Just close to two weeks ago, Jeff Clark was on top of the world. An information systems professor at MTSU and an occasional political operative, Clark surprised most political observers when he won the Democratic nomination for Senate earlier this month, edging out perennial candidate John Jay Hooker. But now, when he should be worried about tackling the heavily funded Sen. Bill Frist or at the very least helping presidential candidate Al Gore get out the vote, Clark is finding himself mired in an array of controversies that include exploiting anti-gay sentiment during the primary race and downplaying his inclusion in a messy federal lawsuit.
Still reeling from the allegations of sexual harassment and racism chronicled in this Sunday’s Tennessean, Clark has a few more questions to answer. Like how, during the primary, his campaign launched a direct-mail piece seemingly intended to dismiss opponent Shannon Wood by referring to her as a “gay rights advocate” and the owner of an “alternative playhouse.” While Clark doesn’t explicitly criticize Wood’s longstanding record of supporting gay-oriented entertainment at the Darkhorse Theater, he seems to see it as a negative rather than a positive. In fact, Clark’s brochure makes a point of noting that Wood’s “ultra liberal agenda makes her unelectable in November.”
“There are many of us, myself included, who are gay rights advocates. That statement was about electability,” Clark says of the direct-mail piece.
“I don’t know what to say. This is just politics as usual,” replies Ted Jensen, co-owner of Outloud Books!, a gay and lesbian department store. “I wish we were further along in our struggle that this wouldn’t be an issue.... I can’t vote for this guy. I’ve got to see if there are any independents running; if not, I’ll probably end up voting for Frist, unfortunately.”
Yet another matter of controversy for Clark might be a long-running federal lawsuit that up until now has been kept quiet. In the Tennessean story, a former student of Clark’s, Lori Ann Parr, claimed that he sexually assaulted her in a supply closet while she was taking an exam.
Clark refuted Parr’s account to The Tennessean while also defending himself against charges that he unfairly reprimanded a group of Asian students because of their difficulties with the English language. On the influential radio program Teddy Bart’s Roundtable, conservative commentator Michael Gilstrap dismissed Parr’s allegations by claiming that she never followed them up.
Actually, that’s not quite true. In September 1998, Parr filed federal charges against MTSU, saying that the school discriminated against her on the basis of her disability. The case, which was not reported in The Tennessean, is still mired in court.
In her lawsuit, Parr doesn’t list Clark as a defendant, but he is the main target of a complaint that she’d previously filed with the school. Parr alleges in the suit that as a student, she had received special allowances from the university’s disability office. After Clark refused to grant those allowances and Parr filed the complaint against him, she claims that university officials—including Clark’s wife, Carol, who is also a professor at the university—engaged in a pattern of retaliation against her for filing the complaint.
Finally, Parr alleges that Clark assaulted her when she was taking a test in a supply closet while nine months pregnant. The complaint states that Clark “reached above the Plaintiff pretending to get something above her, sticking his stomach and then his crotch into her face.”
Clark tells the Scene that he was never alone in the supply closet with Parr. “I did not sexually harass this woman,” he says, unintentionally sounding like his party’s top leader. “Even if I walked in the closet closer than she would have liked, that doesn’t meet the standards of sexual harassment.”
Clark says that Parr is simply hoping for a big settlement, noting that she has “filed more lawsuits than John Jay Hooker.” But Parr responds that she is not asking for any damages, just the opportunity to receive her master’s degree in accounting and computer information systems without having to attend Clark’s classes. “I’m not going to be in the room with him,” she says.
For his part, Hooker says that regardless of whether Parr’s allegations had merit, Clark should have publicly revealed them. “He failed to tell the party that there is a charge against [him] that, if it’s found out, could harm the party. Can you think of anything Al Gore wants less than to run with a guy embroiled in a sexual controversy?”
