Donald Clark was a 24-year-old graduate of Wesleyan University, an assistant professor of philosophy at Harvard, and a Ph.D. candidate there. Fluent in Italian, German and French, he served during World War I as a special agent in the U.S. Department of Justice. He received a master's degree in philosophy from Harvard in 1918 and was in the third year of his Ph.D. program when the court summoned him for an interview after a student claimed to have been propositioned by Clark. As a mark of the court's profound concern about Clark's status as an instructor, Harvard president Lowell attended his interrogation. Clark confessed to having homosexual sex on a number of occasions. The Court told him he would have to withdraw from the Ph.D. program and would not be reappointed to his teaching position. He was expected to finish grading examinations. Later Lowell crossed Clark's name off all school records. Clark taught for a while at Mills College and at the David Mannes School of Music, published a book of poetry and translations from Italian and German. He worked as a librarian at the National Jewish Hospital in Denver until his death from tuberculosis at age 47 in 1943.