In-depth reports on not just 'state’s
largest' university system but claims to be 'the nation's largest':
---- have to go back to the alleged retaliation where there are
examples being offered up that folks who complained about the CSU president's lobbyist hubby then
began to experience disparate treatment , had their jobs narrowed, became ostracized and lost their jobs with no rehire options while alleged perpretrators received no sanctions and full retirement packages and lucrative consultant roles -And, now its
looking like a possible pattern and practice- including where the issues at Sonoma State on Sakaki go back to a 2016 complaint:
"Former Sonoma State administrators’ accounts of sexual harassment raise questions about Sakaki’s response"
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/former-sonoma-state-administrators-accounts-of-sexual-harassment-raise-que/
"A former administrator at Sonoma State University’s Green Music Center
says he tried to tell President Judy Sakaki about the discomfort some
female staff members were experiencing around her husband in August
2016, and now he suspects he lost his job because of it." ..."said he was fired within weeks of his conversation with Sakaki, leaving him feeling confused and conflicted.
At the time, he believed he was fired because he is gay. However,
after reading recent reports that a former Sonoma State provost had also
accused Sakaki of retaliation for making reports of sexual harassment
against Sakaki’s husband, he decided to come forward.
Sakaki, through a spokesperson, said she had no recollection of such a conversation with Wenrick and denied any retaliation."
"However, Wenrick, the former director of the university’s world-class
music center, says he told Sakaki within her first two months on campus
that McCallum had made several women he worked with uncomfortable. The
conversation, as he remembered it, took place Aug. 19, 2016, as she
prepared to introduce famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma before a concert.
After Sakaki arrived in 2016,
she and McCallum would often go backstage to greet artists and were
frequent visitors at the in-house Prelude Restaurant and Bar.
“That was new and exciting,” Wenrick said. “We were seeing them on a
real regular basis in the first month that they were there.”
But female staff quickly began to feel uncomfortable around McCallum,
said Wenrick and two other former Green Music Center administrators who
agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because they fear
retribution.
“I just remember … everybody, especially the females I talked to,
talking about how uncomfortable Patrick made them feel when he was
around,” Wenrick said.
He said other former employees told him McCallum made them feel
uncomfortable by staring at female employees’ breasts and giving
lingering hugs.
Wenrick said two employees discussed their feelings with him directly
and would go out of their way to avoid McCallum, waiting to greet him
and Sakaki until they were already seated at Prelude, to avoid hugs."...
"Wenrick and the two other former Green Music Center administrators,
however, said they were aware one of the women was keeping a log of her
experiences with McCallum.
“I
heard some women were keeping records, and I was like, if something is
there, we need to report it,” a former midlevel director said. She never
made a report because she was never told about any harassment directly
from people who experienced it, she said.
Wenrick, however, decided to speak to Sakaki."...
The two former music center administrators said Wenrick told them he
planned to speak with Sakaki about McCallum. One said she also heard him
telling co-workers about his conversation with Sakaki after it
happened.
“I
remember Kevin making a comment like, ‘(The two women) were
uncomfortable. I'm going to have to tell the president,’” said a former
associate director who asked not to be identified out of concerns about
retaliation. “In my head I'm going, I don’t know if that's a good idea.”
“If it had continued on, I would have gone to HR,” Wenrick said. “But again, within a (few) weeks, I was fired.”...
"On Sept. 30, 2016, Wenrick was called to a meeting with his
supervisor and SSU’s director of human resources. He was told his
position had been eliminated based on a consultant’s recommendation.
John Welty, a former president of Fresno State University, had been
hired by Sakaki as a consultant to review the Green Music Center’s
finances.
The $145 million center had been losing money and was covering
expenses with money from the university’s general fund, including state
appropriations and tuition, Welty said.
Welty recommended eliminating two positions, one of which was Wenrick’s.
Wenrick said he was not allowed to retire in lieu of being fired,
despite positive performance reviews, and he was prohibited from
applying for other open positions on campus, which was commonly allowed."...
"At the time, the possibility of retaliation for coming forward about
McCallum didn’t occur to him. The most likely explanation for his
firing, he said, was anti-gay discrimination.
He began to pursue a lawsuit on that basis. In a Dec. 12, 2017,
letter from Wenrick’s attorney to the CSU, Wenrick cited what he
described as a derogatory comment Sakaki made to him about his
relationship; a demotion his partner received at Sonoma State shortly
after Sakaki’s comment; and his own firing.
Wenrick offered to settle for $900,000.
CSU’s lawyers rejected the settlement offer in January, saying
Wenrick’s firing “was based on legitimate business reasons having
nothing whatsoever to do with (his) sexual orientation.”
Wenrick dropped the matter soon after because his husband was being
considered for a job with the CSU, he said, and he didn’t want to
threaten their only source of income."
then, there is:
“President Sakaki had a professional relationship with Dr. Sawyer prior
to hiring him and based on her knowledge of his skills and experience,
believed that he would be successful at Sonoma State,” she said.
And,
"When she was asked to speak as a witness in the 2018 investigation,
De Los Santos said she “was surprised and really sad,” especially
because the woman filing the complaint was De Los Santos’ student
assistant, who later became a full-time staff member in Sawyer’s
department.
“I carry that guilt,” she said, tearing up. “I should have protected her, and I didn’t … It's sickening to know that happened.”
- That's where it gets into new details on the Sawyer case handling- where Sawyer gets to retire w/ full retirement package etc and does not have to attend any counseling as Vollendorf claims she did ...
-bold
emphasis added above- and once again we point y'all back to the 2007 CAJoint
Leg Dean Flores chaired 'informational' hearings where Welty was
questioned on Title IX case handling even then...
see: http://www.csun.edu/pubrels/clips/July07/07-25-07K.pdf
so see:
https://www.senate.ca.gov/media/select-committee-gender-discrimination-and-title-ix-implementation-part-1/video
https://www.senate.ca.gov/media/select-committee-gender-discrimination-and-title-ix-implementation-part-2-0/video
https://www.senate.ca.gov/media/select-committee-gender-discrimination-and-title-ix-implementation-part-2/video
https://www.senate.ca.gov/media/select-committee-gender-discrimination-and-title-ix-implementation-part-3-0/video
and the coverage then:
"UC athletics accused of discrimination" – East Bay Times
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2007/08/25/uc-athletics-accused-of-discrimination/
---and
as we noted before there is CA Leg archive of those informational
hearings on CSU but no archive of the hearings held then on UC at UC
Berkeley in 2007.
And finally, also want to mention again that
the $90K of loss of university owned artwork details are about
whistleblower policy:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-04/sonoma-state-president-judy-sakaki-art-fire-sex-harassment-scandal
and that seems to get short shrift but WB cases equally important as in a recent Sonoma State case like:
"Sonoma State asbestos whistle-blower wins verdict in civil case"
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/sonoma-state-asbestos-whistle-blower-wins-verdict-in-civil-case/
- did CSU appeal that, btw?
When WB cases are also part of Title IX or VII then it gets very complex.
____
‘There’s a lot of trauma in that’ — mistrust in SJSU, CSU administration lingers after Scott Shaw ordeal
The pressure on the university comes at a
pivotal point for the California State University system, which is
already under fire for system-wide mishandling of Title IX cases
and a loss of confidence in CSU Trustees:
https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/board-of-trustees/livestream____
Press Democrat also trying to understand CSU and Title IX in this new coverage:
"Title IX expert sees flaws in CSU response to sexual harassment reports involving Sonoma State"
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/title-ix-expert-sees-flaws-in-csu-response-to-sexual-harassment-reports-inv/?ref=recent
--it starts off with noting the McCallum issues were raised in 2016 and new alarming case handling details:
"a Title IX expert and founder of the California-based Title IX
Consulting Group, said she saw red flags in the way that the state’s
largest university system responded to people who reported sexual
harassment involving Sonoma State.
Former Green Music Center managing director Kevin Wenrick said he
approached SSU President Judy Sakaki in 2016 with concerns about her
husband, Patrick McCallum."
“In 2016, campuses solely looked at Title IX protections for students
for the most part,” Hodgin said. “They weren't looking at protecting
employees and how to address sexual harassment under Title IX. Still, the school was subject to Title VII, the federal law prohibiting discrimination in the workplace,”
A university president, though, “would have known who the appropriate
people are, especially for Title VII at that time,” Hodgin said. “They
would have known HR is where you're supposed to go.”
“Legally, is (Sakaki) the one that they're supposed to go to and give this concern? Not necessarily,” she said.
“However, best practices would be for her to then say to this
individual, ‘If you have a concern, go to HR.’ Or she could have
contacted HR and told her secretary or somebody, ‘You know what, just be
sure to let HR know somebody gave me this information. I'm doing my due
diligence and letting HR know this came to me … so that way, they can
just follow up on it if they want to.’”
Hodgin questioned why Wenrick did not follow up on his initial report
to Sakaki within a month. He said he would have done so if he hadn’t
been fired a little over a month later.
Hodgin also questioned whether authorities appropriately handled the
case of William Gregory Sawyer, a vice president at CSU Channel Islands
who was under investigation for harassment when he was hired at Sonoma
State."
- but they don't get into how Sakaki treated Vollendorf differently from Sawyer, as in allegedly requiring Vollendorf to seek unlicensed therapy and no such thing for Sawyer and why that disparate treatment? etc.
____
Also asking
"Key question in Sonoma State scandal: What’s the threshold for sexual harassment under federal Title IX rules?"
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/key-question-in-sonoma-state-scandal-whats-the-threshold-for-sexual-haras/
inlcudes:
...“It really turns out to be case by case, honestly,” Hodgin said....
then
Furthermore, Uhlenkamp pointed out that sexual harassment is defined
differently by federal education regulations than under state law. Under
state law, to be considered sexual harassment, the behavior may be
severe “or” pervasive, but must also be objectively and subjectively
offensive...
