Editor’s Note: Emporia State President Allison Garrett sat down with The Bulletin Monday afternoon for a conversation about the second investigation concerning Brian Schrader, tenured psychology professor. Schrader was placed on administrative leave March 28, according to an email Garrett sent to the campus community that day. 

The interview was conducted at the president’s office on the second floor of Plumb Hall. In attendance, in addition to Garrett, were Gwen Larson, assistant director of marketing and media relations; Rayna Karst, editor-in-chief of The Bulletin and senior English major; Allie Crome, managing editor of The Bulletin and junior English education major; and Sarah Spoon, Empowered magazine editor and junior Spanish and English major. Spoon conducted the interview.

A full transcript appears below.

Spoon: You sent out the email Wednesday night about Schrader being put on administrative leave and you said “due to new information.” Can you tell us what the new information is?

Garrett: No I cannot.

S: Okay. 

G: And as you understand, there is both Kansas Law and Regulations as well as university policy which say we cannot release confidential information about employment. 

S: Does the new information have to do with the complaint Jane filed?

G: I’m sorry, I can’t answer that. 

S: Okay. I understand that you can’t give details, but this was apparently serious enough of a situation that you wanted the campus to be aware of it.

G: Right.

S: So can you maybe give us a category? Was this a violation of federal law or state law? Or ESU policy? Was this potentially a criminal case?

G: I’ll just say it relates to a Title IX issue and the notice that went out to campus not only because there’s been tremendous interest in the matter but also because for the courses that he was teaching, it would mean that he would not be in those courses, so we felt like we needed to explain to the university community why he was gone from campus. 

S: So the complaint relates to a Title IX issue, is that what I’m understanding? 

G: Yes.

S: You announced there was going to be a new investigation. Who is conducting the investigation?

G: We’ve engaged an outside firm to assist us with that investigation. 

S: What kind of firm?

G: Law firm.

S: In-town or?

G: No. 

S: Out of town?

G: Yes.

S: Where is it based out of?

G: You know, I don’t know where the home office for the firm is, nor do I know if it is one of these firms that has multiple offices. But they do have expertise in Title IX matters for higher education. 

S: What’s the name of the firm?

G: I’ll have to check on the exact name of the firm for you and I don’t know whether our general counsel will be comfortable with me sharing the name of the firm. 

Note: The law firm that is conducting the investigation is Husch and Blackwell based out of Kansas City. This information was relayed to The Bulletin Wednesday by Gwen Larson. 

S: Was there a crime report filed with any agency based on this new information?

G: I can’t answer that.

S: Recently you said that the campus community would never had known about the first investigation against Schrader if The Bulletin hadn’t published “Jane’s Story.” So how will the campus community know the outcome of this new investigation?

G: The outcome may be obvious based on whether Dr. Schrader is still employed by the university or not employed by the university. I know that one of the deep frustrations that people feel with respect to this sort of matter is that the university legally can’t share much information. However, in this case because I think this is so high profile, it would seem to be appropriate to let the campus community at least know, at a very high level, what that ultimate outcome is.

S: What will that look like when you say that? Is that a general email that’s like “found innocent or whatever” or is that …?

G: You know, it’s much too early to say. So often when you begin some sort of investigation, maybe at the offset you think you know the direction things will go and things don’t necessarily go in that direction and so to try to predict today what may be the case two to three months from now is very, very difficult. 

S: How long do you expect the investigation to take?

G: That is similarly impossible to predict. 

S: Could you ball park maybe? Three months? Three years?

G: I’m confident, well I’m fairly confident, not three years. So I would say within the next few months. 

S: If this new information is found to be credible, will it lead to another panel of tenured faculty deciding his fate? Will it be that same process?

G: You know, it will depend on a number of factors. A faculty member, when presented with a notice of intent to dismiss, has the option, at that point and time to simply leave the university or of demanding this, what is essentially a hearing, it is much like a trial, and if credible evidence is found, if a notice of intent to dismiss is issued, then it is up to the individual involved, whether Dr. Schrader or someone else, to decide whether to simply leave the university or to move forward with the demand for the hearing. 

S: So it’s a possibility again?

G: It would be a possibility again. 

S: Will the victim be allowed to speak during the panel of tenured faculty, if that comes up?

G: I don’t know the answer to that. I couldn’t speak to that if I were aware. Nor am I involved in the matter because the matter could eventually end up with me, there is an effort to make sure I am not predisposed one way or the other. So I am not involved in making those kinds of decisions. 

S: What will be the standard of evidence used this time? Is it going to be preponderance? Probable cause? Beyond a shadow of a doubt? Something else?

G: As you know, for dismissal of a tenured faculty member, in our policy manual, the evidentiary standard is the clear and convincing standard. 

S: Because of this new information, will you consider granting Jane an appeal?

G: Well there’s not an appeal per-se, from a matter which has been disposed of. How the earlier information and matter relate to this information and matter will be something for the investigators to weigh carefully. 

S: So we understand that Schrader’s been placed on administrative leave with pay. To some of the readers, this might seem as a sort of “misconduct sabbatical.” Could you explain why he is on leave with pay, considering this is the second investigation dealing with Title IX against him?

G: Well, my understanding from discussions with our human resources department, is that that is standard practice for this university as well as most others in matters like this. 

S: Don’t you have the authority to summarily dismiss?

G: No I do not. 

S: Do you have it in any case? Or just not this case?

G: With respect to tenured faculty members, because they are viewed as having a property interest and therefore have the right to due process, before that right can be taken away, there is never a right to summarily dismiss a faculty member. 

S: On a bit of a different note, with the faculty senate task force, what is happening with that?

G: Last week I met or visited with the heads of all the different shared governance groups on campus and we are moving toward identifying individuals who will serve on that taskforce. Right now, it appears that we will have a non-voting chair of the taskforce and 15 task force members. They will be appointed, five each, from students shared governance, faculty and staff shared governance and those individuals will be identifying who the task force members will be. So the leaders of the shared governance groups will identify who the task force members will be.

S: The five of each? Or will the five create the total task force?

G: No, the total task force size would be the 15, plus the non-voting chair, and the shared governance groups will each identify their five. 

S: And do the five have to come from within the shared governance groups? Or can they be someone else not involved in shared governance?

G: You know, that’s not something that we had a discussion about. I’m not entirely sure I understand the question. 

S: So with the students, I assume that would be ASG, would all of the five have to be from ASG or could a student that -.

G: No, no. They could pick anyone. And the same for the faculty members and the staff members. What is important, I think, is that we have individuals who are well respected, who will work well as a group or a member of a group and will work toward the recommendations that are going to be made. The objective is to be in a position to make some recommendations by the end of the fall semester. It is a huge task. So I’m hopeful that the end of the fall semester is still realistic. Once those recommendations come out, if a shared governance group needs to make policy changes, then those policy changes will need to go through that shared governance group.

S: So where did the number 15 come from? That seems like sort of a small number.

G: We were looking for a number, we actually thought 15 was a large-ish number because when you try to get 15 or 16 people together and get all of their schedules to gel, it’s very difficult, but we wanted good representation from every one of those shared governance groups. 

S: Has there been consideration for adding professional victim advocates onto the task force? Maybe someone from SOS (a local shelter for domestic violence victims)?

G: So the task force itself will have the ability to engage with people who are experts in particular matters and so that would be left up to the task force and they may want to have people come in and visit with them regarding particular areas of expertise that those individuals have. 

S: What are you hoping that the task force will focus on? 

G: There really are three big groups of issues. The first set of issues relates to issues of confidentiality, privacy and first amendment rights. The second group of issues relates to issues of process and procedure type issues. And then the third group of recommendations we’re hoping the task force can make has to do with the kinds of training that we provide for various groups on our campus. For example, we have training that we provide to students, we have training that we provide to faculty, how often should we be repeating our training? One of the things we learned during one of the town halls was that adjunct faculty may not be receiving training and so that would be an area where we may have a gap in our training, and so having this task force look at best practices, look at the kind of training we’re doing, how frequently we’re doing that training would be another area of important recommendations to come out of this task force. 

S: You mentioned confidentiality and First Amendment issues. What did you mean by that?

G: So there was obviously concern that the complainant, as well as every witnesses and the respondents were asked to sign a notice of, what was the exact phrase, Gwen? 

Larson: Non-Retaliation and Confidentiality. 

G: Yeah, it had kind of a long name. (They) were asked to sign that document, and everyone who was involved, whether as a complainant, respondent or witness, signed that document. As we all now know, during the pendency of interest in this matter, the Department of Education has said, ‘Don’t do those any longer.’ There’s obviously, I think, a strong sense that if people want to speak about what’s happened to them, they should be able to do so. But there are also concerns that there could be retaliation, that there could be opportunities for collusion among witnesses, and so how do you walk that fine line of making sure there’s an appropriate balance for all those involved? Really, that’s what those first issues relate to. One thing that I think may come up as we go through this process is that the department of education has obviously had a strong interest in Title IX and has indicated that there might be a possibility that they might engage in administrative rule making, which would have the rule of law. The way that Title IX has often been dealt with over the last several years has been through the issuance of what are called “Dear Colleague” letters, which are not technically binding, but institutions typically view them as if they are binding. So, it may be that during the work that is being done by this taskforce, there will be some changes that are happening at the federal level, with respect to Title IX which could keep things very lively.