Suits: School mishandled sexual harassment
Fresno State student, worker claim negligence
A Fresno State student and an employee have sued the California State University system and two former top administrators, alleging campus officials subjected them to undue harm by mishandling their reports of sexual assault and harassment.
The lawsuits seek damages for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violations of California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act and Whistleblower Protection Act, which protect against harassment and retaliation. No dollar amount was specified.
The student and the employee were featured as part of a USA TODAY investigation last year into then-Fresno State President Joseph Castro’s neglect of the school’s Title IX office and failure to address numerous complaints of sexual harassment, bullying and retaliation against then-vice president of student affairs Frank Lamas. Title IX is the federal law banning sex discrimination in education.
Castro and Lamas are named as defendants in both lawsuits.
“The Title IX situation was a problem in and of itself, but you have a systemwide problem that is propagated at the very highest level, all the way down,” said Stephen Hammers, an attorney representing the student, Stephanie Ocampo, and the employee, Terry Wilson.
The lawsuits, filed in December in Los Angeles Superior Court, are the latest fallout from the news organization’s reporting, which prompted Castro’s resignation, outside investigations, a legislative audit, and numerous reforms adopted by the nation’s largest university system and its 23 campuses across the state.
A statement from Cal State spokesperson Mike Uhlenkamp said the university was recently served and is reviewing both lawsuits.
“We would like to reiterate that a core tenet of the California State University’s mission is to ensure the safety of our respective campus environments and to remain accountable and responsible to all members of our communities,” the statement said.
“We remain fully committed to the ongoing and transparent accountability and evaluation that both Fresno State and the CSU have undertaken over the past year when many of these allegations first surfaced.”
Castro, now listed as a faculty member in the business school at the CSU’s Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, did not return an email seeking comment. Nor did Lamas, who has denied wrongdoing.
Employee cites hostile work environment, retaliation
Wilson, who was hired by Fresno State as a student affairs analyst, said in his lawsuit and in interviews with USA TODAY that Lamas made multiple inappropriate comments toward him starting Lamas’ first week on the job in 2014. Among them, shortly after they met, Wilson said, was that Lamas asked him if he was gay.
Wilson reported that remark and others to Fresno State’s then-human resources director and Title IX coordinator but said little action was taken in response. When Lamas learned Wilson had reported him, Lamas began making his work life miserable, Wilson alleged, bullying, belittling and embarrassing him in front of his colleagues. Lamas also placed him on a Performance Improvement Plan without getting proper approval from HR, Wilson said.
Lamas asked Wilson to improperly move money from Fresno State’s donor foundation into a different account, according to the lawsuit. When Wilson refused, he said Lamas threatened him and pushed him in the chest.
Wilson sought a transfer to a different department but said Lamas blocked it. Wilson later left Fresno State for a job in the CSU Employees Union, telling USA TODAY that Castro’s and other officials’ failure to address his complaints ruined his career.
University officials continued to retaliate, Wilson said in the lawsuit, after USA TODAY’s report Feb. 3, 2022, detailed Castro’s mishandling of a dozen complaints against Lamas, including Wilson’s, over a six-year period.
Days after the story, Wilson said Fresno State officials improperly revoked his key card access to campus buildings, which he needed to perform his job duties with the union, according to the lawsuit. Emails Wilson provided to USA TODAY show Fresno State officials first requested his access be removed in January 2021, then again on Feb. 11, 2022.
“I was shocked,” Wilson told USA TODAY. “I was basically canceled from my place of employment.”
An outside investigation commissioned by the CSU Board of Trustees in response to USA TODAY’s reporting confirmed Castro had a “blind spot” for Lamas and failed to “more rigorously address reports of Lamas’ alleged misconduct,” violating university policies in some instances.
The university said it is evaluating the allegations in Wilson’s lawsuit and takes them “very seriously.”
“As a current employee and a valued member of the campus community, we will not comment on the specifics of his lawsuit at this time,” the statement said. “We appreciate his many contributions to the university.”
Wilson said he filed the lawsuit to bring closure to this chapter of his life and the harassment and retaliation he started experiencing nearly a decade ago. In addition, he said his situation with the university had escalated to a “tipping point.”
“They completely retaliated against him because he cooperated with the article and exposed what was going on there,” said Phillip Baker, another attorney representing Wilson. “Their kneejerk (reaction) wasn’t an investigation. It was, ‘Kick Terry out.’”
Student says school failed to protect her after she was groped
Ocampo, who goes by “Jane Doe” in the lawsuit but previously spoke on the record to USA TODAY and agreed to use her name for this story, started at Fresno State in 2018 as a double major in journalism and political science.
In February 2020, Ocampo was walking down a hallway in the journalism school when she said a male student in one of her classes ran up behind her, put her in a chokehold with one arm and used his other arm to fondle her breasts, she told USA TODAY. Ocampo said she thought in the moment that he was going to kill her. Eventually he let go, leaving a bruise on her neck.
Ocampo reported the assault the next day to the campus police department, where she said an officer did not take her report seriously, according to the lawsuit. The officer, she said, asked her a series of victim-blaming questions, including what she was wearing and whether she had “flirted” with or done something to “provoke” the male student. The officer interviewed him two weeks later and asked if he remembered “hugging” Ocampo, a police report shows. No arrest was made.
Ocampo reported the incident to the school’s Title IX coordinator, Jamie Pontius-Hogan, who she said urged her to sign a resolution agreement that would provide a “road map” to her safety. It forbade Ocampo and the other student from contacting each other and directed them to use different entrances to the journalism school building.
Meanwhile, Pontius-Hogan removed Ocampo from the class the two students shared, Ocampo said. She was forced to meet with her professor after hours to catch up on course material, while the male student continued attending classes in person.
Ocampo said in the lawsuit that the school failed to enforce the no-contact order. In fall 2021, she said a professor informed her roughly two hours before the start of a new class that the male student also was enrolled in the course, which she needed to take in order to graduate.
Pontius-Hogan told Ocampo there was nothing her office could do unless she agreed to undergo a formal Title IX investigation, Ocampo told USA TODAY.
Ocampo said she had never been informed of that option earlier.
Ocampo requested the formal investigation, which lasted nearly a year and concluded the evidence was insufficient to find the male student at fault, according to the lawsuit.
The university’s statement said the case was “fully investigated by a neutral outside independent investigator, and after a full evidentiary hearing before a separate neutral outside hearing officer, the conclusion was that there was no violation of university policy and no misconduct.”
Ocampo told USA TODAY that she knew she was “in trouble” when the officer began asking inappropriate questions. After she reported to the Title IX office, she said, “things only got worse.”
“The whole thing was horrible and stacked against me from the moment I met that officer,” Ocampo said. “No one should ever have to go through what I went through, and I hope they change the whole system.”