Esteemed CUNY prof quits after allegations of cocaine binges and out-of-control parties
A star Hunter College psychology professor and sex and drug researcher is accused of snorting cocaine at school events and throwing annual bashes that grew from low-key pizza parties into binge-drinking and go-go-boy bacchanals, according to sources and official documents.
Jeffrey Parsons — the youngest-ever “distinguished” professor at the public college and one of the CUNY system’s highest paid professors — quit July 3 following a school probe that substantiated May 2018 complaints by employees.
Parsons directed the Center for HIV Educational Studies and Training, known as CHEST, which oversaw research on unsafe sex and recreational drug use. He raked in $37 million in federal grant money from 1997 to 2016. His acolytes dubbed themselves “chesticles.”
Every year he’d host a party he claimed he paid for out of his expense account known as the CHEST fest, a former employee said. Last year’s bash is when his alleged bad behavior came to a head.
The May 4, 2018, soirée was held at the iconic Stonewall Inn in the West Village, where Parsons rented out the bar’s second floor. The theme: rebellion.
As he did at past events, Parsons encouraged attendees to imbibe.
“If felt like a hazing frat party sometimes,” a former employee said. “I almost always felt uncomfortable at the office parties by the coaxing to drink.”
The party included a lip-sync contest, and Parsons told two male employees to take off their shirts. He then approached “the sexier of one of the two” and undid the button on his pants, the ex-worker said.
“If felt like a hazing frat party sometimes,” a former employee said. “I almost always felt uncomfortable at the office parties by the coaxing to drink.”
The party included a lip-sync contest, and Parsons told two male employees to take off their shirts. He then approached “the sexier of one of the two” and undid the button on his pants, the ex-worker said.
But the evening really went off the rails when Parsons allegedly pressured two people to keep drinking and then lifted the shirt of a worker without permission, exposing the person’s chest and humiliating the employee.
“It was as if the host of a dinner party came down and had taken a pee on a pot roast,” the former worker said. “That’s how shocking it was.”
He said Parsons tried to apologize but to no avail.
Furious and fed up following the party, employees complained to the college which, along with the CUNY Research Foundation, hired a former federal Department of Education official to investigate, said Frank Sobrino, a CUNY spokesman.
The $539,312 probe included more than 70 witness interviews, he said.
Among the allegations raised was that “Parsons engaged in the use, and in the distribution, of illegal drugs (cocaine) at CHEST events,” according to the May 1 “final outcome letter” viewed by The Post.
The investigation concluded that Parsons “violated” CUNY’s policy on sexual misconduct and on “numerous occasions” engaged “in behavior that violated CUNY’s Drug and Alcohol Policy,” the letter said.
Parsons had been on paid leave during the probe, collecting his base salary of $240,000 a year. He could not be reached for comment.
In 2017, his pay came to $363,283 including a $85,817 CUNY grant and $39,200 in retroactive salary. His salary was the fifth highest in the entire CUNY system that year, records from The Empire Center show.
Hunter renamed CHEST and it is now PRIDE for Promoting Resilience, Intersectionality, Diversity and Equity.
The CUNY Board of Trustees last month hired law firm Covington & Burling, at a cost of $1.5 million, to gear up a “complex series of alleged violations of the University’s policy against Sexual Misconduct and other CUNY policies, which involve multiple potential plaintiffs.”
A source familiar with the matter said it was related to the Parsons allegations.
This is the second scandal in a year where taxpayer-funded CUNY professors were accused of misconduct and drug use. John Jay College is seeking to fire three professors over a sex and drugs scandal first revealed by The Post.
CUNY did not publicly acknowledge the latest scandal until Friday, after The Post asked about it. Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez sent a letter to the Hunter community saying a probe had “found multiple violations of CUNY policies by Dr. Parsons.”
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