Employee of CA school alleges harassment by president’s son

Posted in Sexual Harassment on December 12, 2013

While the majority of sexual harassment cases involve a victim and perpetrator of opposite genders; this isn’t the only scenario that qualifies as sexual harassment. Sometimes, both victim and perpetrator are men and sometimes both are women. And sexual orientation does not necessarily need to be a factor in such cases.

A recent lawsuit from California’s capital city appears to be an example of same-gender harassment. In the lawsuit, which was filed in March of this year, an employee for Sacramento State alleges that another male employee inappropriately touched him on several occasions and engaged in other acts of sexual harassment as well. The alleged harasser in this case is the son of the university’s president.

According to news sources, the alleged unwanted touching and other harassment took place within the university’s development department. The man says the president’s son “touched [him] inappropriately, threatened to touch and simulated touching.”

When he complained, the man says, no action was taken by the university except retaliatory action against him for lodging the complaints. The plaintiff claims he was passed over for pay raises and promotions, and was actually demoted.

News sources say that the president’s son no longer works for the university, and the plaintiff now works in a different department.

Cases like this often have a lot of messy details that can be difficult to sort out. Were legitimate harassment complaints ignored by the university? Is so, was it because the alleged harasser was related to the school’s president? Did the university go so far as to retaliate against the alleged victim? Hopefully, all of these questions and more will be answered if/when the case goes to trial.

 

 

Source: CBS Sacramento, “Sacramento State President’s Son Subject Of Sexual Harassment Suit At School,” Maria Medina, Dec. 7, 2013