Another one at CU-Boulder?

"CU-Boulder investigating yet another philosophy professor -- Brad Monton"

Associate professor Monton subject of report written by outside investigator

by

Sarah Kuta

August 25th, 2014

Daily Camera

The University of Colorado is investigating yet another professor within the beleaguered philosophy department on the Boulder campus.

Associate professor Brad Monton is the subject of a report by Denver-based attorney David Fine for university administrators, according to an email from an account that appears to be Fine's.

Monton is the latest professor to come under scrutiny in the philosophy department, as one professor is in the midst of termination proceedings and another has threatened to sue the university. All this comes after the university made public an independent report that found sexual harassment, bullying and other misconduct within that department.

"I wanted to let you know that I am finalizing my report regarding Professor Monton," according to the email, which was sent July 29 to one of the parties Fine interviewed. "After reviewing all the information gathered, we determined we could not responsibly ignore the totality of information presented in this matter in light of the concerns expressed by you and others."

The email also said the university may reach out to witnesses in the future if anything they said was "relevant in proceedings related to the report."

CU declined to provide the Camera with the results of Fine's investigation and would not disclose the nature of the probe, citing confidentiality around personnel matters.

For the same reason, campus spokesman Ryan Huff declined to comment for this story. Huff said earlier this month that CU retained Fine to perform services, including independent sexual harassment investigations.

Fine said it would be inappropriate for him to speak publicly as the investigator on the case.

Monton confirmed that he is not teaching classes this semester. He would not say why, but said he is not being punished and is still completing service duties within the department.

He declined to comment further.

Monton had been scheduled to teach an introductory philosophy course and a course in critical thinking and writing philosophy, according to a fall 2014 course catalog.

Though not teaching, Monton is receiving his regular salary of $83,818.

Latest in philosophy

The inquiry into Monton comes to light several weeks after the revelation that the university initiated termination proceedings for tenured philosophy professor David Barnett, who has taught at the Boulder campus since 2005.

Another professor within the philosophy department, Dan Kaufman, is seeking $2 million in damages from the university after it barred him from campus for more than two months.

Many philosophy faculty members have said they fear the administration will dissolve the department for alleged incidents of misconduct summarized in an independent report released in late January. The university has not yet decided whether it will reopen graduate admissions into the philosophy department for the 2015-2016 school year after suspending admissions for 2014-2015.

CU initiated termination proceedings for Barnett after paying a graduate student more than $800,000 to settle claims that Barnett had retaliated against her after she reported being sexually assaulted by a fellow graduate student. The woman claims that Barnett conducted his own investigation into her alleged assault, and in the process, had conversations with other students and professors about her sexual history and behavior.

Barnett staunchly denies accusations that he inquired into the woman's past sexual history or that he made generalizations about her character.

According to a notice of claim the woman filed, Fine also looked into Barnett's investigation and issued a report about that case on May 5, 2014.

Fine also was hired to review the university's investigation into the alleged sexual assault involving the two graduate students. Fine concluded that the Office of Discrimination and Harassment, the office tasked with investigating claims involving university employees, acted appropriately and had followed university policy.

History

Monton, who has taught on the Boulder campus since 2006, specializes in the philosophy of science, religion and time, according to his curriculum vitae.

CU awarded him an arts and humanities fellowship in 2007-2008 that reduced his teaching load, and another fellowship in 2008-2009 to teach honors courses on campus.

In April, the state and local chapters of the American Association of University Professors alleged that Monton was forced to resign from the Boulder Faculty Assembly and was banned from participating in university committees and services responsibilities.

The AAUP claimed that Monton was pushed out of the faculty group for comments he made about an independent report that found sexual harassment, bullying and other unprofessional behaviors within the philosophy department.

Monton had said that several university administrators pressured him into retracting the opinions he expressed during a meeting of the faculty group's executive committee. His comments about the philosophy department report were erased from the meeting minutes.

Back to business...sort of--CU-Boulder philosophy department

"In wake of report, CU-Boulder philosophy department gathers to look ahead"

Outside facilitator to discuss climate with faculty

by

Sarah Kuta

April 11th. 2014

Boulder Daily Camera

Two months after the release of a divisive independent report about the University of Colorado's philosophy department, faculty members are meeting for a two-day retreat to talk about how to move forward.

The retreat, which began Friday on the Boulder campus, includes a discussion facilitated by C. Kristina Gunsalus, director of the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics at the University of Illinois.

In late January, the university administration released an independent report that found sexual harassment, bullying and other unprofessional sexualized behaviors within the philosophy department.

Three investigators with the American Philosophical Association's Committee on the Status of Women Site Visit Program authored the report, which led administrators to replace the chairman and suspend all graduate admissions into the department until at least 2015.

"The site visit report has brought up some areas for improvement, so now it's time to have the discussion on how exactly the faculty as a team and the department as a whole can achieve those goals," CU spokesman Ryan Huff said Friday.

The retreat follows the report's recommendation to ban alcohol at all department events, but sidesteps another recommendation that all official events be held during normal workday hours.

Near the end of the report, the authors described their concerns with a past "mountain event" retreat and plans for a future event.

"In light of this department's history, all events, including retreats, need to be held during business hours (9-5) and on campus or near campus in public venues," the report's authors wrote. "...Under no circumstances should this department (or any other) be organizing the social calendars of its members."

Off-site retreat

One half of the retreat will occur from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Hotel Boulderado, according to an email sent to faculty members.

Huff, who said the cost of the retreat wasn't readily available to him, said the report's recommendation does not apply to official department-wide events, such as the planned retreat this weekend.

He added that with the teaching schedules of faculty, it's difficult to get everyone together during the week for a two-day retreat.

"The report was focusing on unofficial, impromptu gatherings of small numbers of faculty and students," he said. "Those are the kinds of events that, especially with alcohol present, should not be taking place. However, the report is not focusing on the events that take place outside the 9-to-5, Monday-through-Friday time frame that are official events with agendas with all the faculty present, with the department head present. That's what these events are."
Though the College of Arts and Sciences is paying for the retreat, no administrators will be present. In an email to the faculty, department chairman Andy Cowell said Gunsalus will not produce any written materials from the retreat, but will "discuss things" with Steven Leigh, dean of the college, "since he's paying the bills on this one."

Leigh declined to comment.

'A very strong department'

Since the report's release, Huff said many members of the department have attended bystander training and additional training about sexual harassment and discrimination. Huff said the department climate committee also has been meeting and discussing how to move forward after the site visit report's release.

"There certainly are various trainings either in progress or that will occur in the future to improve the climate and this retreat is really a chance to get everyone in one room and to really talk about how to improve the situation," Huff said.

Philosophy professor Michael Tooley said he's been optimistic about the department in recent weeks, adding that he expects some useful discussions to occur at the weekend retreat.

He said many faculty members have been meeting for lunch on a regular basis, which has helped to improve morale within the department.

Tooley also said several faculty members who had planned to leave the department are now being retained, and there's a possibility new faculty members may be added to philosophy in the future.

"I was really quite worried because a number of my colleagues applied for jobs elsewhere, so there was really a fear that we would lose people, but that hasn't happened," he said. "I think if we can get over that hurdle or two we'll continue to have a very strong department."

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To error is human, but big mistakes made at the Philosophy Department at CU-Boulder

"Philosophy profs: CU-Boulder shouldn't have shared private info"

They say privacy around complaints keeps perpetrators from public scrutiny, makes whole department look bad

by

Sarah Kuta

February 23rd, 2014
 
Boulder Daily Camera

Some faculty members in the philosophy department at the University of Colorado say they're concerned that three outside consultants tasked with studying the climate of the department were given access to confidential files regarding sexual harassment and discrimination.

University administrators acknowledged the investigators from the American Philosophical Association Committee on the Status of Women Site Visit Program were given access to files within the Office of Discrimination and Harassment that are typically considered confidential.

Administrators said the three investigators all signed a confidentiality agreement, which said they would not disclose what they read without written authorization from the university chancellor.

"In their roles as consultants for the university, the site visit investigators had access to relevant CU employees and relevant documents that helped them assess the climate of the philosophy department," CU spokesman Ryan Huff wrote in an email. "As part of their assessment, the site visit team met with the Office of Discrimination and Harassment director, signed confidentiality agreements and were given access to the ODH files."

Under the Colorado Open Records Act, public institutions are required to deny the inspection of sexual harassment files to the general public. However, CU officials said that because the site team investigators were performing an administrative function for the university, they were not acting as members of the public.

The confidentiality agreements were signed by Valerie Hardcastle, Peggy DesAutels and Carla Fehr, the women who co-wrote a 15-page report released last month describing sexual harassment, bullying and other unprofessional sexualized behaviors within the philosophy department.

The findings of the report led the university to suspend graduate admissions into the department until 2015 and bring in an external chairman.

Members of the department, who said they were told to keep quiet about the report, were shocked when the university released the document publicly last month.

Perpetrators protected from public scrutiny

Professor Michael Tooley said he takes issue with how vague the report is about the 15 complaints filed against members of the department since 2007. Because of the confidentiality agreements, the investigators were not able to describe any specifics of the complaints.

The result, Tooley said, is a report that negatively portrays an entire department.

When a formal investigation under the Office of Discrimination and Harassment is completed, only the complainant, respondent, chancellor and decision-making authority, often the department chairman or dean, are allowed to read the office's findings.

Only the respondent and decision-making authorities are allowed to know what, if any, disciplinary action is taken because of confidentiality around personnel matters.

Tooley said it's strange that the university has such strict rules about confidentiality around harassment and discrimination, but then gave the site visit investigators access to confidential files.

"On the one hand, they seem to have these very strict rules of confidentiality, and then they allowed these three strangers to come in (and see the files); that seems to be incredible," he said. "I would say that even if it's not illegal, it seems highly unethical."

Tooley said he also wondered why the site team investigators were able to give the number of complaints, but not a breakdown about how many complaints underwent formal investigations, how many of the complaints involved the same offender, and how many investigations resulted in a finding of a violation of policy.

DesAutels, director of the site visit program, declined to comment, citing the confidentiality agreement.

Philosophy instructor emerita Diane Mayer, who is retired, said she wondered why the university can't find a way to protect the identities of complainants, while holding the perpetrators publicly accountable.

The site visit report described a lack of transparency around disciplinary processes, which led to an "extremely harmful rumor mill."

Mayer said if the university could hold perpetrators publicly accountable, it might deter future offenders from acting.

"The actual perpetrators should be held accountable long before some climate study has to be called in to give recommendations and these drastic measures have to be taken," Mayer said. "There has to be some method by which a department can really be punitive about people who are sexual harassers, including if they're tenured. There has to be some way for the university to address these issues ... ."

CU has fired a few tenured professors, for various reasons, in its history. In 2004, the university fired R. Igor Gamow, a tenured chemical engineering professor, for moral turpitude after allegations of sexual harassment and assault.

Lora Blakeslee Atkinson, executive director of Moving to End Sexual Assault, said assuring survivors of sexual assault and harassment that their identities will be protected plays a vital role in the recovery process.

"They're concerned about people finding out, and our culture has a lot of victim-blaming still of survivors," she said. "When survivors feel that they do not have confidentiality, it makes them even more reluctant to report."

CU: Team used a 'broad scale of input'

Attorney Steve Zansberg, president of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, said an argument could be made the university was fully within its rights by releasing confidential documents to the site team investigators but then may have violated the open records law when it released the site team report publicly.

Zansberg said if personnel or sexual harassment files, which are exempt from inspection under the law, are summarized or analyzed in a subsequent report, that document is also protected under the law.

He also said releasing the report without releasing the data used to create the report does not give the public, or members of the department, a chance to verify the validity of the report.

"It's incumbent upon them to allow the public to monitor and assess the legitimacy of those findings," he said. "We routinely say that when a government entity affirmatively discloses information and then withholds the data upon which that information was based, that's contradictory to the purposes of having an open records act. It becomes very difficult for the university to say, 'Take these three researchers' word for it.'"

CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard said the university does not feel it has violated the law either in sharing the confidential files with the site team investigators or by releasing the report publicly.

"There's much more material in (the report) besides things that are in the individual files," he said. "The report's writers went out of their way to take a broad scale of input from interviews with graduate students, with faculty, with undergraduates, with the deans, with department chairs."

Hilliard said he hopes victims of harassment and discrimination won't be deterred from reporting.

"I hope that victims would take away . . . that the institution is acting and taking strong actions to remedy situations that might possibly have given rise to whatever it was they complained about," he said. "We want to take actions, we want to take situations that are not working for individuals and groups of people and make them better on the campus."


Women at CU-Boulder philosophy department speak out

Women at CU-Boulder philosophy department speak out

"Female CU-Boulder philosophy colleagues speak out on report"

by

Sarah Kuta

February 18th, 2014

Boulder Daily Camera

For the first time since the release of an independent report detailing sexual harassment within the University of Colorado philosophy department, female members of the department are speaking out.

Six women with ties to the department released a joint statement Tuesday that describes the negative impact the report's release has had on male philosophy faculty members and graduate students.

"We are all distressed that the report may damage the reputations of male colleagues who are completely innocent of sexual misconduct," the statement's authors wrote. "It could also harm the prospects of our male graduate students currently on the market."
The independent report released last month was authored by three investigators from the American Philosophical Association Committee on the Status of Women Site Visit Program. The report described sexual harassment, bullying and other unprofessional behaviors within the philosophy department.

Because of the report's findings, the university brought in an external chairman and suspended all graduate student admissions into the department until 2015.

The women who co-wrote the statement are Sheralee Brindell, senior instructor and associate chairwoman for undergraduate studies; Carol Cleland, professor; Alison Jaggar, professor of distinction for philosophy and women and gender studies; Mitzi Lee, associate professor; Diane Mayer, senior instructor emerita; and Claudia Mills, associate professor.

The six women write that they believe a small number of men in the department are responsible for the sexual harassment or unprofessional sexualized behavior described in the report.

"We faculty women strongly believe that none of our currently untenured male colleagues or current male graduate students has engaged in sexual misconduct (nor, indeed, have most of our tenured colleagues)," the women write. "We believe that many have heard about the problems, if at all, only through the rumor mill."

The statement also points out that the women in the department have "different takes on the content of the report."

The six women write that they are determined to rebuild the department and its reputation.

CU spokesman Ryan Huff said the university wants to make the department welcoming to everyone.

"We are pleased that the faculty members want to work hard to improve the reputation of the philosophy department," Huff wrote in an email. "We share their views in making the department a welcoming place for faculty, students and staff from all demographic groups."

Many of the women in the department said they were hesitant to talk openly about the content of the report because they feared their statements would be interpreted as either complete endorsement or complete rejection of the report.

Many female members of the department expressed concern that the problems detailed in the report weren't being dealt with internally, but rather in public because of the report's unexpected release.

Some women said they feared retaliation if they spoke out on their own.

Jaggar said the joint statement was a way for the women in the department to defend the reputations of the men who were not responsible for the misconduct described in the report.

"We released it because we didn't want innocent, vulnerable people to have their reputations smeared," she said.

Mayer, who is now retired but worked at the university in various roles starting in 1971, said sexual harassment is a systemic problem that exists in all university departments.

Mayer also said that she feels university administrators need to provide more support for victims of sexual harassment and implement tougher punishments for offenders.

"Throughout the university, in all departments, much more support is needed for the victims of sexual harassment," she said. "The philosophy department is not unique. It's only unique because it uniquely tried to solve the problem. It uniquely called on outsiders to come in and help them figure out the problem. It's unique that the department was put into the public eye."
 

Ogle female undergraduates at The University of Colorado--DON'T