Brown University Professor Faces Sexual Assault Charges for Groping Female Student

A Brown Uni­ver­si­ty assis­tant pro­fes­sor, Moham­mad Ibrahim, has been charged with sec­ond-degree sex­u­al assault for alleged­ly grop­ing a female grad­u­ate student.

Accord­ing to court records, the stu­dent report­ed that Ibrahim approached her from behind and grabbed her breasts while rub­bing his penis against her back.

She claimed that there were two such inci­dents in her lab, but she declined his advances each time. She was hes­i­tant to speak out at first because Ibrahim was the head of her lab and threat­ened to expel her from the pro­gram if she did not comply.

Ibrahim plead­ed not guilty to the felony charge and has been placed on admin­is­tra­tive leave. Brown Uni­ver­si­ty spokesman Bri­an Clark declined to com­ment fur­ther on the mat­ter, cit­ing per­son­nel privacy.

The stu­dent filed a restrain­ing order against Ibrahim last month, and the next tri­al is sched­uled for July. Ibrahim’s lawyer, John Gras­so, asserts that his client will defend him­self and prove his innocence.

This case high­lights the ongo­ing issue of sex­u­al assault on col­lege cam­pus­es and the pow­er dynam­ics that often make it dif­fi­cult for vic­tims to come for­ward. It also empha­sizes the impor­tance of address­ing and pre­vent­ing sex­u­al mis­con­duct in aca­d­e­m­ic institutions.