Fresno State’s harassment problem was years in the making. Here is how it can recover

Fresno State’s sexual harassment problem has been years in the making. Fortunately, the university can make things right. The remedy is having qualified people in key positions to do their jobs properly.

That is the key takeaway from a story by Bee staff writer Robert Kuwada about Fresno State’s Title IX office. Title IX is the federal civil-rights law that bars sexual harassment at schools that receive federal funding. Fresno State falls under that heading, like most public institutions.

Sexual harassment at the university came into public focus in February when USA Today broke the news about how former President Joseph Castro quietly moved out Fresno State’s former vice president of student affairs Frank Lamas. More than a dozen women complained about being sexually harassed by Lamas over a six-year period.

The resulting controversy then led to Castro’s resignation as chancellor of the California State University, the job he took after leaving Fresno State.

Now handling the aftermath at Fresno State is Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, who followed Castro into the president’s post. Jiménez-Sandoval formed a task force to review how harassment complaints are dealt with and make recommendations for improvement. His goal is for Fresno State to have the best process for handling harassment complaints of any university in the nation.

The CSU is also conducting an investigation into Fresno State and the other 22 universities in the system.

And more than 40 state legislators want an audit done into how harassment complaints and Title IX violations have been handled by the CSU overall. Among the lawmakers requesting the audit is Jim Patterson, Fresno’s Republican Assembly member.

Qualifications problem

One issue that will surface in the various investigations is how well qualified Fresno State’s Title IX staff might be to properly handle harassment complaints.

As reported by Kuwada, two CSU campuses close in size to Fresno State — San Francisco State and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo — have Title IX coordinators with law degrees who were practicing attorneys in employment and compliance fields before taking over the offices at their schools.

In addition, at San Francisco State, two of the four Title IX investigators have law degrees. The coordinator also has a special Title IX certification.

At Fresno State, the Title IX coordinator is Jamie Pontius-Hogan. She has a master’s degree from Western Kentucky in education and a doctorate from Tennessee in higher education administration.

Her assistant is Erin Boele, who was appointed interim Title IX coordinator in 2016 and deputy in 2019. She has a bachelor’s degree from Fresno State in psychology and a master’s from Idaho State in counseling.

As reported by Kuwada, Fresno State is an exception in the CSU when it comes to experience or training. “At least nine Title IX coordinators hold law degrees and the majority had previous Title IX compliance and/or investigative experience.”

Boele’s shortcomings as interim coordinator were shown in two court cases reviewed by Kuwada. In one, a male student accused of harassment by two women ended up having his expulsion from the CSU set aside because of procedural mistakes by Boele. One of the women ultimately dropped out of school.

In the second case, an associate professor claimed she did not get timely notification of harassment claims made against her by three graduate students. After the initial interview with the professor, it took Boele 17 months to issue a summary of facts and witness accounts. Federal law requires prompt investigations; the CSU wants investigations concluded within two months.

Going forward

If Jiménez-Sandoval really wants to transform Fresno State’s Title IX office into a collegiate leader, he will have to hire top-notch staff. But that will be challenging. In 2015, Jan Parten, then the Title IX coordinator, retired. An initial search did not find a replacement, and two subsequent searches also failed in the quest.

Another national search was conducted in April 2018; it ended that July when Pontius-Hogan was appointed Title IX coordinator. Boele was appointed deputy at the end of May 2019.

It is clear that thoroughly educated and trained administrators will conduct proper reviews that do not fall apart in court. The CSU and Jiménez-Sandoval must get this right. Their reputations are on the line, to say nothing of the pain future victims could face if harassment cases get mismanaged again.