Ex-New Republic editor apologizes for ‘offenses’ against female colleagues

A former senior editor at The New Republic magazine apologized Tuesday for “offenses” against female staff after several women accused him of sexual harassment and inappropriate advances.

Leon Wieseltier, 65, who for over 30 years was literary editor at the magazine, issued a statement saying he was sorry for “offenses against some of my colleagues in the past.”

As news of the allegations broke, philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs — who heads the non-profit Emerson Collective — pulled funding for a new magazine Wieseltier was about to launch, killing the project.

“Upon receiving information related to past inappropriate workplace conduct, Emerson Collective ended its business relationship with Leon Wieseltier, including a journal planned for publication under his editorial direction,” the organization said in a statement Tuesday. “The production and distribution of the journal has been suspended.”

Wieseltier did not initially comment on the allegations, but on Tuesday issued an apology that was first reported by Politico.

“For my offenses against some of my colleagues in the past I offer a shaken apology and ask for their forgiveness,” he wrote. “The women with whom I worked are smart and good people. I am ashamed to know that I made any of them feel demeaned and disrespected. I assure them I will not waste this reckoning.”

“I am profoundly sorry to my extraordinary collaborators at the journal we began together that the misdeeds of my past have made it impossible to go forward,” he added about the canceled magazine, titled “Idea.”

“My gratitude to them is boundless,” Wieseltier wrote.

In email exchanges over the past week, a group of women who worked at The New Republic discussed various past incidents at the magazine’s office in Washington. A person who saw the emails spoke on condition of anonymity to The New York Times about their content.

Women described their humiliation when Wieseltier “sloppily kissed them on the mouth.” Others said the storied editor made passes at female staff, asked them about their sex lives, and talked about his own sex life, including one occasion when he went into detail about the breasts of a former girlfriend, the report said.

One of the women said Wieseltier “forced her to look at a photograph of a nude sculpture in an art book, asking her if she had ever seen a more erotic picture. She wrote that she was shaken and afraid during the incident.”

He would also allegedly comment on what women wore at the office, including telling some their dresses weren’t “tight enough.” Wieseltier wrote one staffer a note, left on her desk, in which he thanked her for wearing a miniskirt, according to the report. The woman never again wore a skirt at the office, The NY Times said.

The women noted in their emails that male staffers who saw Wieseltier’s activities did not intervene.

According to several media reports, Wieseltier’s name is also on the “SHITTY MEDIA MEN” list, an anonymously compiled and unverified document that was circulated last week among national media. The file accuses men of everything from “creepy” behavior to assault or rape.

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, who purchased The New Republic in 2014, said in a statement Tuesday to Politico that he investigated claims Wieseltier had harassed a female member of staff at the magazine three years ago.

“In October of 2014, The New Republic received notice from the building management company of our Washington office that an employee of the building had experienced unwanted sexual advances and harassment by the literary editor Leon Wieseltier,” the statement said.

“Our CEO and I immediately moved to ensure that the woman was protected by bringing in outside counsel to investigate the situation. Representatives from the building made clear to us that the woman in question had not submitted a complaint, but another of their employees had been concerned. We directed Mr. Wieseltier to immediately cease any communication with her, and I made sure he knew The New Republic had a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment of any kind.”

Wieseltier, who is Jewish, left The New Republic three years ago after Hughes took over amid a dispute over the magazine’s direction. He moved on to become a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution as well as a contributing writer for the The Atlantic magazine.

The allegations against Wieseltier came in the wake of assault accusations by women against leading figures in media that were set off by revelations of alleged serial sexual harassment, rape and assault by Hollywood film mogul Harvey Weinstein.