PROFESSOR

EUGENE NESMITH'S

(2012, Promotion to Full Professor)

 

FRAUD“Wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.”

 

• ​In mid-August 2012, Nesmith's theatre company, The New Haarlem Arts Theatre (NHAT), was disbanded.

​

• ​In mid-August 2012 Nesmith  was also fired as its artistic director.

 

Nesmith hoped to garner more positive letters of recommendation from the outside referees so he lied and made it look as if the NHAT was a thriving company in Harlem and that he was still its Artistic Director.   

​

Nesmith had been fired from the NHAT and the theatre had been disbanded in mid August 2012, therefore he committed fraud when he included the following outrageous lies in his promotion dossier four months after the NHAT had been disbanded:

​

​

 

​

​​

• ​In his letter of support for Nesmith, Professor Patterson writes, "I wish NHAT would put its summer 2013 season on the web page, but at least Professor Nesmith refers to it in his application. I wish it the greatest fortune:"

 

 

 

 

​In his dossier Nesmith writes, "...this [Actors Equity points for CCNY students who performed with NHAT] was something we did not get this year [2012], but was promised that the union would be more receptive to the idea next year [i.e., 2013]"

​

​

​

 

 

​In his dossier Nesmith writes, 

“...New Haarlem Arts Theatre is recognized as the major professional theatre uptown."

​

​

​​

 

​In his Promotion dossier-- Nesmith wrote that his tenure as the NHAT's Artistic Director was ongoing. He wrote, 

"Founding Artistic Director, New Haarlem Arts Theatre, 2010-present"

​

​

​

 

​

Willinger admitted Nesmith's fraud to Provost Liss who cited his confession in his 2021 letter about the matter:

​

​

“At your suggestion, I interviewed Professor Willinger, who was Department Chair at the time, about this. Professor Willinger told me that Professor Nesmith fully believed [HOPED] that NHAT would find new funding after the College President stopped funding it, and although that turned out not to be true, nobody knew that at the time….”

Provost Liss

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope  does indeed spring eternal but tenure/promotion reviews should be based on verifiable and established accomplishments. 

​

100% of the outside adjudicators who voted to approve Nesmith's promotion cited his work with the NHAT as the reason for their decision. They said this because Nesmith's work with the NHAT was his Only off-campus creative accomplishment. Again, producing the NHAT's 2011/2012 seasons and directing

MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM and BLUES FOR MISTER CHARLIE were Nesmith's Only professional accomplishment at the time of his 2012 promotion review.

​

It was fraud when Nesmith continually lied and said that he was the current Artistic Director of a theatre company that did not exist, in order to scam outside referees into writing more positive letters of recommendation for him. If I live to be 100-years old I will never understand why Provost Liss and Professor Willinger continue to defend this indefensible fraud.

​

Nesmith, Willinger and Liss know that the ethical thing to have done was for Nesmith to postpone his run for promotion until after the NHAT was revived and he (Nesmith) was reinstated as its Artistic Director. To lie on official promotion documents while Nesmith worked to reestablish the theatre and his Artistic directorship was fraud, full stop.

​

​

​

​

NESMITH'S 2012 PROMOTION DOCUMENTS WERE DESTROYED

​

Provost Liss wrote the following about Professor Nesmith's 2012 promotion documents:

​

​

​

​

​

 

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The fact that they were scheming...and knew that they had to hide some of this...speaks to the fact that there was consciousness of guilt"

Chris Hayes, MSNBC

Consciousness of Guilt

“The assertion of false explanations or alibis as well as the destruction or concealment of evidence comes within the broad category of conduct evidencing a ‘consciousness of guilt’ and, therefore, admissible, and relevant on the question of a defendant’s guilt.”

 

For this reason, I assert that my colleagues displayed consciousness of guilt when they:

 

• ​Destroyed evidence that could corroborate my allegation about the fraud committed when collecting Nesmith’s documents for his 2012-13 promotion to full professor review. Fortunately Professor Willinger confessed Nesmith's fraud to Provost Liss when he was interviewed about the allegations in my 2020 whistleblower complaint:

​

“At your suggestion, I interviewed Professor Willinger, who was Department Chair at the time, about this. Professor Willinger told me that Professor Nesmith fully believed [HOPED] that NHAT would find new funding after the College President stopped funding it, and although that turned out not to be true, nobody knew that at the time….”

 

Provost Liss

​

​

Provost Liss' letter dismissing Grant's 2020 Whistleblower complaint:

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

​

 

 

​

​

​

​

​