Savannah Brooks ’26
Editor-in-Chief
In a statement to the Tripod sent on Tuesday, Sept. 23, Chief of Staff and Associate Vice President for External Affairs Jason Rojas announced the settlement of a suit against the College. On behalf of the College, Rojas sent, “The College and Prof. John Mertens announce the settlement of a lawsuit that Prof. Mertens had commenced against the College. The lawsuit challenged actions taken by the College including an investigation of Prof. Mertens under the College’s Policy on Non-Discrimination. In settlement of the lawsuit, the College acknowledges that a thorough investigation was conducted and found no evidence of discriminatory behavior by Prof. Mertens.”
The settlement of the lawsuit marks the end of a long saga between Professor of Engineering John Mertens and the College, which has lasted over three years. Mertens first met with Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs Sonia Cardenas and Associate Dean Takunari Miyazaki in January of 2022. In meetings with Cardenas and Miyazaki, Mertens alleged that he was pressured to seek out accelerated retirement due to allegations of “egregious” behavior. On Feb. 9, 2024, Mertens sued the College and Cardenas after a two-year process of internal complaints and investigations.
It is not unusual for administrators of colleges and universities to suggest early retirement to professors who have had a long career and are no longer research-active, in order to open position funding for new faculty. Mertens has been a member of Trinity’s faculty since 1990 and has not published research since he co-authored a journal article in 2016.
In several posts on the Instagram account @blackattrin, an anonymous account founded in 2020, students and alumni shared experiences with Mertens, who received several complaints against him alleging discrimination against minority students. Five posts include stories about Mertens, mostly anonymous, alleging that Mertens humiliated the sole female student of color in a capstone class, told an international student, “If you want to work in America, you’re going to have to change [your accent],” paused a presentation given by three international students to complain about their accents and denied a female student of color an extension which he granted to a white male student.
The 10-month investigation into complaints against Mertens was conducted by lawyer Scott Roberts of Hirsch, Roberts and Weinstein L.L.P. Roberts did not find a preponderance of evidence of Mertens’ alleged discriminatory behavior, as the first-hand allegations which were formally filed with the College only came from one anonymous student who graduated in 2018. One anonymous student who is only marked by their class year of 2018 alleged on a @blackattrin Instagram post that “Prof. Mertens did so many racist and sexist things that I couldn’t take it anymore. I made a long list of things he did and went to the Dean of Faculty. We had two hearings. It was awful — sitting in front of your professor and telling him he’s racist and sexist, while he still has to give you a grade at the end of the semester. After a year, my friends told me Mertens was harassing female POCs in class again. I contacted the school about it, but they said ‘they had no record of my hearings and the list I made.’ Absolutely no record. It was like it never happened. Nothing changed.”
It’s saddening that it’s necessary to write letters like this. But this is the nature of today’s world. Anyone who knows me or has worked with me knows the nature of my character; I’m writing this comment to people who have never met me. If you’d like to get to know me and who I am and the kind of person I am, please feel free to reach out to me. I will be pleased to talk to you. I am a fierce advocate for justice and faculty and students’ rights. We know what happens to people like that. And, to correct the author of this article, no student or alum has ever filed a formal complaint involving me.
I’d also like people to know that no one has ever claimed that I am “no longer research-active”. I take great pride in my record of training my students how to do research and engineering design, and preparing them for graduate school and careers. My students and I have eight conference presentations since 2016, with thirteen Trinity student co-authors, including an Invited Plenary Presentation at the 4th Congress on Sustainable Energy. I have taken on eleven first-year ISP research students since 2016 (zero during covid), and been the faculty advisor of fifty-nine Senior Capstone Thesis students since 2015, the most of any member of the engineering department over that time.
I also take great pride in my classroom teaching and student advising record over my 35+ years at Trinity. I am in the process of compiling all of my anonymous student course evaluations over that time, and will be posting them on my Trinity faculty profile soon for all to see.
I invite everyone to view my CV on my faculty profile. Especially my “Service and Leadership Activites”. I have spent thousands of hours performing community service, especially for people in Africa, Afghanistan, and in Hartford Public Schools. I haven’t done any of it for public recognition, and I think it’s a shame that it’s necessary for me to write about myself to repair the damage done to my reputation by others.
Dr. John D. Mertens, Professor of Engineering
Everyone is invited to view my anonymous student course evaluations for my courses from 1990-2025 here:
https://internet3.trincoll.edu/facProfiles/Default.aspx?fid=1000664