The suit, filed by former Amherst Spanish lecturer Dimaris Barrios-Beltran, states that a Spanish department supervisor intentionally sought out “pretty faces” to serve as teaching assistants in Spanish classes, and encouraged the TAs to party and sleep with Amherst students to bring newcomers to the department. So much for free pizza at department mixers.
According to the suit, a teaching assistant of Barrios-Beltran’s called her in early 2013, deeply distressed by a conversation she had with the accused supervisor:
The teaching assistant claimed that Maillo was angry that she was dating a student at the University of Massachusetts and told her and other teaching assistants to go to parties with students and sleep with them to encourage them to take Spanish. Barrios-Beltran claims that in frustration, the teaching assistant asked Maillo if she wanted her to sleep with a different guy every night like another teaching assistant was doing, and the teaching assistant told Barrios-Beltran that Maillo responded, “that is what I brought you here for.”
Barrios-Beltran’s TA, among others, felt they were being asked to “prostitute” themselves for Spanish department enrollment, the suit claims. Barrios-Beltran alleges that she was fired for defending the TAs from the rather salacious intentions of her supervisor.