Several prominent female scholars have remarked since Fraenkel's death that he was known for inappropriate contact with his some of his female students during private lessons. Isobel Henderson, a tutor at Somerville College, warned students that they would learn much from Fraenkel but they would be "pawed about a bit." One of these students, the philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock, recounted being groped by Fraenkel in her memoirs. Nevertheless, she later remarked that Fraenkel was the best teacher she had ever known and stresses that his status as a classical scholar is undiminished by his conduct towards women. Cambridge classicist Mary Beard referred to him as a "serial groper", and noted that biographies omitted the "persistent sexual harassment" intrinsic to his teaching. In a 2017 interview, Roger Tomlin described Fraenkel as "a bully": in the one seminar of Fraenkel's that Tomlin attended he described Fraenkel trying to embarrass women by asking them ridiculous questions, like what an 'ithyphallic metre' was.