Investigator untangles accusation of sex harassment against UC regent
An investigator hired by the University of California has rejected a doctoral student’s allegation that UC Regent George Kieffer sexually harassed her by repeatedly resting his hand on her upper thigh during a dinner for student leaders in San Francisco six years ago, The Chronicle has learned.
The investigator, a Walnut Creek attorney, found that although Kieffer sat next to the student and could have placed his hand on her leg, the “preponderance of evidence” fails to show that he did.
“The finding of the independent investigator was really not a surprise to me given that I knew the allegation was completely false from the outset,” said Kieffer, an attorney and last year’s chairman of the regents.
The claim by Rebecca Ora, a doctoral student in film and digital media at UC Santa Cruz, became public at a dramatic regents meeting in November when Ora faced the regents, accused Kieffer of touching her
leg in 2014, and demanded: “George Kieffer, get the f— off this board.”
“I’m frustrated. I’m angry. I’m hurt,” Ora told The Chronicle after learning the outcome. “It’s abuse of power. I don’t believe he should be on a board deciding policy and outcomes of others’ sexually abusive actions,” a duty of the regents.
The confidential report acquired by The Chronicle provides no evidence to prove or disprove the allegation.
What the document offers is a rare look at how an investigator can systematically untangle a “he said, she said” — in this case, between a governing board member of the $35 billion university and a student — to lay bare the facts and weigh them against a coherent framework. The result: a firm answer, on paper.
Issued May 12, the 52page report is redacted of names and identifying details. The investigator, Natasha Baker, advises administrators on employment issues and student affairs, and counsels boards on contracts and highlevel dismissals.
Ora and student leaders feared the regents would run the inquiry, policing themselves. On May 17, Suzanne Taylor, UC’s director of Title IX, the federal law barring sex discrimination, wrote Ora to say that she and UC’s top lawyer ran it, not the regents. As such, the regents “had no say in the outcome, nor the opportunity to review the investigator’s report before it was final.”
In her report, Baker outlined the undisputed facts: On Nov. 18, 2014, Ora, a vice president of the graduate student association on her campus, attended a dinner hosted by Kieffer at Pauline’s Pizza in San Francisco’s Mission District. Kieffer, the only regent present, had invited student leaders to discuss a plan to raise tuition. Ora arrived late and took the only open seat, beside Kieffer. They didn’t know each other. There the agreement ends. Baker’s job was to decide if the testimony she gathered through interviews weighed more heavily for or against Ora’s allegation. Some witnesses praised Kieffer’s character. Some described the dinner. Others revealed what Ora had told them.
Ultimately, Baker evaluated the information against four “credibility factors” that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission uses to enforce civil rights laws on the job: plausibility, motive to lie, corroboration and record of similar behavior.
In examining plausibility, Baker said she initially leaned in Ora’s favor because touching her leg beneath the table was a “physically possible event.”
But Baker changed her mind based on Kieffer’s explanation that “a great regent doesn’t grab someone’s thigh under the table. That’s horrible. I wouldn’t do it,” and his view that “the risk to someone’s reputation and career” would be excessive. She also credited testimony from Witness 17, who has known Kieffer for years and said he was “very cognizant of his role as a regent, particularly when engaging with students.” And Baker considered the environment at the table, which two students described as focused on tuition, eyes largely on Kieffer, and “no side conversations.”
Yet the ambiance was not entirely buttondown. Kieffer acknowledged buying alcohol for the table. He may have ordered a glass of wine or beer, he said, but was not impaired. Ora said she doesn’t drink. In the report, Ora objected to Baker’s decision to ignore a point Ora called important: that the mood was so loose, “possibly due to alcohol,” that Kieffer felt comfortable making an impolitic remark (blacked out) in front of the students.
Even if the mood were loosened by alcohol, Baker wrote, “given the risk both personally and to the regents, a regent would be unlikely to engage in unwanted touching of a student while at a contentious dinner.” Also, because Kieffer couldn’t have known how Ora would react to his hand on her thigh — she might have called him out — Baker reevaluated the scenario’s plausibility.
Next Baker considered motive — but found no obvious incentive for either to lie.
Being accused of sexual misconduct doesn’t establish motive, Baker wrote. Even if the regent did it, “the desire to protect one’s reputation alone is insufficient evidence to indicate a motive to falsify.”
Turning to Ora, Baker considered Kieffer’s claim that she was in it for money. Ora and Kieffer had tried to settle the matter through UC’s “alternative resolution” process, which collapsed. But Baker discounted cash as a motive because accusers “have a right to ask for things in alternative resolution without it establishing a motive to falsify.”
Nor did Baker find a motive in more than a dozen appearances Ora made before the regents since the 2014 dinner, on topics including tuition, executive pay, student housing and campus sexual assault.
But Baker cited two actions she said raised doubts about Ora’s credibility. The first concerned her request to delay their initial meeting.
Baker asked to meet with Ora in October. But Ora, citing an academic deadline, said she couldn’t meet until after Nov. 15. That turned out to be the date of the regents meeting when Ora went public. Baker concluded that Ora was less committed to resolving the matter within the system than she’d claimed.
The second action dealt with how Ora reported her allegation to UC in the first place, on July 19, 2018.
Until then, Ora revealed it to three people. The first was a friend, Witness 1, on Aug. 11, 2015, about nine months after the dinner. Ora texted about Kieffer “putting his hand on my leg when he took us out to dinner in nov,” and “he just kept putting his hand on top of my thigh.”
The second, Witness 6, was driving with Ora in September 2017. The friends discussed a regent unidentified in the redacted report. (Ora told The Chronicle it was Norman Pattiz, a regent recorded in 2016 asking an actress at his podcast company if he could hold her breasts.) Witness 6 said Ora told him Pattiz was “not the only one doing s— like that,” and that Kieffer had touched her.
The third, Witness 13, told Ora in February 2018 that Kieffer would visit their campus. Ora emailed back that she would skip that meeting. “I prefer not to be triggered,” she wrote, adding that “the [blacked out] issue and the mettoo movement have all made me very angry about many things,” including Kieffer.
Months later, at the July regents meeting, Ora said during public comment that she had been sexually harassed at UC, according to Witness 9, UC’s assistant director of student development. He told Baker that he approached Ora and the two spoke privately. He said Ora told him that Kieffer had placed his hand on her thigh and left it there.
Witness 9 said Ora worried that reporting it would affect the regents’ perception of her and undermine her activism. Witness 9 then “reminded (Ora) that he was a mandated reporter” who had to report what she said. Ora responded: “Oh, crap. You’re right.”
Ora has since called herself an “inadvertent reporter,” which Baker found perplexing. As a grad student, Ora would have received training on required reporting. Yet Witness 9 said he didn’t think she meant to report her allegation.
Baker said Ora’s anger at the system and her “inconsistent characterization of knowing about Title IX yet not knowing that she was inadvertently reporting” led her to weigh the motive factor “slightly” in Kieffer’s favor.
Next, the investigator looked for corroborating evidence but found little. No one at the dinner noticed anything amiss. Nor did Ora tell many people. Baker found it credible that Ora had difficulty discussing the matter early on.
“Given the inherent power differential, a graduate student would fear coming forward against a regent and thus would delay discussing or reporting,” she wrote.
And yet, Baker said, the delay hurt Ora’s case.
“The weight afforded to postincident reports diminishes with the passage of time,” she wrote. “Given that this time period also overlapped with (Ora’s) increasing anger or frustration with the UC’s handling of sexual harassment allegations ... these reports alone are insufficient corroborating evidence.”
Lastly, Baker searched for other allegations against Kieffer. Two witnesses, 7 and 8, said Kieffer once showed up at a meeting of student leaders, all women, and asked: “Oh, were none of the boys interested? How does it affect your ability to lead, being a girl?”
Kieffer recalled the meeting. In his version he said: “What did you do with all the men?” It was supposed to be an icebreaker.
In the end, it didn’t matter. The comments were too different from Ora’s allegation to count against the regent. And so, Baker concluded, “I do not find that any intimidating, hostile or offensive conduct occurred.”
Ora, fighting tears, maintained that it did.