Employee sues USC for alleged suppression of evidence
An attorney and senior investigator for the Office of Conduct, Accountability, and Professionalism anonymously filed a lawsuit against the University Wednesday alleging that USC systematically alters and destroys files and evidence that would be used in investigations against the University and its top officials.
Court documents stated that the attorney’s supervisor, former Executive Director of the Office of Equity and Diversity, Title IX and Office of Conduct Gretchen Gaspari, had engaged in retaliation after the plaintiff submitted a sexual harassment complaint against Center for Work and Family Life executive director John Gaspari, whom Gretchen was dating at the time of the accusations and has since married.
In his role at the University, John was responsible for crisis counseling and emotional concerns. Former USC President C.L. Max Nikias also appointed him to the President’s Campus Culture Commission, a committee formed to improve campus climate in the wake of sexual abuse accusations against Student Health gynecologist George Tyndall, which Gretchen allegedly knew of but did not immediately investigate or report to the state medical board.
According to the complaint, John was quietly let go from his position after the University discovered John had pleaded no contest of sexual misconduct involving nonconsensual sexual photography in March 2018.
After the attorney reported John to Director of Equity and Diversity John Jividen for sexual harassment and John’s employment at USC was terminated, Gretchen allegedly painted the accuser as a problem employee, attacked their character and refused time off requests. Gretchen also said that the report alleging John’s harassment was made “outside the chain of command,” as she was designated to field complaints about University employees, including John.
In the lawsuit, the attorney contended that Gretchen receiving concerns of John’s alleged misconduct would constitute a conflict of interest in light of their personal relationship. The complaint claims that University employees were not notified of John and Gretchen’s romantic involvement and states that faculty and staff under investigation by Gretchen’s office were referred to John’s department for counseling and could potentially divulge self-incriminating information in a purportedly confidential setting.
According to court documents, USC officials instructed the plaintiff to compile unfavorable reports about tenured faculty who voiced opinions unpopular with administrators, which included a professor who disagreed with the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences’ decision to focus resources and new faculty on non-Caucasian art studies. For this case, Gretchen directed the plaintiff to “document negative information” about the professor to anonymously present to the professor’s dean.
After the anonymous complaints found the professor had not violated University policies, Gretchen had the plaintiff conduct “dirt-digging interviews” for the purpose of collecting compromising information about the professor. The University failed to notify the professor about the investigative interviews, a violation under the faculty handbook. The plaintiff opposed the unlawful practices, according to court documents.
“USC violates its own policies and its own representations to the Academic Senate, in order to promote USC’s ability to handle employee investigations in the way that suits its biased administrative interests, serving to perpetuate a culture of misconduct and cover-up,” the complaint read. “Sufficient evidence demonstrates that USC will not comply with discovery procedures, which aggrieved employees require to obtain redress of statutory rights.”
USC has denied the attorney’s accusations and will fight the suit.
“The allegations in the lawsuit are baseless,” the University statement read. “We plan to vigorously defend ourselves.”
In the lawsuit, the plaintiff contends that the University cannot be depended upon to voluntarily release evidence relevant to the attorney’s case and seeks to nullify USC’s employer-employee arbitration contract, which stipulates that disagreements be filed in a single deposition and that the parties involved in a dispute mutually agree upon the release of appropriate evidence. The attorney asserted that the contracts were immoral on the grounds that faculty and staff were not made aware at the time of signing the contracts that doing so was optional. The complaint also called for a class action suit comprising what the attorney believed to be thousands of similarly situated current and former USC employees.
“Plaintiff seeks, on behalf of the Class, to avoid all arbitration agreements imposed by Defendant on its staff employees,” the document read. “The prevalence and pervasiveness of the practices described herein create grounds under California state contract law to avoid and/or enjoin the enforcement of any agreement limiting the Class’s ability to discover through compelled process the unlawful and fraudulent practices described herein as applied on any class member or to all class members.”