Professor arrested for obscenity
Latest faculty-student affair results in alleged abortion, criminal charges

By Kimberley Lufkin
Flat Hat Asst. News Editor

After pleading guilty to making obscene phone calls to a 21-year-old female undergraduate with whom he had been having an affair, former assistant professor of anthropology Abdollah Dashti received a suspended 12-month jail sentence. Dashti's relationship is the second between a professor and an undergraduate that has gone public in less than a year.

Although all of jail Dashti's sentence was suspended, he was fined $350, placed on supervised probation for six months, required to complete anger management counseling and was prohibited from having any contact with the undergraduate, whose name was not released in order to protect her privacy, for five years, according to a June 29 article in The Daily Press.

The two phone calls to the undergraduate, who had worked as one of Dashti's office assistants, were made April 24, according to both Williamsburg Police and Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Rich Rizk. While Dashti initially denied all charges against him, both calls were allegedly taped by the undergraduate's answering machine.

Dashti was charged May 15 and resigned from the College May 25, according to assistant vice president for public relations Bill Walker.

Dashti was initially under investigation for embezzling College funds in order to pay for an abortion after the same undergraduate informed him that she was pregnant. A second student who had also worked as Dashti's office assistant said that he asked her to submit a time card for hours she had not worked, and to then give the extra money to the student with whom he was having an affair.

Ultimately, the assistant agreed and gave the pregnant student $120, telling her it was to help pay for an abortion, according to The Daily Press.

Dashti was never charged with embezzlement due to a lack of solid evidence. However, the search warrant obtained when police searched his Washington Hall office April 30 had a statement from the student with whom he had the affair saying that she, the other office assistant and Dashti "conspired to fraudulently obtain money" from the College "by submitting falsified time cards/sheets."

The false time sheet was submitted between mid-November and mid-December of last year, according to The Daily Press. This corresponds to the time period the second student employee said the undergraduate aborted her pregnancy.

Although Dashti had been an assistant professor of anthropology since 1996, anthropology chair Mary Voigt said that his arrest and guilty plea did not greatly affect the department.

"We [the anthropology department] weren't here, we weren't party to it because it was a civil action and the department wasn't involved," Voigt said.

Walker could not comment on Dashti's particular case because of a College policy that prohibits the publication of personnel actions. He did say that, although this incident comes less than a year after former writer-in-residence Sam Kashner published an account of his affair with an undergraduate student in GQ, such relationships between students and faculty do not often occur.

"I think they're uncommon because since the [amorous relations] policy has been in place, no more than six cases of relationships between a student and a professor have become known to us," Walker said.

The policy, initiated in 1994, advises against amorous relationships between professors and students in their classes or students that they would otherwise supervise or evaluate.

The policy, however, does not address relationships between faculty and students they would not grade. Walker expects that this policy will be brought before the Board of Visitors for revision when it meets next month.