William Preucil has resigned his post as Distinguished Professor of Violin at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
His resignation over the weekend followed a Washington Post story that looked at incidents of sexual assault and harassment in the classical music world, and began with allegations that the renowned violinist sexually assaulted a student of his when he was a teacher at Miami's New World Symphony in 1998.
On Friday, the Cleveland Orchestra suspended Preucil, its concertmaster, pending an independent investigation.
In the wake of the Washington Post story, CIM president and CEO Paul W. Hogle released a statement saying the school was "deeply troubled" by the allegations but would not comment on the specific case. Hogle said that the school "has zero tolerance for behavior that puts our students at risk."
In a letter to the school’s students, faculty, and trustees on Saturday, Hogle announced that Preucil had tendered his resignation effective immediately.
"The women's accounts, which were reported to have occurred 10 and 20 years ago, were professionally researched, excruciatingly detailed, independently corroborated and painful to read,” Hogle wrote. “As a community of classical musicians, students, faculty and staff we can do better."
"This is an important moment to reiterate that the Cleveland Institute of Music's policy is to provide for students, faculty and staff an environment that is free of sexual harassment and misconduct," Hogle said.
The statement went on to describe what the school would consider as sexual harassment and how students and staff could report such incidents.
“Together, CIM will do its part to help change the conversation about the classical music community,” Hogle said. “The behavior that was recently detailed by various media outlets is unacceptable, and we as a community will not tolerate it.”