This story by Michael Coughlin Jr. was first published in the Valley News on Aug. 15, 2025.
HANOVER — A former Dartmouth cross country head coach filed a federal lawsuit against the college this week, alleging that the school had “blacklisted” him, damaging his “reputation and his ability to obtain employment.”
Attorneys for Justin Wood, of Quechee, who coached the men’s cross country team and was an assistant track and field coach between 2020 and 2022, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Concord, seeking an unspecified amount in damages. Along with the college, the suit names as defendant Porscha Dobson Harnden, former director of Dartmouth track and field and cross country, currently living in Auburn, Alabama, according to the lawsuit.
During Wood’s time as coach, he “raised a number of concerns about Defendant Harnden, and his belief that she was leading those programs with a glaring disregard for Ivy League and NCAA policies, along with potential admissions fraud and laxities taken with the health and safety of Dartmouth’s student-athletes,” the complaint states.
A spokesperson from Dartmouth declined to comment on the lawsuit and Wood’s allegations against Harnden.
After “confronting defendants” about his concerns in 2022, Dartmouth offered Wood a severance agreement, according to the suit. Both parties entered into a “Separation Agreement and General Release Agreement” in August 2022, which contained a “non-disparagement” clause.
Over the next couple of months, Wood attempted to secure a position as the head coach of track and field at New York University (NYU). The complaint alleges that during a background check call between NYU and Dartmouth in December 2022, “the individual at NYU who was managing the background check was informed that Wood had been blacklisted.”
“The NYU individual who was managing the background check made a statement that something happened at Dartmouth, and ‘we just can’t,’” the lawsuit states.
The 12-page complaint also contains a screenshot from a post on a LetsRun.com message board in October 2022, which claimed Wood resigned “because he was associated with some inappropriate actions by coaching friends of his and was brought to light in an investigation.”
The lawsuit goes on to say that when Wood called the manager of the blog “regarding this false and defamatory information, and seeking to have it removed, the manager indicated to (Wood) that he had spoken with Defendant Harnden’s spouse regarding Wood’s departure from Dartmouth.”
Harnden made the statements with “actual malice, in response to Wood’s complaints of her improper conduct, i.e., her glaring disregard for Ivy League and NCAA policies, along with potential admissions fraud and laxities taken with the health and safety of Dartmouth’s student-athletes,” the suit maintains.
The suit also alleges that Harnden, “sometime in the Fall of 2022, told at least one individual and possibly a team captain, a cryptic reason for Wood’s departure. More specifically, there had been an incident or altercation involving Wood and a coach from another college, where the police were involved and the coach from the other school was immediately let go.”
According to the suit, Dartmouth “has taken concrete, retaliatory steps to prevent Wood from securing comparable employment,” by removing him from the college’s 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 men’s track and field rosters, and the 2021 men’s cross country roster.
This was done, the suit maintains, to “interfere with Wood’s application processes at other institutions,” including Tufts University in Medford, Mass.
Before coming to Dartmouth, Wood was a head coach at the University of La Verne in California.
Valley News’ attempts to reach Harnden this week were unsuccessful. Dartmouth did not respond to the paper’s inquiry regarding when Harnden left her position.
In August 2024, The Dartmouth, the college’s daily newspaper, indicated that Harnden had not communicated with the cross country team since February of that year and that a job opening for an interim director of track and field and cross country was posted that June.
Wood referred questions to his attorneys at Shaheen & Gordon, a major New Hampshire law firm based in Concord. His attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.
