ASU says Zócalo Public Square leader resigns after investigation

The leader of an events and journalism organization owned by Arizona State University resigned from his job on Friday following allegations of misconduct against his employees that were found credible by an investigation.

Gregory Rodriguez, the founder and publisher of the Los Angeles-based Zócalo Public Square, faced complaints from 10 people who work or worked at the organization. The organization currently has nine full-time employees.

Despite finding the many of the complaints credible, the university had not fired Rodriguez, The Arizona Republic first reported last week.

The university said in a statement on Friday that Rodriguez submitted his resignation to them, and the university accepted.

ASU plans to continue operating Zócalo, the university said. It will announce a new executive director in the “near future,” the statement said.

What were the allegations?

After receiving complaints from employees, the university started an investigation and placed Rodriguez on paid administrative leave.

ASU’s Office of University Rights and Responsibilities conducted the investigation, ultimately concluding that Rodriguez had discriminated against employees based on sex, sexual orientation and disability, all of which are protected classes.

That meant Rodriguez had violated a university policy prohibiting discrimination, harassment and retaliation.

A determination letter from the university laid out the complaints against Rodriguez: physically touching employees, swearing at employees, treating women with children differently, poking fun at perceived disabilities and discriminating against an employee in a same-sex relationship.

At least initially, the violations weren’t considered a fireable offense by the university.

Instead, the university said it would be “taking steps to address this behavior,” according to a letter from James O’Brien, the senior vice president for university affairs, obtained by The Arizona Republic.

Rodriguez was to be removed from any managerial or supervisory position, O’Brien said in the letter, and all of Zócalo’s employees would have to undergo training on workplace policies, conduct and avenues for reporting concerns.

ASU said last week that a final decision about Rodriguez’s employment status hadn’t yet been made by ASU President Michael Crow.

What the ASU investigation found

The university’s investigation found that Rodriguez created an “intentionally informal” workplace culture at Zócalo, “where cursing, yelling, and speaking openly about employees’ private lives is routine.”

But there was “overwhelming evidence” that when he became frustrated or upset at employees, he would act in a way that was “unacceptable for a person in a managerial role,” according to a report on the investigation.

Multiple people who complained to investigators said he would repeatedly berate them in person and by text. He would yell at them multiple times per week, they said.

He called them names like “dumbass” and “f--kup,” the report said.

The behavior was inappropriate for a manager toward any employee, ASU said. But there were specific instances that targeted employees who were members of protected classes, discriminating against them on the basis of sex, sexual orientation or disability.

His treatment of female employees was “notably worse” than for men, the report said. He “yelled at multiple female employees in a manner that was physically intimidating and made them fearful.”

He touched two female employees

“in an intimidating manner,” which ASU described as “grabbing one employee and shaking another.”

Female employees who wanted to get married and/or have children faced disparaging comments. He said the desire to marry and have kids showed they weren’t inclined to work hard and weren’t able to succeed in the workplace, ASU said.

He didn’t make similar comments to male employees about fatherhood.

He also called people gender-based names, like “p---sy” to male employees and “bitch,” “biatch” and “little girl” to female employees.

An employee in a same-sex relationship was not allowed to bring her partner to Zócalo’s public events, although opposite-sex partners were invited. He told investigators this was because he viewed the partner negatively, not because of her gender.

“The evidence indicated that he had never attempted to apply a ‘no partners’ policy for employees in opposite sex relationships, even when he felt negatively about the employee’s opposite sex partner,” the investigation found.

He called an employee he perceived to be disabled “Eeyore” and “mopey” and implied to others that the employee was depressed.

What is Zócalo Public Square?

Zócalo Public Square was founded in 2003 as a nonprofit by Rodriguez that aimed to bring people together for conversations on major questions facing society. The organization also publishes “ideas journalism.” Recent events focused around themes such as immigration, homelessness and voting.

Its mission is to connect “people to ideas and to each other by examining essential questions in an accessible, broad-minded, and democratic spirit,” its website says.

The organization has partnered with major Los Angeles institutions such as the Getty Museum, the Natural History Museum of LA, KCRW Public Radio and the Smithsonian.

Rodriguez had been a longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, his now deleted biography on the Zócalo website stated. He also has written in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Time and the Atlantic, the bio said. He wrote a book about Mexican immigration and race in America, which was published in 2007.

ASU and Zócalo started a formal partnership in 2011, and it is now an ASU “knowledge enterprise.”

The organization’s annual budget is more than $1 million, ASU said.

ASU plans to move Zócalo into its new building in Los Angeles, which formerly housed the Herald Examiner. It’s likely the organization would hold events there that help build ASU’s presence and brand in its new location.

The office’s distance from ASU led some employees to feel they didn’t have a place to turn when there were problems, several former employees told The Republic.

Several of the former employees interviewed by The Republic said Zócalo did not have human resources staff on site, and it wasn’t clear how they could file complaints about the leader of the organization. ASU should have recognized the high turnover rate, with some employees leaving just weeks after they started, and looked into it, they said.

In a statement issued Dec. 13, the university said its human resources staff had visited Zócalo in the past year and that employees were able to use the same reporting process for complaints that all ASU employees have.

But, the university acknowledged, the investigation and recent exit interviews made clear that people working at Zócalo still felt “disconnected” from the university’s human resources system.

“This is prompting the university to provide additional training and outreach to employees located at Zócalo Public Square,” the university said in that statement.