David Egolf

Introduction

David Egolf is a former associate professor of physics at Georgetown University who was stripped of his tenure and fired on July 15, 2026, after university investigations concluded he had engaged in sexual misconduct, including an inappropriate relationship with a student. Egolf has fought the termination in court, but Georgetown’s own filings show that multiple university bodies reviewed the case and each recommended his removal. His faculty profile has been removed from the university website, and the physics department no longer lists him.

Background Information

Egolf’s removal was the second act of a misconduct record stretching back more than a decade. According to documents Georgetown filed in court, a student alleged in 2013 that Egolf had sexually harassed them. As a result of those allegations, Egolf signed an agreement in October 2015 that required him to receive training and undergo a psychological evaluation. He remained on the faculty and continued to supervise students. In 2023, a new accusation surfaced: that Egolf had an inappropriate relationship with a student. Georgetown hired independent investigators, who concluded that Egolf had violated the 2015 agreement, the university’s sexual harassment policy and the Faculty Handbook.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

The 2023 allegations triggered the process that ended Egolf’s career. Then-provost Robert M. Groves informed Egolf in an October 2024 letter that he planned to revoke his tenure and fire him, and sent the case to the Faculty Responsibilities Committee, the faculty body that handles disputes between the university and faculty members. Interim Provost Soyica Diggs Colbert carried the termination out on July 15, 2026. According to Georgetown’s August 24 court filing, she acted after several university officials independently recommended she do so. “More fundamentally, numerous independent Georgetown officials and adjudicatory bodies have reviewed this matter, and each has reached the same conclusion,” the university’s lawyers wrote. Egolf’s attorney, Micah Salb, countered in his own filing that the findings of the committee, the former Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Affirmative Action, and the former provost were “based on gross misstatements of fact and gross violations of Professor Egolf’s contractual and statutory rights.”

Public Reaction and Consequences

The case has played out publicly through the courtroom fight rather than through statements from the university, which has declined to comment on what it calls confidential personnel matters. Egolf sued Georgetown over whether its investigation and his termination were proper, and the university countersued, defending the process in filings reported by The Hoya, the student newspaper that has covered the case in detail. The student newspaper’s August 26, 2026 report noted that his termination had by then taken visible effect: his faculty profile was no longer accessible on the university website and the physics department no longer listed him as an associate professor. The case has circulated among Georgetown students and faculty as an example of a university following through on a decade-old harassment settlement when the conduct recurred.

Current Status

Egolf is no longer employed by Georgetown and is fighting the legality of his firing in an ongoing legal battle with the university. The termination decision itself has been carried out: tenure revoked, employment ended, and his name removed from the department’s listings. The allegations underlying the firing were findings of university investigations, not criminal charges, and no criminal case against Egolf appears in the fetched record. Georgetown’s lawyers have asked the court to reject his claim that the process was improper, arguing that the consistency of outcomes across review bodies reflects “separate decisionmakers reaching the same conclusion from the largely undisputed facts.”

Impact on Their Career/Life

The firing ended a faculty career that had already survived one harassment finding under a 2015 corrective agreement. Losing tenure through a presidential termination, after findings by independent investigators, a faculty committee and two provosts, leaves Egolf’s academic standing in ruins regardless of how the litigation ends, and his public identity is now attached to the misconduct findings rather than to his scholarship. The case has also become a reference point in campus debates about whether universities act too slowly on faculty misconduct: the ten-year gap between the 2013 allegations and his removal is a central fact of the dispute, cited by both sides in the litigation.

Sources

• “GU Terminates Physics Professor Following Misconduct Allegations” — The Hoya: source