Cal State fails to fully address sexual harassment and discrimination complaints, report says

Sexual harassment and discrimination complaints across California State University are largely ignored, according to a long-awaited report.

The nation’s largest public university system fails to respond adequately to sexual harassment and discrimination complaints from employees and students due to few resources and little staffing. The lack of infrastructure to address these issues had led to virtually no accountability measures and a culture of distrust across the 23-campus system.

The 232-page systemwide report also found that CSU has no way to address misconduct that may not rise to the level of outright discrimination or harassment but is still “disruptive to the learning, living, and working environment.” In total, the report listed 2,593 reports of sexual misconduct were found systemwide in the 2021-22 academic year.

 

“What we heard at many CSU universities were deeply held feelings of anger, grief, and pain in response to the incidents,” according to the report, which was prepared after interviewing current and former administrators and surveying nearly 18,000 students, faculty and staff. “We heard grave disappointment and sorrow in what many viewed as an institutional betrayal.”

Cal State enrolls more than 460,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The system employs nearly 56,000 staff, faculty, and administrators, of which 3,100 are student employees.

The report found a greater need for more oversight, accountability and support from the chancellor’s office for Title IX and DHR compliance. There was a lack of consistency in the systemwide role of the Title IX compliance officer. In the nine years that the chancellor’s office has had a systemwide officer, three people have fulfilled the position and viewed their responsibilities differently. Some chose to exercise oversight of Title IX on individual campuses, while others viewed their role as more consultative.

Some campuses choose to work with and seek assistance from the chancellor’s office Title IX/DHR compliance team, while others don’t, according to the report.

The chancellor’s office also lacks the level of legal staffing needed to address the volume of legal issues and complaints.

“One attorney per university plus additional specialties and administrative/management duties is woefully deficient in light of the complexity of the legal issues and is significantly below legal staffing levels at other major public university systems,” according to the report.

The report found that the chancellor’s office also lacks the ability to maintain, track and analyze data to prevent discrimination and harassment.

It calls for a shift in the chancellor’s office “from the current consultative model to an active oversight model to introduce tiered accountability and ensure effective collaboration, leadership and advice.” The report concludes that there is “much more the chancellor’s office can and should do to assist the 23 universities in meeting the needs of their students, staff and faculty.”

More than a year ago, the trustees ordered that Cozen O’Connor law firm, which has a San Francisco-based office, review Title IX practices across the 23-campus system. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a civil rights law that protects people in educational settings that receive federal financial assistance from sex-based discrimination.

The firm said it reviewed campus task force reports that assessed university responses to specific incidents and issues, and in some cases, the investigative reports and documents connected to those incidents.

“At every level, we observed the need for checks and balances, quality control, quality assurance, and other structures for accountability to ensure administrative capability and accountability.”

The issue of sexual harassment in the CSU system blew up early last year when USA Today reported that recently appointed Chancellor Joseph Castro, while president of Fresno State, ignored complaints of sexual misconduct for years by his vice president of student affairs, Frank Lamas, before his actions were finally investigated.

In 2020, six months before Castro was named systemwide chancellor, he agreed to a $260,000 settlement with Lamas, with a promise of a glowing letter of recommendation in exchange for his resignation. Former Chancellor Tim White approved the deal.

Castro resigned Feb. 17, 2022. A subsequent investigation found Castro “exhibited a blind spot about Lamas and the impact his conduct had on others despite multiple allegations and confirmed findings of his inappropriate workplace behavior.”

CSU has increasingly come under scrutiny from state auditors and news organizations for poor responses to sexual harassment complaints filed by faculty, administrators and students.

Since then, a host of CSU records  released to EdSource and other news organizations showed at least 10 administrators and 79 faculty members, coaches and staff across 12 campuses were disciplined or resigned before they could be disciplined between 2017 and 2021 for Title IX violations.

Cal State’s new Chancellor-select Mildred Garcia following her appointment last week said: “California is not the only one going through Title IX, but that report is the most comprehensive, detailed report on how to hold people accountable and put things into place to hold them accountable.

“There are no ifs, ands, or buts, and we say that to our communities, and we demonstrate what we’re doing. It is my understanding that campuses have already started the implementation teams. It is my role to make sure that work gets implemented and that we hold people accountable to get it done.”

The report noted that CSU has already made some moves to improve some of its policies including not providing positive letters of recommendation to current or former employees that have committed misconduct and making administrators ineligible to retreat to faculty positions if they were fired.

More details about how CSU handles Title IX complaints will be released tomorrow when the California State Auditor is expected to release its official report. According to the Los Angeles Times, which viewed a confidential draft of the audit, the auditors found that of more than 1,200 reports alleging sexual harassment against CSU employees, 80% were not “formally investigated.” The draft also detailed that although the chancellor’s office oversees the 23 campuses, it failed to have accurate information about complaints and did not track repeat offenders.

Source: Orange County Register