The 'Paris Review' Editor Resigned Amid An Investigation Into His Behavior Toward Women

The Paris Review editor Lorin Stein has resigned amid an internal investigation about his behavior toward women. Stein has worked in that capacity since 2010, when he succeeded Philip Gourevitch, the author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. The editor of The Paris Review also tendered his resignation with publisher Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, for whom he worked as an editor-at-large.

The Paris Review's 19-member Board of Directors began an internal investigation into potential sexual harassment by Stein before he tendered his resignation on Wednesday. According to The New York Times, the examination of Stein's conduct "came after he informed board members that his name had appeared on a list created after the Harvey Weinstein scandal to anonymously crowdsource allegations of harassment and misconduct by men in publishing and media." In addition to any internal complaints The Paris Review may have received — The New York Times neither confirms, nor denies, the existence of such — two female writers from outside the magazine spoke with investigators about negative interactions with Stein.

In his resignation letter, Stein apologizes for the incidents, saying that he had "blurred the personal and the professional in ways that were, I now recognize, disrespectful of my colleagues and our contributors, and that made them feel uncomfortable or demeaned." The resignation followed an email to the Board of Directors, in which Stein "suggest[ed] any missteps would not happen again." The board was set to reconvene on Thursday to discuss the outcome of its investigation.

Stein is the latest in a long line of men who have lost employment and endorsements over allegations of misconduct toward women. When decades of allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein came to light earlier this year, they set off a firestorm of allegations against many prominent entertainment figures, including Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K., and Jeffrey Tambor, among others. The number of politicians publicly accused of sexual misconduct continues to rise, and includes, at the time of this writing, John Conyers, Al Franken, Roy Moore, and Donald Trump.

The books world has been shaken up by Stein's resignation, which is the first in this wave of sexual-harassment revelations to touch the mainstream publishing industry. Here are a few of the responses from Stein's fellow editors and writers on Twitter:

The Paris Review had not responded to The New York Times' request for comment at the time of this writing.