Monday, January 26, 1998
Lawsuit against UCLA returns to court
TRIAL Former employee to sue university again for obstructing
previous case
By Kimberly Mackesy
Special to The Bruin
Allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation, which have
been awaiting redress for more than four and a half years, finally
are headed for trial in the wake of an appellate court ruling
resurrecting a 1995 lawsuit against the university.
Former UCLA employee Elo Carrillo alleges in a lawsuit that she
was sexually harassed by a former visiting professor in 1993 and
that the university dissolved her position in retaliation for her
pursuit of a claim.
A judge threw the suit out of court in late May 1996 on the
grounds that Carrillo had failed to exhaust the administrative
remedies available to her. The UC Regents, named as defendants in
the suit in addition to the university and Chicano Studies
Department faculty, argued that her failure to exhaust
administrative remedies should invalidate her case. The trial judge
agreed, dismissing Carrillo’s lawsuit before it could come to trial
and sanctioning her to the tune of more than $12,000 for filing a
premature claim.
The appellate court’s decision has reversed this judgment on the
grounds that the university had failed to establish what Carillo
was required to do before filing her lawsuit.
The university has been ordered to answer Carrillo’s lawsuit,
she no longer has to pay the $12,000 in sanctions and she will
recover the costs involved in filing the appeal.
"I think this demonstrates how the university uses its
procedures and its so-called administrative remedies to discourage
sexual harassment victims from coming forward," said Toni
Jaramilla, Carrillo’s attorney. "We hope that the ruling by the
court of appeals sends a loud and clear message to the university
that it can no longer hide behind its bureaucratic red tape."
University officials denied that the administrative process is
used against those who seek redress for alleged injuries.
"That is catchy prose, but it is entirely inconsistent with the
practice of the campus or the intent of the campus," responded Vice
Chancellor of Legal Affairs Joseph Mandel. "We treat all members of
the campus community at the outset as equal members of the
community, each entitled to a process that is fair to him or to
her.
"We allow the campus processes to unfold so that we can make
some preliminary determinations through fact-finding," Mandel
continued. "The sole purpose (is) seeing that justice is achieved
without any preconceived bias in favor of the party alleging
misconduct or the target of those allegations."
The alleged incidents of harassment date back to 1993 and the
resulting legal disputes have traveled a long and complicated road
since then.
Visiting Professor Philip Garcia taught a Chicana/o Studies
class at UCLA in winter 1993. Several students, along with
Carrillo, alleged that Garcia engaged in a course of harassment –
which Garcia has repeatedly and emphatically denied. The
allegations were made public on June 3, 1994. Three days later, the
Daily Bruin reported on the allegations against Garcia and the
university investigation that had begun a year earlier.
When the investigation entered its third year, Garcia filed suit
against the Regents, the students’ association (ASUCLA), the
Communications Board and the Daily Bruin. He claimed that the
university mishandled his investigation, that his privacy was
violated and that he was defamed by the June 1994 Daily Bruin
article.
The court dismissed Garcia’s lawsuit against ASUCLA, the
Communications Board and The Bruin because the newspaper article
about Garcia was a privileged report of a government investigation.
The court ordered Garcia to pay the student media more than $13,000
in sanctions.
Garcia’s lawsuit against the regents was separately dismissed on
the grounds that he had not exhausted his administrative
proceedings.
The UCLA counsel confirmed that the university dropped its
in-house case against Garcia in 1997. He cited Garcia’s privacy
rights in declining to further explain the decision.
Garcia’s attorney John Younesi, however, told The Bruin that the
Academic Senate dropped its formal charge against his client
because of the unavailability of witnesses and the inordinate delay
in processing the case.
Younesi maintains that the university made numerous blunders in
its investigation – the effects of which Garcia, an administrator
at Cal State Long Beach, still feels.
He hasn’t taught a course since the allegations came to light,
said Younesi. "It’s acted to forever harm his professional and
personal life."
Although Carrillo’s lawsuit against the university has received
the go-ahead, her civil suit against Garcia will never come to
trial. It was dismissed by the same trail court judge who threw out
her case against the university, on identical grounds.
Rather than appeal the decision as she did with the university
suit, Carrillo decided to settle her differences with Garcia out of
court.
Jaramilla emphasized that Carrillo’s was an "economic decision"
to settle and was by no means an indication that she had changed
her mind about the alleged events.
Fearing that Garcia’s attorneys would succeed in demanding
repayment of legal fees, as the university had, Carrillo agreed to
relinquish her right to appeal in exchange for Younesi’s promise
not to proceed.
"All she wanted from the professor in the first place was an
apology," Jaramilla said – an apology she never received.
After filing the initial administrative complaint, Carrillo
claims she was bounced among officials in her pursuit of some
resolution. In a letter submitted to the trial court, Carrillo
states that she contacted 36 different UCLA officials and re-told
her story 11 times.
During that time, she notified the police on several occasions
that she had received threatening phone calls at her office.
A police report shows that, among other threats, she claimed one
caller "threatened to slash her throat" and another "said he was
going to put his penis down her throat." Her office was ransacked,
police reports show.
In addition, Carrillo claims that she was threatened at gun- and
knife-point, incidents her attorney said were also reported to
campus police.
Frustrated by what she saw as inordinate delay in the
university’s investigation, Carrillo obtained a right-to-sue letter
from the Department of Fair Employment and Housing in 1995.
The letter came with a one-year statute of limitations. As of
the day before her statute of limitations would run out, the
university had not concluded its investigation – a fact that
Carrillo’s attorney attributes to an intentional effort to consume
Carrillo’s statute of limitations and, in so doing, stonewall her
right to sue.
"I believe it was intentional," Jaramilla said. "If the court of
appeals had not ruled as it did … the victims wouldn’t have a
remedy."
University officials, however, deny that this is the case.
Lengthy inquiry can be part and parcel of a thorough investigation,
university counsel said.
"It takes time to have a fair process, to investigate and to get
all of the relevant information uncovered," said Vice Chancellor of
Legal Affairs Joseph Mandel. "You’ve got to figure out to the best
of your ability who’s telling the truth and who’s lying … If you
get it wrong you’re going to do an injustice to both parties."
Carrillo’s case "has been more complicated than most," Mandel
said, "and has therefore taken longer than most."
Those complications intensified after Carrillo’s case was thrown
out of court in 1996. She wrote to the Academic Senate Charges
Committee asking to proceed with administrative remedies. A month
later, the university told her it had dismissed her case. If the
appellate court had not ruled as it did, Carrillo would have had no
recourse, her attorney said.
Currently, Carrillo is working for a production company and
getting ready for the case to come to trial, Jaramilla said.
"She’s really looking forward to her day in court."