case to arbitration in July 2025, alleging he had been fired without just cause. Last month, arbitrator Elizabeth Neumeier ordered Simpson reinstated with full seniority but no back pay, plus a written reprimand on his record for violating university policy.

Neumeier specifically found that the reporting student “plainly was not so traumatized by what they overheard that they fled,” also noting that the student showed up to Simpson’s class the following day and did not drop his course. 

Neumeier also drew a distinction between sexual intercourse and “lesser sexual misconduct,” arguing that the consequences for Simpson “making out and petting with his girlfriend, in his private office, late at night” should be “treated with more leniency.” 

Tufts disagreed, arguing in its lawsuit that the sexual misconduct policy “makes no such distinction with regard to the specific sexual acts being performed and the sounds emanating from the same.”

Reinstating Simpson would require Tufts to place the professor “back into a role that requires him to be in direct contact with colleagues and students (some of whom are minors), with all the powers of his teaching position, in the face of his proven and unremorseful behavior that violated Tufts’ well-established SMP,” the university added. 

An attorney for SEIU Local 509 did not respond to a request for comment Monday. The union has not yet filed its formal response to Tufts’ lawsuit.

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between. She has been covering the Lindsay Clancy murder case since January 2023.