On getting a cool job when one has a sordid past

So there's this Nobel laureate who was trying to become Oxford University's professor of poetry. http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/?p=6330
During Derek Walcott's job application process or campaign or whatever you'd like to call it, some unsavory news became public. It seems the gent was accused of sexual harassment at Harvard in 1982. A student alleged that he made inappropriate suggestions to her, and when she refused his advances, she received a C grade in his class.

It seems like 27 years is a long time...but when Walcott was under consideration for this new professorship position, Oxford staff received 100 photocopies of a book page detailing the 1982 accusation.

The news reports are calling this a "smear campaign." On first glance, I assumed that it couldn't possibly be a smear campaign, because the guy sexually harassed someone. If he actually did it, making the news public isn't a smear campaign; it's telling the truth. But if one accusation 27 years ago was the only time he was accused of sexual harassment, and he didn't officially get into trouble for it, is he still a sexual harasser?

I'm inclined to think that someone accused of sexual harassment probably did it. Maybe that's unfair. I suppose it's possible that the accuser was angry about a bad grade and found a way to punish the man. But I'm also inclined to think that if he were a chronic sexual harasser, and this news was coming out as he was trying to get one of the most prestigious academic jobs in this country, someone else would have stepped up to say she had also been harassed.

Final conclusion: I obviously don't know if this guy sexually harassed someone. I also don't know if he's the right person for the job of Oxford's professor or poetry. But I don't think this was a smear campaign, if it's just bringing up actual evidence of previous events. I think a smear campaign has to be based on exaggerated or invented events. What do you think?

Dear Granola

Dear Granola,

I like it when I try to eat you and you go into my mouth and I chew you up and swallow you and you transfer your nutrients to my bloodstream and I have the energy to do things like write features or ride my bicycle to Bath.

I like it less when I try to eat you and I accidentally tilt my spoon or don't open my mouth all the way and you splatter all over my beautiful laptop and make a smeary, crunchy granola mess. That's not so cool.