Washington Responds to Efforts to Hold the CSU Accountable for Discrimination

Pat Washington, PhD
August 1, 2007

Re-Building the Infrastructure for Educational Equity in CA May Start with Re-Affirming Title IX Protections

Earlier this month, a jury found that California State University at Fresno (CSU-Fresno) volleyball coach Lindy Vivas “was let go over her advocacy on behalf of Title IX … as well as the perception that she is a lesbian.” On July 20, 2007, Senator Dean Florez, ( D-Shafter) issued a press release confirming that the Senate Select Committee on Gender Discrimination and Title IX Implementation will be investigating how actions of CSU-Fresno’s administration and athletic department led to a 5.85 million dollar verdict against the taxpayer supported California State University system. Senator Florez has stated he has “no intention of seeing Title IX eroded on [his} watch.” That’s good news since women and people of color are rapidly losing ground on every front within California’s system of higher education. In a state like California where there isn’t much political—or judicial will—to make seats available to our rapidly increasing population of college age youth of color (jail cells are another matter) and where faculty of color encounter “steel ceilings” in university retention, tenure and promotion processes, it is encouraging that Senator Florez is at least prepared to ask some tough questions when it comes to gender discrimination under Title IX.

Senator Florez and his staff are already picking up on the signs that the system is not going to correct itself, despite its pretensions otherwise. Florez is proposing a number of meaningful reforms that, if implemented, could dramatically reduce the likelihood that faculty and staff within the CSU system will have to continually throw themselves on the mercies of an often imperfect legal system to be treated appropriately in California’s academic workplace. And, while the recommendations coming out of Senator Florez’s office are designed to ensure gender equity in college athletics, they could have applicability for promoting equity for others throughout the academy, including faculty and students of color.

Admittedly, some of these recommendations are troubling because they ignore the role Chancellor Reed’s administration plays in the “culture of corruption” that the recommendations are designed to dismantle. Other recommendations ignore the role the CSU Board of Trustees played in allowing the behaviors and practices, attitudes and machinations that led to Title IX abuses within the CSU to begin with. The former and current CSU faculty who created know firsthand that you shouldn’t “let the fox guard the henhouse.” Those faculty came to the painful and costly realization that the Whistleblowers Program administrated by the Chancellor’s Office is nothing but a sham. They learned from experience that if you file a claim through the Whistleblowers Program, you are merely giving the CSU more information to use to discredit, demean and defame you. That is why Senator Florez’s recommendations that the CSU create an “independent” Office of Gender Equity that reports directly to the CSU Trustees is, at best, shortsighted and ignores his own recent recognition that Chancellor Reed isn’t exactly forthright in his assessment that gender discrimination is not a problem within the CSU. While Senator Flores and his staff are on the right track, their proposals need some refinements, and they should investigate administrative abuses within the existing CSU Whistleblowers Program before entrusting another purported “oversight and prevention” function to CSU administrators or Trustees. Face it: the Chancellor Office houses the system’s legal team. What good could it possibly do to entrust that team with yet another program that is supposed to protect plaintiffs but, in reality, only provides a platform for a self-serving bureaucracy to “examine” itself and find “no wrong.”

These shortcomings notwithstanding, other Florez recommendations seem more productive and less prone to manipulation and abuse. For example, “The CSU should require gender equity investigations to be conducted under stricter rules of evidence gathering, including the requirement that all statements are made under and penalty of perjury. The CSU should further require that the complainant, as well as the persons being investigated, have the right to record any statement made in this process in order to ensure availability for future proceedings as well as accuracy.” This recommendation would at least provide authorities and victims with a paper trail for better documenting the “twists and turns” witness testimony sometimes takes. Senator Florez also recommends that the California legislature create a “State Government Position, the Office of Gender Equity in Academics in the California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General.” On the surface, this appears to be one of the best recommendations of the lot, provided we don’t end up with one of those more-than-corrupt Attorney Generals who doesn’t know the meaning of gender equity and doesn’t care about fairness and equity. (To see the full set of recommendations from Senator Florez, visit my website: www: patwashington.org.)

Senator Florez has taken up the cause of ensuring the gender equity provisions of Title IX in sports. I believe he should set his sights higher. There is potentially a broad array of former and current CSU staff and faculty who would welcome the opportunity to persuade the Senate Select Committee on Gender Discrimination and Title IX Implementation that gender discrimination within the CSU goes far beyond women in sports. The Committee’s next hearing is on August 23rd at UC-Berkeley. Over the years, an informed network of individuals and organizations has had limited success in bringing the “culture of corruption” within the CSU to the attention of community members, legislators, educational institutions, the legal system and others. Connecting these individuals and groups with Senator Florez’s efforts to protect Title IX may be one way to build a functioning coalition for educational equity in California’s system of higher education that promotes public policies and legislation that help students, faculty and staff get true equity within the system, without having to wage costly legal battles.

Individuals wishing to contact Senator Dean Florez about academic discrimination within the CSU should call (916) 445-4641 or send a fax : (916) 327-5989.