 The lawsuit, filed in a California court on March 21, 2017, sought damages both from Searle and from the Regents of the University of California as his employers.It also claims that Jennifer Hudin, the director of the John Searle Center for Social Ontology, where the complainant had been employed as an assistant to Searle, has stated that Searle "has had sexual relationships with his students and others in the past in exchange for academic, monetary or other benefits".After news of the lawsuit became public, several previous allegations of sexual harassment by Searle were also revealed.