A senior law professor at the University of Notre Dame Australia in Sydney has taken his employer to the Fair Work Commission, arguing that an internal HR investigation into sexual harassment allegations against him was fundamentally flawed. Dr Iain Benson faced complaints from three female students following a study trip to Paris in July 2025, after an investigation upheld several of the claims and concluded his conduct amounted to serious misconduct involving sexual harassment. The case matters because it tests how universities handle misconduct probes involving power imbalances between staff and students, while also raising questions about procedural fairness in workplace investigations.

The complaints arose near the end of an "immersion program" in Paris, when three students told accompanying academic Associate Professor Deborah Pike about Dr Benson's alleged behaviour, including kissing a student on the cheek, inviting her to his house, and using words such as "sensual" and "erotic" in a shop. Notre Dame's HR business partner Samantha Newing investigated 14 allegations and substantiated six, including the cheek-kissing incident at an Irish pub, finding evidence of sexual harassment given the professor-student power imbalance. Dr Benson disputes the process itself, claiming it breached his enterprise agreement, while Fair Work Deputy President Peter O'Keeffe clarified the Commission was assessing procedural compliance rather than the truth of the allegations; some claims, including questions about a student's past partners and a remark about Associate Professor Pike, were not substantiated.