State auditor will probe high-profile sexual misconduct cases at San Jose State, other California state campuses

The California State University system, under hot water for its handling of sexual misconduct cases, is about to get audited.

On Monday, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee approved an audit into the CSU Chancellor’s Office, San Jose State University, Sonoma State University and Fresno State University’s handling of sexual harassment and abuse complaints that ended in botched or inadequate investigations by high-level administrators at the colleges.

The action comes after more than 40 state lawmakers requested the review to examine compliance with Title IX procedures and processes following a slew of highly publicized reports of improper handling of complaints. Several of those reports involved this news organization’s investigation into former SJSU director of sports medicine and athletic trainer Scott Shaw’s suspected abuse of nearly two dozen women and the failure by campus administrators, including former President Mary Papazian, to thoroughly investigate the allegations.

“We welcome the review by the state auditor, will cooperate with their investigation and will continue to look for additional opportunities to improve our policies and procedures,” Toni Molle, a spokeswoman for the CSU system, said in an email on Tuesday.

The California State Auditor will conduct the investigation, which will include:

• A determination of “the mission of the role of the CSU’s systemwide Title IX office” and evaluation of “the process it has in place to provide oversight and ensure consistency and timeliness in CSU’s response to sexual harassment allegations, including its compliance with federal law and use of best practices.”
• A determination of whether the university system has “adequate systemwide policies and procedures in place for preventing, detecting and addressing sexual harassment” and a review of “notices to students and employees about how to report allegations, efforts to keep victims of alleged harassment informed about the status of a complaint, and policies about employee obligations to report alleged harassment.”
• A review of the CSU’s “process for investigating alleged sexual harassment,” and a determination of “whether the process ensures that the investigatory process is free from interference and identify any needed improvements.”
• An identification of “the total number of sexual harassment complaints against CSU employees during the last five years,” and “whether CSU initiated an investigation of those complaints, how many it substantiated, and whether alleged perpetrators were involved in multiple complaints, and, if so, how many.”

“You want to have great respect for higher public institutions and they actually do the things they teach their students to do. They talk about protecting the truth, protecting the innocent… and the system itself failed to do the kind of inquiry and decision making they literally train students to do. I’ve called it a hypocrisy and systematic failure,” Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno), who co-authored the request, said in an interview Tuesday.

In March, the CSU Board of Trustees announced the university paid a company to perform an internal investigation into its policies and procedures related to employee sexual misconduct, but the California Faculty Association, state lawmakers and school communities called it an inadequate. The state’s audit will commence after the university’s internal investigation is complete or in four months, whichever comes first.

CSU President Jolene Koester wrote in a letter last week that she’s “fully aware that this work is hard and that it seeks to address longstanding systemic problems as well as deeply rooted attitudes and behaviors. It will take time, requiring diligence and persistence and continuous self-assessment and improvement.”

In February, a USA Today investigation revealed former Chancellor Joseph Castro inappropriately handled a years-long case involving sexual misconduct by a senior administrator when he was president at Fresno State University. And the Los Angeles Times recently illuminated alleged wrongdoing by two former Sonoma State University administrators. Since those reports, a slew of other cases involving top administrators in the CSU system have come to light.