martinz
Grandmaster Poster
Joined: 01 Oct 2007
Posts: 287
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 Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 2:19 am Post subject: Prof disciplined for saying woman looked "hot" |
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What do you guys think huh ? Should the Prof be fired ?
| Quote: | Raymond T. Garza, a tenured professor and former top administrator at the University of Texas at San Antonio, has been removed from his position as director of the Culture and Policy Institute for making lewd and inappropriate comments to and about female employees in violation of the school's sexual harassment policy.
Garza, who was fired from the director's job March 17, will stay on at the university as a tenured psychology professor, according to documents obtained by the San Antonio Express-News.
Garza did not return calls for comment, but called the allegations "frivolous" in a written response to university officials.
According to the culture institute's Web site, its mission is to probe connections among societal circumstances, culture and public policy. Garza is the principal investigator on a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study mental health issues in South Texas.
More coverage
• Read a summary of the allegations, the letter placing Garza on administrative leave and Garza's side of the story.
Garza's demotion comes on the heels of the resignation of Ben Blount, a UTSA anthropology professor whose long history of sexual harassment at the University of Georgia in Athens and later at UTSA came to light in articles published by the Athens Banner-Herald and the Express-News.
Blount originally was demoted by UTSA officials for his misconduct, but resigned after the complaints were made public. Garza is the latest example of how university officials rarely fire tenured professors for such offenses, in part because tenure provides such strong job protection.
"Whereas hearsay or unsubstantiated evidence may be reason to terminate an at-will employee, it is not sufficient evidence to end a faculty appointment," UTSA spokesman David Gabler has said. Gabler also has said the university takes such charges very seriously.
According to a complaint filed in January, Garza allegedly told a male co-worker that if he hired a certain female job applicant, she would "service him in his office."
Garza also said another woman looked "hot" in her Halloween costume in the presence of female co-workers, and told another female co-worker that she "looked good," and that if he were a drinking man he would ask her out for a drink, the complaint said.
Though some staffers said they were not offended by Garza's comments, administrators cited a previous complaint as evidence of a pattern of misconduct.
In the previous complaint, filed in July 2006, a female co-worker accused Garza of coming on to her during a business trip to Washington, kissing her on the temple, and making racially offensive comments about her husband and stepchildren, who are Anglo.
Garza allegedly told the woman that she should "stop playing mommy to a bunch of white kids," and not to give up on Mexican men. A co-worker reported that Garza seemed obsessed with the woman's family life and even suggested she leave her husband because he was "a loser."
Officials recommended Garza attend sexual harassment training. A human resources log shows Garza already had attended sexual harassment training at least twice prior to both incidents.
In a written response to the most recent allegations, Garza said his comments were "totally innocent" and that he had the utmost respect for the woman who complained. He cited a work-related spat as motivation for the complaint and denied the previous charges as well.
"This is not a pattern of behavior on my part, but a compounding of angry and bitter allegations by disgruntled employees," Garza wrote.
According to an online bio, Garza has held top administrative posts at UTSA over the past 20 years, including provost and vice president for academic affairs, which is second-in-command to the president.
Of 29 sexual harassment complaints filed at UTSA from 1999 to 2006, at least five were levied against tenured professors. Except for Blount, who resigned earlier this month, all the professors still are working at the university. |
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coralvalley
Lifeless Person
Joined: 17 Nov 2004
Posts: 918
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| Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 6:46 pm Post subject: |
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The comments about someone looking good in a Halloween costume or someone looking pretty were not really offensive in my opinion and really not enough to go on sexual harassment, but if he really did make the comments about a potential employee being hired to potentially service someone in their office with a sexual innuendo, that might be crossing the line a bit. It would be one thing if he was making joke to someone in private where it was something that it might not offend everyone around him. Not that I am saying that it was appropriate at all, but at least most people would have the common courtesy to say something like that where they are not in a situation where someone might be offended. I really do not think that if you tell someone that they look nice that you are on the verge of sexual harassment, but you never know with some people. At the school my friend works at the students, who are handicapped and all over the age of eighteen, may walk up to a teacher and shake their hand or try to hug them and if a staff member allows a student to hug them without pushing them away then they can get into serious trouble as it is considered an offense. They are really strict about things in schools as I have seen and that is an example of it.
With the case of the guy making racially motivated comments to a co-worker and seemingly obsessing about her and her family happenings, that does not really seem right. His comments about her family and her husband seem to be wrong and his trying to make a move on her is clearly out of line especially if the woman who made the complaint about him was not inviting those kind of advances. In that respect, it does sound like a case of sexual harassment, but with the other things, I guess it is a case of you would have to see it, to see if he was really going out of his way to be lewd and obscene with co-workers.
Honestly in this day in age a person has to be careful because sexual harassment is taken very seriously in a lot of places. The fact that this guy has been called on the behavior and sent to class previously speaks volumes about the fact that maybe it is not as innocent and easy to write off as he makes it sound. I would hope that the university would step in and take a look at what is really happening to get to the heart of the problem in this case or really any case of sexual harassment at the university in any matter. As to whether he is guilty or not, I really cannot say, but I am sure the truth will reveal itself sooner or later. |
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