Henri Grissino-Mayer

Henri Grissino-Mayer was a tenured faculty member in the department of Geography at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville who resigned in lieu of termination on Oct. 1st, 2018 due to his own admission of sexual misconduct at the school.

Grissino-Mayer is a dendrochronologist who specializes in the use of tree-ring analysis to reconstruct environmental and cultural history. He received a BS (with honors) in Geography in 1985 and an MA in Geography in 1988 from the University of Georgia. His thesis research directed by David Butler (now at Texas State University, San Marcos) investigated the relationships between climate and growth of shortleaf pine in north-central Georgia. He completed his Ph.D. under Tom Swetnam in the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in 1995. His dissertation research was conducted at El Malpais National Monument in New Mexico where he reconstructed precipitation and wildfire activity for the last 2,000 years. Grissino-Mayer has published over 90 peer-reviewed articles during his career. His work has appeared in high impact journals such as Ecology, Holocene, International Journal of Wildland Fire, and Journal of Archaeological Scienceand has been featured on the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and the Weather Channel.

Accusations against Grissino-Mayer date back to the mid 2000s, and as of 2018 were widely reported. His case is one of a number on US campuses where senior academics have been accused of using their position to legitimate or conceal sexual behavior involving students.

On August 7, 2018, a formal complaint of sexual harassment was filed and the University of Tennessee launched, what turned out to be, their THIRD investigation into Grissino-Mayer’s repulsive sexual behavior involving students. The investigation stated that Grissino-Mayer, through “abuse of his power and position as a tenured full professor with an active research program, a well-funded laboratory and a steady pipeline of high-achieving graduate students, had inappropriate relationships with current and former students, including inappropriate sexual relationships.” The first investigation against Grissino-Mayer was initiated in 2006. After that investigation concluded, he remained employed by the university but was supposedly denied a merit raise, had to complete sexual harassment policy training, and was required to end contact with the student. It was revealed during a thorough investigation starting in 2018, that Grissino-Mayer apparently never actually received a letter of discipline outlining those disciplinary objectives, as no record of it could be found by the University. The second investigation, in 2011, was instigated after the university received an anonymous phone call informing the OED of his multiple infarctions against university policy involving sexual harassment. Grissino-Mayer and the student named in the first investigation married in 2011, even though he was and continued sexually harassing female students, some of which he told them he loved, ensuring them he never felt that way about any other student. It was a tag line he used often.On August 10, 2018, Grissino-Mayer met with several faculty members, where he admitted that he “not only violated the university’s policy,” but also that he “knew” and understood that “he was violating the policy at the time of his misconduct.” Grissino-Mayer would only admit that he violated policy in relation to the August 7th complaint even though within a couple of days following that complaint, a packet containing multiple other complaints was received by the Title IX office, proving his deviant actions spanned most of his career. On August 31, he voluntarily tendered a written resignation, effective October 1, 2018. The university accepted his resignation on September 8, “effective immediately,” while also stating "We know that he did not learn from his past mistakes, having disrupted our community before when he engaged in a sexual relationship with a student... He has already taken more of our collective time and energy than he deserves, and I do not believe he will change his ways.” Grissino-Mayer has been given a no-contact order for his current and former students and is not allowed on UT property without prior approval from the university. If he is on campus property, a UT police escort and university official also will be present. He is listed as “resigned in lieu of termination” in university records. Justin Maxwell, an assistant professor in the geography department at Indiana University, was a PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro when he met Grissino-Mayer. While a student, Maxwell attended North American Dendroecological Fieldweek (NADEF), a week-long trip that pairs students with experts in the field of tree ring analysis for projects. Maxwell was in a group led by Grissino-Mayer, who was employed at UT. Maxwell said he witnessed “two acts of disturbing behavior” while on the 2011 trip. The first was when the group was working near an apple tree and, on a break, Grissino-Mayer began throwing apples at a female student. When she asked him to stop, Grissino-Mayer "bear-hugged her and was touching her chest." Grissino-Mayer will not be allowed to hold the title of professor emeritus, be entitled to retiree privileges typically given to tenured professors, and cannot associate with the university in any way, except for “former UT faculty” or“professor, retired.”As of August 16, 2019, the final report on the third investigation was released to the public. With verbal and written complaints filed by 11 women, both current and past students, along with witness accounts of inappropriate actions, the department of OEDs investigation showed that Grissinos egregious actions took place for years and “more than likely than not are true.” As a typical perpetrator of such horrible actions, Grissino-Mayer is denying the allegations stating people are jealous of his “power and prestige’ and due to changing research techniques that caused tension, people “wanted him gone.” All this while he married a woman that he had an affair with while she was a student, that affair promoting the first investigation in 2006, and also admitted to inappropriate actions toward a student in August 2018, the incident that was reported and initiated the third investigation against him.