Cal Poly hired official tied to sex abuse scandal — and now students, faculty are protesting
In the spring, Cal Poly administrators told faculty members via email that a search was on for a new official in charge of diversity and inclusion on campus, and that staff would be in the loop as the university narrowed its list of candidates for the high-profile position.
But last week, faculty members say they were surprised to learn Cal Poly hired Paulette Granberry Russell, in what university president Jeffrey Armstrong called an “emergency hire.”
Brenda Helmbrecht, a professor of English at Cal Poly, said she and other staffers found it troubling that hiring for a position created in part to promote transparency was done behind closed doors and without faculty input.
“That’s the paradox,” Helmbrecht said Monday. “This is a position about inclusion and it was kept a secret.”
Granberry Russell — who Armstrong announced in a news release July 1 had been hired as the university’s vice president of diversity and inclusion — oversaw the Title IX office at Michigan State University during one of the worst collegiate sexual abuse scandals in U.S. history.
While she headed that office, MSU faculty member and doctor Larry Nassar sexually abused at least 250 women and girls, between 1992 and 2015. According to various media reports, there were numerous complaints of sexual abuse and harassment by Nassar, the dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine and a physiology professor, that were found to be mishandled by MSU administrators.
Nassar eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 175 years in state prison, as well as an additional 40 to 125 years for a host of charges related to sexual assault and child pornography.
Granberry Russell was not found to have committed any crimes related to her department’s investigation into Nassar, though it was revealed in court that she received a complaint of a 2014 assault by Nassar on a private email account, circumventing public transparency laws.
Two MSU employees were charged with crimes related to lying to investigators, including the university president.
Due to the inaction of MSU, the university was fined a record $4.5 million by the U.S. Department of Education and required to make major changes to its Title IX procedures following “its systemic failure to protect students from sexual abuse,” an agency news release said.
After looking into Granberry Russell’s background, Helmbrecht and several other Cal Poly faculty members circulated a petition Friday calling on the university to rescind its job offer to Granberry Russell. That petition had gathered more than 1,600 signatures as of Monday morning.
A similar student-led Change.org petition had garnered more than 7,000 signatures as of Monday.
Lewis Call, president of the Cal Poly chapter of the California Faculty Association, said Monday that the union is supportive of the petitions, which have been signed by many rank-and-file members.
“Many Cal Poly faculty, staff, students and community members believe that Granberry Russell cannot possibly provide the kind of strong leadership which the Office of University Diversity and Inclusion needs,” Call wrote in an email.
Matt Lazier, spokesman for Cal Poly, echoed on Monday an earlier statement by Armstrong that Granberry Russell “had no connection with the criminal activity and did not take part in any wrongdoing (at Michigan State).”
“Cal Poly thoroughly and critically reviewed Paulette Granberry Russell’s background and history and confirmed that Paulette had no connection to past misconduct issues at Michigan State University,” Lazier said in an email.
Granberry Russell is scheduled to begin in her new position Aug. 31. The chair of Cal Poly’s Ethnic Studies Department will fulfill the role on an interim basis until then.
Cal Poly hires former Michigan State diversity officer
Cal Poly in recent years has been criticized for its handling of racially charged incidents, including students wearing black face, as well as alleged mishandling of a Title IX student sexual assault complaint.
Title IX is the federal law prohibiting universities that receive federal funds from discriminating on the basis of sex. Federally funded universities are mandated by the U.S. Department of Education to investigate reports of sexual harassment, discrimination and misconduct, and to sanction individuals found guilty of those offenses.
Granberry Russell will lead Cal Poly’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which is “responsible for promoting and implementing equity and diversity programs in support of an inclusive working and learning environment,” according to the university.
In its July 1 news release, Cal Poly said the department is “the epicenter of the university’s efforts to continue to improve its campus climate and attract a more diverse student body and workforce.”
Since 1998, Granberry Russell worked as Michigan State University’s chief diversity officer, and became the first woman to serve as president for the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, which represents about 1,000 senior campus diversity officers across the U.S.
“A desire to improve and a willingness to do the hard work are necessary in order to make progress on diversity, equity and inclusion — and I see both at Cal Poly,” Granberry Russell said in the Cal Poly release. “I am thrilled to join a university that is making tangible strides — and that knows it still has a tremendous amount of work still to do.”
“I am very pleased to bring a professional with Paulette’s expertise and experience to our university,” Armstrong said in the release. “Diversity, equity and inclusion make up a key component of Cal Poly’s ‘Learn by Doing’ experience for our students.”
Faculty members concerned about college sex scandal ties
The Nassar criminal investigation and court proceedings revealed that MSU had received complaints about Nassar’s and other staff members’ alleged misconduct. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights found in 2015 that, under Granberry Russell’s leadership, the university’s handling of sexual assault cases on campus broke the law, according to news reports at the time.
Federal officials also found the university did not have proper procedures in place for handling those complaints.
In a letter to Armstrong sent Sunday, Helmbrecht and four other faculty members wrote that Granberry Russell is a “highly controversial choice” and cites “grave reservations” about both her history at MSU as well as “irregularities” and a “lack of transparency” in the Cal Poly hiring process.
The letter alleges that Armstrong conducted the search largely in secret, “without transparency, oversight, (or) extensive consultation with campus stakeholders.”
The letter also addresses the university’s statement that Granberry Russell was not criminally charged in the case.
“We should not confuse the narrow standards of criminal liability with serious and urgent concerns about responsibility and leadership,” the faculty letter reads. “By all accounts, for years MSU maintained a culture hostile to complaints of sexual abuse, an environment in which Nassar’s victims were actively discouraged from pursuing formal allegations against him, and in which widespread and shocking violations of the Clery Act occurred.”
The letter continues: “As head of the Title IX office, Russell was at the top of that system. Her claim that she was unaware of what was going on — if true — would seem to be a powerful indictment of her ability to lead and to create a campus climate rooted in love, empathy and respect.”
The faculty is demanding that Armstrong rescind Cal Poly’s offer to Granberry Russell and conduct a new search involving faculty and students. It also demands an explanation of how and why Armstrong conducted the search for the position.
New hire ‘not complicit’ in Michigan State abuse, SLO university says
In an email to staff last week, Armstrong wrote that Granberry Russell “did not play a role in the scandal.”
He wrote that MSU investigated and established that there was no connection with, or wrongdoing committed by, Granberry Russell, who Armstrong said continues to be employed in good standing by the university.
“There is no question that the incidents of misconduct that occurred at Michigan State University were alarming and abhorrent,” Armstrong wrote. “However, it is unfair and unethical to consider an innocent individual to be guilty by association — and therefore unhirable — because they were employed by the university at the time the scandal occurred.”
Campus spokesman Lazier echoed many of Armstrong’s statements when contacted by The Tribune Monday.
“To be clear: Paulette did not engage in misconduct and was not complicit whatsoever in the Larry Nassar scandal as some members of the campus community have alleged,” he wrote..
“If Paulette’s integrity and credibility were in question, she would not have remained employed by MSU through the many investigations that were conducted,” Lazier wrote. “If her integrity and credibility were in question, Michigan State’s current president would not have publicly praised her accomplishments just last week ...”
“The health and safety of our campus community members is a primary focus for Cal Poly — including as it relates to the Office of Equal Opportunity and Title IX matters,” Lazier wrote.
Asked about the emergency hiring process and why stakeholders were not involved, Lazier said that Granberry Russell was a finalist for the same post in 2017, when Cal Poly first elevated the position to the president’s cabinet level. As a finalist, she was fully vetted at that time and her professional experience was viewed favorably by the search committee as well as Armstrong, Lazier wrote.
Nassar wasn’t sentenced for the totality of his crimes until January 2018, and Granberry Russell’s role in the scandal wasn’t revealed in court until court hearings for former MSU president Lou Anna Simon in 2019. Charges against Simon were dismissed last year.
“When President Armstrong was informed this spring that (most recent diversity head Jozi De Leon) intended to retire in June, he wanted to move quickly with an emergency hire, to help maintain continuity of leadership and momentum for the Office of University Diversity and Inclusion at a time when the social justice movement in our country demands leadership for OUDI and our campus community,” Lazier explained.
“Emergency hires occasionally occur in special circumstances such as this and are allowed for under our guidelines and written into our policies for these very situations — when there is an urgent need to make a quick hire,” Lazier said.
Granberry Russell’s hiring follows the hiring in May of a new Cal Poly campus provost who also worked at MSU during Granberry Russell’s tenure. Before his local hire, Armstrong served as MSU’s dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
This story was originally published July 6, 2020 at 3:12 PM.
