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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsProfessor gropes student, offers a grade change, and gets away with it.
One of my friends just sent me this news story that essentially finds that a professor at the college that I go to got away with sexually assaulting a student in his office! Seems I've got a Jerry Sandusky on my campus!
He looked at me and touched me and said, How do you want to better your grade? the student said while fighting back tears. He kept coming closer to me and my body completely shut down. He continued to touch me and try to talk about the ways that I could better my grade.
She said she told him to stopthat she is not that kind of person.
Then he straddled me and sat on me, she said, and put his hands up my shirt and under my sweater and was rubbing me.
The two-hour meeting happened in a secluded upstairs office of the Spartan Complex at around 8 p.m.
He blocked the stairs and said the only way I will let you leave is if I can grab your butt, she said. But it has to be the way I want to grab it.
She said as he tried to reach for another body part, she ran down the stairs and out of the building. Within hours of the interaction she called the university police department and filed an incident report. Authorities investigated Mathis for false imprisonment and sexual battery. He denied any criminal wrongdoing, and at the conclusion of the investigation no charges were filed.
Then here is some damning evidence in bold:
Well, unfortunately, because of what I was told by both HR and the (police department) here, Im actually not allowed to talk about it, Mathis said when confronted by Kovaleski. So, I follow directions.
Mathis did not acknowledge making a mistake in front of NBC Bay Areas camera, but he did in an email he wrote to the student the day after the meeting.
Mathis did not acknowledge making a mistake in front of NBC Bay Areas camera, but he did in an email he wrote to the student the day after the meeting.
Ive been thinking about last night and I have come to the conclusion that I made a terrible mistake in how I handled that situation, he wrote. The email continued, I will change your grade to a B- for free, because it is the right way to handle this.
"I follow directions" - coming from a guy who allegedly GROPED A STUDENT????
The university's internal investigation admitted that the professor committed some professionalism but never took disciplinary action:
The report continues, Whether or not their actions were consensual in this instance, his position is one of power over the students in his classroom and he has a duty not to allow situations to develop where a student could feel compelled to consent to activities they would not otherwise agree to in order to be successful in his class.
It goes on to conclude that Mathis did violate his professional responsibility not to exploit the situation he found himself in and become intimate with the student. It does not explain why no action was taken.
Iris
(15,665 posts)wtf? What kind of twisted shit is this?
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)If I had a dollar for every time I heard that one...
Silver Gaia
(4,546 posts)We'd be rich...
madokie
(51,076 posts)in this case it matters that this sexual predator did what he did which was wrong no matter how you might slice it.
I'm ashamed of you, especially if you are a teacher
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)Brickbat
(19,339 posts)Gross.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)...goes on more than you 'd like to think. And the predators usually get away with it.
It's good the student wants to fight it. Might open some eyes to the prevalence.
alp227
(32,047 posts)but now that my college will have to cough up a bunch of money if the student sues - whether by settlement or judgment - the students will be left footing the bill. I wonder if anyone in the administrative level will even be fired?
redqueen
(115,103 posts)Yes, it was completely accidental and not of his own doing at all.