Fresno State played key role in CSU’s harassment scandals. It must lead reforms | Opinion

When Mildred Garcia, the new chancellor of the California State University system, begins her job in October, she will take over a system with serious problems, including one that sprung up from Fresno State.

That would be the issue of sexual harassment. In 2020, Frank Lamas resigned from his position as vice president of student affairs at Fresno State after allegedly engaging in sexual harassment and bullying of a graduate student who was also an employee.

After that case erupted, Joseph Castro, the former Fresno State president who oversaw Lamas but did not deal properly with years of complaints of harassment against him, resigned from his post as CSU chancellor.

A Cal State-ordered review found that the 23 campuses making up the system lacked staff trained to properly investigate harassment complaints.

Now the leaders of four major unions representing CSU employees, as well as state legislators, are questioning the ability of the CSU system to police itself.

In a report by Bee staff writer Robert Kuwada, Catherine Hutchinson, president of the California State University Employees Union, said “We saw what happened at Fresno State where top administrators, including the president, turned a blind eye when faced with evidence of multiple workplace abuses against students and staff.

“We have serious reservations that the same administrators who worked under former Chancellor Castro, a failed leader who exited in disgrace, are now entrusted to implement changes recommended in the Cozen report. It is critical for union staff members to have a seat at the table and be heard if campuses are serious about increasing transparency and accountability.”

Harassment issues cannot be ignored

The report by Cozen O’Connor — hired by the CSU Board of Trustees to assess the system’s past responses to Title IX and discrimination, harassment and retaliation claims — found the campuses lacked the ability to carry out compliance responsibilities. The report also found that there was a significant need for accountability, as well as a widespread lack of trust.

Diane Blair, a communications professor at Fresno State and California Faculty Association secretary, told Kuwada in a statement that harassment complaints “can take months to years to resolve a complaint, for those few that get resolved.”

Blair said the guiding principle is to avoid bad press, so filing complaints is discouraged.

Lauren Nickerson, Fresno State’s associate vice president in charge of communications, said the university had worked to address gaps in how complaints are handled, but indicated improvements are ongoing.

Fresno State is not alone in poor response to harassment claims. A state auditor report done in 2014 found the staff throughout the CSU and University of California systems assigned to such matters were improperly trained, and not much improvement occurred in the nine years since.

But Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval has taken steps to address deficiencies, combining Title IX and Discrimination, Harassment, Retaliation departments into one centralized office. He has ordered the hiring of an intake/program analyst, an employee relations specialist in faculty affairs and a deputy Title IX coordinator. Fresno State is also hiring an associate vice president for compliance.

Keep focus on fixes

Jiménez-Sandoval did not mismanage harassment claims at Fresno State, but it is on him to make the system better. If he has to remove administrators who were in place when the Lamas case developed, so be it.

Meanwhile, Garcia’s challenges are many: The CSU faces a declining enrollment, a backlog of $6.5 billion in deferred maintenance projects and a $1.5 billion operational funding deficit that has impacted staffing and academic services.

Given those problems, it would be easy to sweep away the harassment issue. Garcia must not do that. This wound has festered long enough. She must show the necessary leadership to rebuild CSU’s procedures for each campus to swiftly and fairly investigate complaints of sexual harassment and deal rightly with them.

Failure to do that sacrifices the educational mission of the CSU when students are victims and makes for a hostile work environment when staff or faculty are involved.

Fresno State recently shined by placing higher in the U.S. News and World Report rankings. The university is one of the best in the nation for the social mobility of its students, for example.

However, smart prospective students will find in online searches that Fresno State has had this problem of harassment claims in the past. The best way to get rid of that negative impression is by fixing the problem for good.

To be sure, Jiménez-Sandoval, Garcia and all CSU leaders share that same obligation.

This story was originally published September 26, 2023 at 5:30 AM.