Berkeley rocked by sexual harassment cases
University not doing enough to prevent abuse or deal with it once it occurs: critics
BERKELEY, CALIF.— For decades, the University of California, Berkeley, has been synonymous with liberal activism and social justice campaigns. But students, alumni and staff members say they have a hard time squaring that image with a spate of high-profile sexual harassment cases roiling the campus.
The dean of the law school stepped down this month after an investigation concluded that he forcefully hugged and kissed his executive assistant almost daily. An assistant basketball coach was fired, also this month, after the university determined that he had propositioned a reporter after shutting her in a parking garage. “With all candour, I was trying to trick her into going upstairs,” he told investigators.
In October, a renowned astronomer left the faculty after he was accused of buying students drinks, grinding with one on the dance floor and grabbing the crotch of a student from another university.
“This is supposed to be the pride of our state university system,” said Jennifer Reisch, a Berkeley Law graduate who said she was sexually assaulted when she was a student by a previous law dean at Berkeley nearly 16 years ago. “How is this happening?”
At a time of heightened awareness of the dangers of sexual violence on campuses across the country, Berkeley students and alumni are accusing the administration of failing to make the university safe from sexual harassment and violence — and then doing too little when it occurs.
In addition to these cases, the university is investigating 16 cases involving sexual harassment and nine involving sexual violence. The university is also facing two complaints lodged with the federal government and a civil suit brought by three women. All three actions accuse the university of failing to prevent sexual abuse.
“There’s a feeling that you can do this stuff, and you’ll just get a slap on the wrist,” said Nicoletta Commins, a graduate student at the Berkeley School of Public Health and one of the three women suing the university. “Berkeley doesn’t do anything about it unless there is external pressure.”
On Thursday, Berkeley’s chancellor, Nicholas B. Dirks, announced a number of initiatives to raise awareness of sexual harassment and sexual assaults, including a half-day of activities for the entire campus, tentatively set for fall.
The chancellor also said the university would increase resources for the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination. Dan Mogulof, a spokesman for the university, said the office’s budget would be increased to $1.2 million from the current $900,000, and that the staff of three would be doubled.
Still, hundreds of Berkeley students and alumni expressed outrage this month when they learned that the administration had kept secret the existence of the sexual harassment case against Sujit Choudhry, the dean of the law school who later stepped down. Under the terms of the confidential punishment, he had been allowed to remain in the job while his executive assistant, who had filed a complaint against him, was told to look for work elsewhere in the university.
The case was made public only after the executive assistant, Tyann Sorrell, filed a civil suit this month against Choudhry and the university, saying that the punishment the administration meted out — a one-year cut in salary to $373,500, from $415,000; a requirement to undergo counselling; and a letter of apology to Sorrell — was inadequate.
“I’ve worked for many high-level execs in Fortune 500 companies and I’ve never seen anyone behave the way he has,” she said in an interview.
Sorrell, a mother of five, graduated from Berkeley and had worked for the two previous law school deans.
The university has since released details of the inquiry, which concluded that Choudhry, who became dean in 2014, “engaged in intentional physical touching” of Sorrell, including “hugging, kissing her cheek, squeezing her arm, rubbing her arms and shoulders and holding her hands to his waist at the workplace.”
The report concluded that the conduct was “unwelcome and objectively sexual in nature.”
Aletter of protest by more than 400 alumni described Choudhry’s punishment as “feeble.” They threatened to withhold future donations until he was fired.
Choudhry announced he was stepping down this month, but he remains on the faculty.
Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California system, who said she was upset that she had learned of his case from the news media, barred Choudhry from campus for the rest of the term and ordered disciplinary proceedings that could ultimately result in stripping him of tenure.
Choudhry declined to be interviewed, but lawyers representing him provided a copy of a letter sent last week to Napolitano by his counsel, William W. Taylor.
Choudhry was being deprived of due process, the letter said, and his case was “lumped in” with other cases on campus.
“He is a scapegoat for any shortcomings, real or perceived, in the university’s handling of sexual harassment claims and related policies and procedures,” Taylor wrote.
In an interview, Napolitano said she stood by her order to keep Choudhry off campus. The University of California needed to set an example for the country, she said.
“I think our society at large has undervalued sexual harassment in the workplace,” Napolitano said. “It’s gone on in many professions for de- cades. We are a public university and we ought to be leading by example, not by mistake.”
Critics point to several ways the university appears to have mishandled sexual harassment and assault claims.
In the case of Choudhry, he did not take a required course in sexual harassment awareness until after Sorrell had filed her complaint. Activists say this was a significant failing given the law school’s previous entanglement with a sexual assault scandal. A complaint filed in 2002 by Reisch, the alumna, accused John Dwyer, the then dean, of undressing and fondling her at her apartment when she was intoxicated. He resigned. Dwyer claimed that the encounter was consensual but inappropriate.
In the case of Geoffrey Marcy, the astronomy professor who resigned last year, an investigation noted that accusations of sexual harassment went back to 2001. A former student, now a professor at Harvard, said in a blog that Marcy’s “inappropriate actions toward and around women” was an “open secret” at meetings of astronomers.
As part of her response to these cases, Napolitano set up a committee that will review and approve punishments for those who are found to have violated sexual harassment and sexual violence policies. Next month, Napolitano will receive an update on cases involving faculty from the President’s Task Force on Preventing and Responding to Sexual Violence and Sexual Assault, which she set up in 2014.
Some students and alumni, however, remain skeptical.
“Time and time again, universities, when they are faced with problems like this, set up a task force. That looks good on paper,” said Sofie Karasek, a Berkeley graduate who is the co-founder of the group End Rape on Campus.
Karasek, who says she was sexually assaulted in 2012 by a fellow student when she was a freshman at Berkeley, is a complainant in the civil suit against the university.
In an email Thursday, she described the university’s overall response as the bare minimum “they can get away with.”
“Berkeley is merely waiting for this issue to dissipate from the public eye,” she said.