Charnan Williams, a postdoctoral fellow in history at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, has sued the Ivy League institution, claiming administrators created a hostile work environment and discriminated against her on the basis of race and sex, according to a report from Human Resources Director.
According to Dr. Williams, she was hired in July 2023 as a postdoctoral fellow, with the intent to convert to a tenure-track faculty role after two years; however, on May 29, 2025, Dartmouth’s dean of faculty, Elizabeth Smith, terminated Dr. Williams’s appointment, effective June 30, 2025. Dr. Williams says she was notified of her termination just one day after department administrators had approved a course she had developed and planned to teach.
This course was planned months in advance, and Dr. Williams says she confirmed her Spring 2025 teaching plans several times via emails, office scheduling forms, and the curriculum committee. Darrin McMahon, history department chair, ignored these approvals, according to the lawsuit, and kept Dr. Williams’s course off the spring schedule, along with support from Matthew Delmont, associate dean of interdisciplinary studies, and Benjamin Valentino, associate dean of social sciences.
Weeks before her termination, Dr. Williams received an annual review that called her work “inadequate,” but the review did not include several of Dr. Williams’s publications and a fellowship from the Huntington Library. After she raised grievances with her review, Dr. Williams says Dartmouth denied her complaint and treated her appointment as probationary. Dartmouth then reported to the New Hampshire Unemployment Security Office that Dr. Williams was fired for performance issues, but according to Dr. Williams, the office ruled in her favor, finding no misconduct on her part.
Furthermore, Dr. Williams’s husband, Marvin Chochotte, an assistant professor in Dartmouth’s department of African American studies, raised complaints on May 21, 2025, regarding the misconduct directed towards his wife, who was subsequently fired eight days later.
Dr. Williams also says she was the target of inappropriate misconduct from Dr. McMahon since the beginning of her postdoctoral position. She claims Dr. McMahon told her, in October 2023, that he saw her as a “daughter” and himself as a “father figure.” The following week, he also made sexually inappropriate comments at a department dinner, according to the suit.
As part of her lawsuit, Dr. Williams is seeking back pay, front pay or reinstatement, compensatory damages, attorney fees, and an injunction requiring Dartmouth to implement policies and training to prevent future discrimination and retaliation.
