Sacramento State and a retired professor of electrical engineering, Miroslav Markovic, have been named in a lawsuit filed by Cici Mattiuzzi, a career counselor in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
The suit alleges that over an 18-year period, Markovic sexually harassed and threatened students and staff.
The lawsuit also alleges that the administration attempted to cover up Markovic's harassment and retaliated against Mattiuzzi as a whistle-blower.
If these allegations are true, The State Hornet is outraged.
Almost two decades of harassment and threats of physical violence by a professor?
A sweeping-under-the-rug of these incidents by the administration, and stopping the career advancement of a staff member who stood up to protect the students she works with?
If true, the Hornet sees this as a gross violation of what should be a sacred trust between educators and students. This trust cannot and must not be violated.
This holds true in the K-12 education system just as it should in college.
This is why Sac State has clear policies on sexual harassment. Sexual relationships between faculty and students are prohibited.
Students should never feel that those providing their education and helping them start their careers will use that power to take advantage of them.
To use that power to gain sexual favors from students should be seen as criminal. If a faculty member, administrator or staff member engages in such behavior, he or she should be drummed out of academia and be blacklisted.
All complaints of this type made by students must be taken seriously and investigated vigorously by the administration.
Not to do so violates the students' trust.
And on top of brushing aside such complaints from students, retaliating against those faculty and staff members who act as whistle-blowers is negligence on the part of a university administration.
Mattiuzzi's lawsuit alleges all of these things.
The court filing runs 200 pages, with evidence that includes emails and letters from Markovic to students and Mattiuzzi. It also includes emails from other professors to Mattiuzzi about Markovic.
Mattiuzzi said she has been complaining about this for 18 of the 31ß years she has been working at Sac State.
She also claims in the lawsuit that she was repeatedly told to drop her complaints by the present and former deans of the college and by other administrators at the university.
Mattiuzzi also alleges that when she refused to keep quiet, she was denied employment status reclassification and removed from teaching classes.
If this is true, the Hornet is aghast.
However, as sacred as the Hornet holds the trust between educators and students, it also holds sacrosanct the idea of innocence until proven guilty in a court of law.
Remember, this lawsuit has yet to see the inside of a courtroom. At this point, Mattiuzzi's claims are just allegations. Nothing will be fully settled until a judge or jury makes a determination on the merits of those allegations.
The university has conducted a private investigation into Markovic's actions. The investigator, Peter Lau, recommended that the grievances against Markovic be dropped.
The lawsuit also claims that four police reports have been filed against Markovic. The Hornet has found no evidence at this point that Markovic has been arrested or charged with any crime based on those police reports.
In holding with the idea of innocent until proven guilty, the Hornet realizes there is more than one side to any story.
Emir Macari, dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science is named numerous times throughout the lawsuit.
The suit claims that he repeatedly told Mattiuzzi to "drop it."
It also alleges that because of Mattiuzzi's refusal to stop complaining about Marcovik's conduct, Macari removed her from teaching classes in the college.
Macari was surprised to learn from the Hornet that he was named in the lawsuit.
"I can categorically deny that I ever, not once, said to anybody that they should drop their grievance or lawsuit," he said. "And furthermore that I didn't even discourage anyone from moving forward."
Macari told the Hornet that he also holds the trust between educators and students as sacred.
"I take the breaking of the covenant between professor and student to be a very serious issue," Macari said.
So who should be believed? Both Mattiuzzi and Macari have been credible sources for the Hornet in the past. And Macari has regularly shown that he is committed to transparency on the part of Sac State's administration.
This is why it is important to withhold judgement until the case has worked its way through the courts.
However, should Mattiuzzi's allegations prove to be true, the Hornet cannot help but echo KRS-One's question from Boogie Down Production's 1989 album "Ghetto Music: The Blueprint of Hip-Hop," "You were put here to protect us; but who protects us from you?"
editor@statehornet.com
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