BOSTON (AP) — For 35 years, Ruth D'Eredita tried to dismiss her former professor's behavior — the way he touched her, groped her and kissed her. But last year, as dozens of women came forward to share similar encounters with powerful men, she started to see her memories differently.

"It made me look at that incident and say, no, it was wrong," said D'Eredita, a 1984 graduate of Mount Holyoke College, a women's school in Massachusetts. "I went there with a heart full of passion, eager for scholarship, just to throw myself into it, and this man looked at me as a potential sexual partner."

She's...